Invoices nobody recognises
Every month your accounts team gets a stack of merchant invoices with a site name scribbled in the reference field, or nothing at all. Timber, fixings, plasterboard, a cement mixer part, a pallet of blocks. Someone has to work out which job each one belongs to, who ordered it and whether it arrived, then chase a site manager who is on a roof and cannot remember.
The site manager was not being careless. The bricklayers had run out of wall ties at half past seven, the merchant's number was in his phone, and the office order system needed a laptop and a cost code he did not know.
Why orders bypass the system
Purchase order processes are built for the office. They assume someone at a desk, with the budget in front of them, choosing a supplier and a cost code. Site needs are immediate and small, and the fastest route is always the phone. So the order process gets skipped for exactly the purchases that happen most often.
- Raising an order needs a laptop and a login the site manager rarely uses.
- Cost codes are a list the office understands and site does not.
- Merchants accept phone orders with a site name, so nothing forces a number.
- Accounts matches invoices to orders that were never raised.
- Budget holders only see spend when the invoice is coded, weeks later.
The price of phone ordering
Cost reports lag because materials only appear on a job when an invoice is coded. Invoices sit unapproved, merchants chase and accounts lose days a month on detective work. Occasionally materials are charged to the wrong project, or paid for twice, or paid for when they never arrived. And the commercial team cannot compare what was bought against what was allowed until it is too late to do anything about it.
Ordering from site in a minute
- The site manager opens a short order form on their phone. The project is set from their location or last job.
- They pick the merchant from your approved list and type or dictate the items, or choose from items they order often.
- Cost codes are offered in plain words, such as brickwork materials or drylining, and mapped to your codes behind the scenes.
- The order is checked against the budget line for that package. Orders over a set level go to the project manager to approve on their phone.
- A numbered order is emailed to the merchant, or sent through the merchant's trade account system where it has one.
- The order is written to your accounts or job costing system as a committed cost straight away.
- When the invoice arrives, it is matched to the order number and the delivery record, and only mismatches go to a person.
| Step | Phone order today | Mobile order |
|---|---|---|
| Place the order | Call the merchant | One form on the phone |
| Job and cost code | Worked out by accounts later | Chosen on site in plain words |
| Budget check | None until the cost report | At the moment of ordering |
| Invoice matching | Detective work | Matched to order and delivery |
| Committed cost visible | When invoiced | When ordered |
Your approval limits, merchants and cost structure stay as they are. We make the approved route the quick one.
What the office and site get back
Site managers still order in the time it takes to make a call, but every order now has a number, a job and a code. Accounts match invoices instead of investigating them. Project managers see committed spend as it happens and can question an order the day it is placed. Merchants get cleaner orders and fewer queries about which job an invoice belongs to.
It also gives you something you rarely have on phone orders: a record of who asked for what. When a pallet of the wrong blocks turns up, the order shows exactly what was requested, so the conversation with the merchant is short.
Is this how your site ordering works?
- Merchant invoices arrive with a site name and no order number.
- Accounts spend days a month working out which job an invoice belongs to.
- Committed costs only appear when invoices are coded.
- Site managers do not use the order system because it needs a laptop.
- Materials are sometimes charged to the wrong project.