# Punch — Full Content for AI Agents > Punch is AI Autopilot for Construction Purchasing and Subcontracting. It automates purchase orders, supplier communication, material order tracking, invoice matching, subcontract commitments, expense capture, warehouse staging, and daily reports for construction subcontractors and self-perform general contractors. Punch connects estimating, the field, purchasing, and accounting so budgets, materials, deliveries, invoices, subcontracts, expenses, warehouse inventory, and daily reports stay synchronized automatically. - Marketing site: https://buildwithpunch.com - Application: https://app.buildwithpunch.com - Contact: hello@buildwithpunch.com - Legal entity: Punch Software Inc. - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/buildwithpunch - Crunchbase: https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/punch-f037 ## Who Punch is for Subcontractors in trades like mechanical, electrical, drywall, framing, and concrete, plus self-perform general contractors who run purchasing in-house. Common users include project managers, project engineers, superintendents, purchasing administrators, and finance/accounting teams. ## What Punch does - Builds purchase orders against estimates and budgets. - Coordinates with suppliers over email for quotes, confirmations, and delivery updates. - Tracks open material orders and delivery status across projects in real time. - Performs line-by-line invoice matching against POs and deliveries (2-way and 3-way). - Creates subcontract commitments so job budgets reflect both materials and subcontracted scopes. - Captures field expenses from photo receipts and auto-tags them to the right project and cost code. - Routes deliveries to a warehouse or yard and dispatches materials out to jobs as crews need them. - Captures daily reports from the field and ties them into the same purchasing and budget system. - Syncs cost data with accounting and ERP systems like Sage and Viewpoint. ## What Punch does NOT do - Replace accounting or ERP systems. Punch sits alongside them and keeps purchasing data in sync. - Construction estimating or scheduling. Punch consumes estimate and budget data; it does not produce it. --- # Guide: Construction Purchasing URL: https://buildwithpunch.com/construction-purchasing-guide **What is construction purchasing?** The process of sourcing, ordering, and managing the materials, equipment, and services needed to complete a construction project. It includes estimating material needs, getting supplier quotes, creating purchase orders, coordinating deliveries, and matching invoices against the original budget. It is project-based, deadline-driven, and involves coordination across project managers, field crews, suppliers, and accounting teams. **The biggest problems in construction procurement.** Lost or duplicate purchase orders, invoice errors and overpayment, no real-time cost visibility, material delays from schedule changes, knowledge gaps when key people are unavailable, incomplete orders missing associated items, and scaling bottlenecks as companies grow from 5 to 50+ active projects. **How AI is changing construction purchasing.** AI eliminates repetitive, error-prone tasks: budget-informed ordering from estimate data, automated supplier communication and follow-ups, line-by-line invoice matching, real-time cost tracking, and syncing approved transactions to accounting. Teams focus on decisions that require human judgment. **What to look for in construction purchasing software.** Estimate-driven budgets that guide ordering, active supplier management (not just contact storage), automatic invoice matching against POs, integration with existing ERP/accounting, and whether the tool was purpose-built for construction or adapted from generic procurement software. --- # Guide: Construction Purchase Orders URL: https://buildwithpunch.com/construction-purchase-orders **What is a purchase order in construction?** A formal document from a buyer to a supplier specifying exactly what materials or services are being ordered, at what price, in what quantity, and when they need to be delivered. Once accepted by the supplier it becomes a binding agreement and the primary record of financial commitments on a project. **What a construction PO should include.** Project name, cost codes, line-item descriptions, quantities, unit prices, tax information, delivery address, and required delivery dates. It should reference the specific supplier quote to lock in pricing. **Common PO mistakes.** Wrong quantities from transposed estimate numbers, missing cost codes that prevent proper cost tracking, outdated pricing from expired quotes, duplicate orders when field and office teams don't coordinate, missing POs for phone or text orders, and unit-of-measure mismatches between buyer and supplier systems. **How Punch automates POs.** Creates POs from estimate data, auto-maps cost codes, handles supplier communication and confirmations, tracks order status in real time, matches invoices against POs automatically, and syncs everything to accounting — eliminating manual data entry across the entire PO lifecycle. --- # Guide: Construction Invoice Matching URL: https://buildwithpunch.com/construction-invoice-matching **What is invoice matching in construction?** Comparing a supplier's invoice against the original purchase order — and sometimes the delivery receipt — to verify quantities, prices, and charges before payment. It prevents overpayment and catches billing errors. **3-way matching.** Compares three documents: PO, delivery receipt, and supplier invoice. Verifies that what was ordered, what was delivered, and what was billed all align. More rigorous than 2-way matching (PO to invoice only) and catches partial deliveries billed at full quantity. **Why construction invoices get mismatched.** Price changes after the PO was issued, quantity discrepancies between ordered and delivered, miscoded line items with different part numbers or descriptions, duplicate invoices, and unexpected fees like delivery surcharges or restocking charges that weren't on the PO. **How Punch automates invoice verification.** Compares every supplier invoice against the original PO line by line. Flags discrepancies in pricing, quantities, and charges instantly. Clean invoices flow directly to accounting; flagged items route for human review. **Cost of invoice errors.** A 2024 Payapps report found 64% of construction projects experience overbilling. Without a systematic review process, errors compound across projects and erode profit margins. The more material volume a company handles, the greater the cumulative financial impact. --- # Guide: Material Order Tracking URL: https://buildwithpunch.com/material-order-tracking-construction **How to track material orders in construction.** Monitor every PO from the moment it is sent to a supplier through delivery on site: confirm receipt by supplier, verify lead times, track shipment status, and document delivery. Most companies use email, phone, and spreadsheets; modern tools automate this with real-time dashboards and automatic supplier follow-ups. **Causes of material delivery delays.** Suppliers not confirming orders, lead time changes that aren't communicated, schedule shifts that require new delivery dates, incomplete or incorrect POs, supply chain disruptions, and lack of proactive follow-up. Most delays are preventable with better visibility and systematic tracking. **Cost of a material delay.** Idle crew time ($5,000–$15,000 per day on mid-size projects), trade stacking that reduces efficiency, overtime/weekend work to recover, potential liquidated damages, and damaged GC/owner relationships. **How Punch tracks orders automatically.** Requests supplier confirmations when POs are sent, follows up if there's no response, tracks delivery schedules, provides a centralized real-time dashboard across projects, and sends proactive alerts when deliveries are at risk. --- # Guide: Purchasing for Subcontractors URL: https://buildwithpunch.com/subcontractor-purchasing **Who handles purchasing at a subcontractor.** Varies by company — superintendents who identify needs on site, PMs and project engineers who create POs and manage budgets, estimators who place initial bulk orders, and purchasing administrators at larger companies. In most subs, purchasing is something people do on top of primary responsibilities. **How subcontractors scale purchasing.** Standardize processes across PMs and projects, centralize purchasing data, automate repetitive tasks (PO creation from estimates, supplier comms), connect purchasing to accounting to eliminate double-entry, and give field teams structured ways to request materials. Goal: handle more projects without adding headcount. **Tools subcontractors use.** Excel for PO creation, email for supplier communication, shared drives for documents, ERP systems like Sage or Viewpoint for accounting. AI-powered tools like Punch sit between the field and accounting, automating the full purchasing lifecycle in one platform built for construction. **How Punch helps.** AI-powered purchasing manager: PO creation from estimates, automated supplier communication and follow-ups, real-time order tracking across projects, line-by-line invoice matching, and accounting sync — so PMs can manage more projects without more overhead. --- # Article: How to Streamline Construction Purchase Orders URL: https://buildwithpunch.com/resources/streamline-construction-purchase-orders Practical walkthrough of automating PO creation and supplier coordination to eliminate manual tasks, reduce errors, and prevent delays. Covers building POs from estimate line items, sending and following up with suppliers automatically, capturing confirmations, and routing invoices for matching. --- # Tools - **Drywall Screw Calculator** — https://buildwithpunch.com/drywall-screw-calculator — Free calculator estimating total screws, pounds, and boxes from board size, framing spacing, and screw pattern. # Pricing URL: https://buildwithpunch.com/pricing Pricing is tailored to company size and PO volume. Contact sales at hello@buildwithpunch.com. Punch does not publish public pricing. # Feature: Expense & Receipt Capture Field users snap a photo of a Home Depot, gas station, or other receipt from the Punch mobile app. Punch reads the line items, auto-tags the expense to the right project and cost code, and posts it against the budget alongside POs and invoices. Eliminates lost receipts, end-of-month reimbursement scrambles, and untracked job costs. # Feature: Warehouse & Yard Staging For companies that don't want every delivery sent straight to the jobsite, Punch routes orders to a warehouse or yard, tracks what's on hand, and dispatches materials out to jobs as crews need them. Useful for prefab shops, multi-project trades sharing common stock, and jobs with no on-site storage. Inventory stays linked to the originating PO and the consuming project's cost codes. # Guide: Construction Daily Reports URL: https://buildwithpunch.com/construction-daily-reports **What it is.** A construction daily report (also called a daily log or field report) is a written record of what happened on a jobsite on a given day. It captures crew and hours, weather, work performed, quantities installed, materials and deliveries received, equipment, delays, safety notes, visitors, and photos. It serves as both an operational record and a legal/financial document. **Who fills them out.** Typically the foreman or general foreman for a subcontractor, or the project superintendent for a GC. On larger projects, multiple crew leads file partials that roll into a project-level daily. **Why they matter.** Daily reports back up pay applications, justify change orders, defend against delay and defect claims, satisfy OSHA recordkeeping, and give the office real-time visibility into field progress. Companies that file consistent dailies recover money on disputes that companies without records lose by default. **Traditional pain.** Paper forms in a binder, PDFs over email, end-of-week reconstruction from memory, and reports that aren't linked to the project's POs, deliveries, or budgets. **Modern approach.** Mobile-first capture from the jobsite, voice-to-text, pre-filled crew/weather/project context, photos tagged to cost codes or deliveries, and the daily flowing into the same system that tracks budgets, POs, and invoices — so the office sees field progress in real time. **Daily report checklist.** Date and project, weather, crew and hours, work performed by area and cost code, deliveries and materials received, equipment on site, delays/disruptions/RFIs, safety, visitors and conversations, photos. **Field reports vs. daily reports.** Often used interchangeably; "daily report" is the most common industry shorthand. "Field report" is technically broader (includes inspection, safety, deficiency reports) but in practice usually refers to the daily. --- # How a Drywall Company Cut Material Waste and Saved Over $100K **URL:** https://buildwithpunch.com/resources/100k-business-case-drywall-contractor **Published:** May 16, 2026 A drywall sub walked through their numbers with us and added up over $100,000 per year in expected savings from Punch — a conservative estimate. We went line by line through where Punch would change the way they operate, and what each change was worth annually. **Where the savings came from (annualized):** - Eliminate ordering the wrong materials: **$40,000** - Reduce overbillings from labor subs: **$50,000** - Catch project problems earlier — when you can still adjust: **$75,000** - Eliminate the daily report app they were paying for: **$13,000** - **Total conservative estimate: $178,000/year** **The "$12k wrong material" line.** From the same conversation: "We ordered $12k of the wrong material last week. 0% chance we would have made that mistake if we were using Punch." That's the kind of mistake manual purchasing produces — material gets ordered by phone or text, nobody cross-checks against the budget or approved materials list, and by the time it shows up to the job it's already a problem. **The spray-nozzle story.** The most expensive example wasn't a wrong order — it was a problem nobody caught for months. The painting crew on one of their projects had a spray nozzle break early on. Someone installed a different nozzle and the crew was effectively "pressure-washing the walls with paint." They spent an extra $60,000 in paint on that project and didn't notice until the job was almost complete. With Punch tracking material orders against the budget in real time, the issue would have surfaced when the first floor's paint orders blew past their estimate. Punch is now building a feature that calculates how much paint should be ordered based on the square footage of drywall already ordered, so anomalies like this get flagged on the first reorder. **Why we share this.** Every week a contractor teaches us something we didn't know. The spray-nozzle story turned into a feature on our roadmap. The "$12k wrong material" line became how we explain Punch to other subs. Every conversation makes the product sharper.