Sub Specialty Contractor

Hi All

Ive asked several questions and gotten a lot of help, so I thought I'd try to give a little back here. Had a great experience at the FL Regional as well!     I've seen a lot of posts on Ai and Payables automation- what is it, how people are using it, etc.   Honestly I had no idea what this was about but wanted to see.  Here's what we've learned. 

 Back in April we chose  Adaptive.build  and dipping our toes into this area.   We looked at Ramp but you have to use their Credit Card. At the time we werent going to leave CaptialOne.    We are still on QBD, so Adaptive worked

Short of the short is....we went from 10 weeks for Payables (yes, 10 weeks when i started a year a go)... to 2 weeks.     I had paper vendor bills sitting on PM's desks (and trucks)...underneath food wrappers, reports, and they'd hand it in to us, like, oh here you go! must have lost this.

it was Crazy!    The credit card bill was getting paid without corresponding entries.  close your eyes and cross your fingers (probably shouldnt be admitting that)

So now, about 95% of all bills are via email (in the body, or PDF attached), we collect them in a central email account, and all get forwarded to the system (Adaptive) .   It also connects to our CapitalOne and pulls charges to match with receipts.  The PM's, Reps, etc submit receipts on the app--- we still have to chase people but once its in its a breeze.   Estimators and PM's approve items thru the system, and then our bookkeeper syncs it to QBD after double checking.     We've also moved all PO's to Adaptive- way better than QB.   

Since 2023, we went from 800 transactions a month to 1,500/mo with the same staff.  As of this Monday, I have a virtual assistant taking over Adaptive for us.     (If anyone has advice for using VA's, please reply!)

Maybe Im behind the times, but the Automation/"OCR" capture was really effective for us, and (almost) no more paper.   The system does a lot more than just AP and CC's, budgets and job costing.  We have not setup ACH payments, but looking into it.  

It was a capacity game changer for us, so Hope this helps.    Please reach out if you'd like to discuss specifics about Adaptive

Best,

A

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Andrew Amrhein
St. Augustine FL
(904) 824-2301
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Thanks for sharing this, Andrew. Really helpful perspective, and it's great to hear the impact you're seeing in just a few months.

If others here are dealing with similar AP or job cost visibility challenges, we'd be glad to share what we're seeing work across the builders we support.

Feel free to reach out any time.

reece@adaptive.build

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Reece Barnes
Head of Construction Network
Adaptive
Boston MA
(308) 850-5089
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Original Message:
Sent: 11-14-2025 13:41
From: Andrew Amrhein
Subject: response to AP Automation tools

Hi All

Ive asked several questions and gotten a lot of help, so I thought I'd try to give a little back here. Had a great experience at the FL Regional as well!     I've seen a lot of posts on Ai and Payables automation- what is it, how people are using it, etc.   Honestly I had no idea what this was about but wanted to see.  Here's what we've learned. 

 Back in April we chose  Adaptive.build  and dipping our toes into this area.   We looked at Ramp but you have to use their Credit Card. At the time we werent going to leave CaptialOne.    We are still on QBD, so Adaptive worked

Short of the short is....we went from 10 weeks for Payables (yes, 10 weeks when i started a year a go)... to 2 weeks.     I had paper vendor bills sitting on PM's desks (and trucks)...underneath food wrappers, reports, and they'd hand it in to us, like, oh here you go! must have lost this.

it was Crazy!    The credit card bill was getting paid without corresponding entries.  close your eyes and cross your fingers (probably shouldnt be admitting that)

So now, about 95% of all bills are via email (in the body, or PDF attached), we collect them in a central email account, and all get forwarded to the system (Adaptive) .   It also connects to our CapitalOne and pulls charges to match with receipts.  The PM's, Reps, etc submit receipts on the app--- we still have to chase people but once its in its a breeze.   Estimators and PM's approve items thru the system, and then our bookkeeper syncs it to QBD after double checking.     We've also moved all PO's to Adaptive- way better than QB.   

Since 2023, we went from 800 transactions a month to 1,500/mo with the same staff.  As of this Monday, I have a virtual assistant taking over Adaptive for us.     (If anyone has advice for using VA's, please reply!)

Maybe Im behind the times, but the Automation/"OCR" capture was really effective for us, and (almost) no more paper.   The system does a lot more than just AP and CC's, budgets and job costing.  We have not setup ACH payments, but looking into it.  

It was a capacity game changer for us, so Hope this helps.    Please reach out if you'd like to discuss specifics about Adaptive

Best,

A

------------------------------
Andrew Amrhein
St. Augustine FL
(904) 824-2301
------------------------------