Purchase Orders

Budget control is probably one of the biggest benefits customers see. Instead of finding out about budget overruns at month-end, you get real-time visibility into spending as it happens.

The system pulls budgets from your ERP broken by cost code and cost type and tracks committed costs against those budgets as soon as the purchase orders are created and expenses are logged (e.g., receipts). If you're hitting budget limits on a particular cost code due to a particular PO, you will get notified about it.

Project managers can see exactly where they stand financially at any point by accessing the Job Costs report that shows committed (ordered), received, invoiced, and paid costs for each project in real-time. Track these costs against either the budget synchronized from your ERP or against the uploaded bill of materials from your estimation software.

Emergencies happen in construction, and we've built the system to handle them.

Field staff can use the mobile app to reserve a PO number without specifying the details. Field Materials will reserve the PO # in the ERP.

Field staff then gives the PO# to the vendor. When foremen or superintendents pick up such orders at the supplier location, they just need to take a photo of the packing slips. AI will read the slip to itemize the PO for review at the office.

In addition, field teams can also go to retail stores and buy something directly with a company card or personal card. In such cases, they just upload a receipt via the mobile app and are prompted to provide the job number for the expense and an optional cost code along with notes.

Even for emergency purchases, you still get the digital trail and proper job costs assigned, so nothing falls through the cracks from an accounting perspective.

Yes, Field Materials lets users easily record and report delivery issues for PO items either on the desktop or mobile app:

• User can choose from predefined issue types: damaged, more than ordered, wrong quantity, or other
• User can optionally upload photos to visually document the issue
• Vendor will be automatically notified of the reported issue and asked to resolve it (i.e., issue a refund, deliver missing or damaged items)
• User can use a filter to easily identify orders with delivery issues to monitor their resolution

The system generates a detailed email to the vendor. This creates a paper trail and gets the vendor working on a solution immediately. The system also alerts the project manager and office team so they know there's an issue that might affect the schedule.

It's much better than the old way where field teams would call or text about problems, and sometimes those messages would get lost or forgotten.

Yes as long as the administrator enabled field roles to create orders.

• Use a mobile app or a tablet to submit field requisitions using the list of items from:
  
  • A pre-approved buyout
  • Bill of materials
  • Database of items from all previous orders
  • Hand-filled paper forms (scanning accuracy is subject to handwriting legibility)
• Filter items by keywords, groups or cost codes to help quickly narrow down the list of items in a large buyout or bill of materials.
• Reserve a PO for Will call orders. Provide the PO# to the vendor and take a photo of the packing slip. AI will read the slip to itemize the PO for review at the office.

Field Materials can easily support editing orders that were previously submitted to vendors:

• When editing orders, users can:
  
  • Add new items to the order or eliminate previously ordered items
  • Change ordered quantities, units of measure, cost codes
  • Change the order delivery date and destination
  • Assign delivery dates to specific items to be different from the main order delivery date
• The vendor will receive an email clearly outlining all changes that the user made to a previously submitted order.
• Any changes the user makes to the order in Field Materials will be recorded in the ERP as a change order (supported in most ERPs but not all).

Field Materials AI provides first-class support for rental POs. Customers usually create a separate line item for each equipment piece (e.g., scissor lift) in their POs. The price for each line item could be a lump sum dollar value or it could be a unit price tied to UOM like “days”, “weeks” or “months”. To indicate the end period for each line item, you can either use the end date on each line item or use time UOMs to indicate the duration (duration will be applied to the PO start date). The system will notify you via email about the expiring rental when you reach either the item’s end date or the duration period after the start date (if you used time-based UOMs).  

Additionally, you can run reports based on items’ end dates to see which POs have expiring rentals.

A buyout is an approximate volume of material you are committing to buy from a supplier at a specific price.

• Use a supplier quote to create a buyout.
• Place orders from the buyout with pre-defined prices and individual delivery dates.
• See at the line item level how much you ordered and received so far against the buyout quantity.
• Empower your field team to order from a pre-approved buyout and vendor to help control costs.
• Use tags and / or zones to assign orders to job areas or phase (e.g., floor 1, Zone A).
• Field Materials will automatically verify item pricing when you review and approve invoices.

The system handles all types of procurement. For materials, you get the full workflow from RFQs and quotes to delivery slips and invoices. For equipment rentals, you can process rental agreements with automatic alerts before rental periods expire - no more surprise charges because someone forgot to return equipment. For services and subcontracts, you can track work orders and process AIA invoices against them with built-in support for retainage.

The system is flexible enough to handle whatever types of procurement your business requires, from bulk materials to specialized equipment to subcontractor services.

Field Materials offers a highly customizable, enterprise-grade access control to data and actions users can take:

• Assign specific roles to users (project manager, foreman, accountant, etc.)
• Assign users to projects to control their access to specific jobs (accountant, admin, purchasers have access to all jobs).
• Based on the assigned roles, control what users can do within each job:
  
  • Edit orders
  • Upload delivery slips and receive orders
  • Review invoices
  • See prices

The approval system is really flexible because every company operates differently. You can set up different approval levels based on dollar amount thresholds and job roles.

Orders

• Enable up to 3 role-based approvers (Owner, PM, Purchaser, etc.) before orders are submitted to vendors and exported to the ERP.
• Set up optional Order Amount Thresholds (e.g., >$1,000 requires PM approval, >$10,000 requires owner approval) before orders are submitted to vendors and exported into the ERP.

Invoices

• Enable role-based approvers (Owner, Accountant, PM, etc.) to control who can approve invoices before these are posted to the ERP.
• Set up optional invoice amount thresholds that will notify the designated roles to approve invoices.
• Set up optional maximum invoice amounts that the designated roles will be able to approve.

For both orders and invoices:

• Approvers receive real-time notifications (email, text, and in-app) about the need to approve a specific order or invoice.
• Field Materials keeps an audit trail of who requested orders and who approved orders and invoices.

Customers can update their approval settings at any time should their internal requirements change.