The Challenge: Price increases, long-term projects, and manual PO checks
AVI Roofing supports large-scale residential communities that often span multiple years. While that long-term work provides consistency, it also creates significant risk when material pricing changes year after year but purchase orders continue to be issued on outdated contract pricing.
After COVID, price increases became frequent and compounding. AVI could send updated pricing to builders, but confirming that open purchase orders reflected the correct pricing was difficult and highly manual.
Before SubAssist, AVI relied on complex spreadsheets and manual reviews. Checking a single purchase order could take up to 45 minutes, and large price-checking efforts required entire teams pulling time away from their core responsibilities.
“If you miss an increase, it compounds,” said Bryan Kruse. “You can lose 15 to 30 percent of your margin, and we don’t work on margins that can absorb that. A profitable job can quickly turn into a loss.”
Why AVI chose SubAssist
AVI was introduced to SubAssist through industry connections who faced similar contract management challenges. After seeing the platform, Bryan quickly realized it could do a better job than continuing to build internal Excel-based systems.
SubAssist stood out because it was built specifically for:
- Contract management across long-duration projects
- Line-level PO validation against agreed pricing
- Managing effective dates and future price increases
Just as important, the SubAssist team provided hands-on implementation and actively incorporated AVI’s real-world feedback into the platform.
“It wasn’t just ‘here’s the software, figure it out,’” Bryan said. “They worked with us and fixed things that really mattered to our process.”
Day-to-day impact
Faster PO checks
What once took up to 45 minutes per PO now takes minutes. Zenon shared that he recently reviewed around 40 purchase orders in roughly two hours using SubAssist.
“That used to take up most of a day,” he said. “Now we can stay caught up and still do our other work.”
Single source of truth for contracts
SubAssist centralized contract pricing in one system, eliminating confusion caused by scattered spreadsheets, emails, and attachments. Teams across accounting, production, and account management now work from the same agreed-upon pricing.
Less operational stress
Backlogs have been reduced, coverage between team members is easier, and new hires can ramp faster without needing deep institutional knowledge to verify pricing.
Staying ahead of price increases before work starts
One of the biggest advantages for AVI is catching pricing issues before work begins, not after.
With SubAssist, AVI can apply price increases with effective dates, generate reports showing which jobs are impacted, and request updated purchase orders or change orders early, when builders are most likely to respond.
Previously, AVI had no reliable way to track this at scale.
“Our goal is to verify pricing before crews show up, before materials are loaded,” Bryan explained. “That’s when you can still fix it.”
Strategic value beyond time savings
For AVI, SubAssist is not just about efficiency. It directly supports profitability.
Aurelia noted that past price-checking efforts required eight to nine people over multiple weeks just to confirm they were being paid correctly. With SubAssist, that effort is dramatically reduced, allowing teams to focus on bidding, production, and service instead of babysitting pricing.
It also improves builder relationships by avoiding late disputes and payment corrections after jobs are complete.
Key takeaways
- Purchase order checks dropped from up to 45 minutes each to minutes
- Contract pricing is centralized in a single, trusted system
- Price increases are identified and applied before work starts
- Teams spend less time chasing errors and more time moving projects forward
- Margin risk from long-term projects is significantly reduced
Ready to take control of contract pricing and purchase orders
SubAssist helps subcontractors validate pricing before work begins, manage contract changes, and protect margins across long-duration projects.