How Williams Contracting Captures All Monthly Field Spend with Adaptive Cards

For many builders, the hardest costs to track aren’t the big subcontractor invoices. It’s the steady stream of smaller purchases happening in the field every day—material runs, fuel, last-minute job items, and client add-ons.

Individually, they’re small. But collectively, they add up.

At Williams Contracting, those purchases were historically difficult to track consistently. Larger costs were managed through invoices, but everyday field spend often slipped through the cracks. As Chris Williams, Principal & Founder, explains, “It’s easy to track big costs, but the small costs is where it gets lost.”

Without a reliable way to capture those transactions in real time, a portion of project costs always lived in a gray area. That lack of visibility made it difficult to confidently assess profitability. “Are you actually making money? Do you know that you’re making money, or are you just busy?”

Chasing receipts after the fact wasn’t a viable solution. In practice, it rarely happened. “There wasn’t a lot of time spent chasing receipts,” Chris says. “We just didn’t chase them. I could track large purchases with invoicing, but everyday buys were almost impossible to track.”

The Solution: Real-Time Field Spend with Adaptive Cards

To solve this, Williams Contracting implemented Adaptive Cards to manage employee purchases and eliminate receipt chaos.

Each employee receives a card tied directly to them. When they make a purchase, they’re prompted to upload the receipt, assign a cost code, and link it to the correct job.

Chris describes the workflow simply:  “Everyone has their own card. They make a transaction, get a text, take a picture of the receipt, put in the cost code, and put it in the job.”

This shifts accountability to the point of purchase. Instead of the owner or bookkeeper chasing receipts later, the person making the purchase records it in real time.

“The onus isn’t on me as the owner or on the bookkeeper,” Chris says. “Every individual is putting in the information for their own transactions.”

Today, seven Williams Contracting employees use Adaptive Cards, processing all of their monthly spend across jobs and operations.

Adoption has also been fast and straightforward.“Training is done in a day,” Chris notes, “with usually one follow-up conversation to make sure they understand cost codes and jobs.”

The Results: Cleaner Books, Better Job Costing, More Control

With Adaptive Cards in place, Williams Contracting now has full visibility into both large and small project costs.

• Real-time receipt capture: Transactions are documented immediately
• Clear employee accountability: Every purchase is tied to a person
• Accurate job costing: All spend is coded to the correct job and cost code
• Stronger audit trail: Receipts and documentation are automatically stored
• Improved cost recovery: Client-related purchases are easily tracked and billed

The operational impact has been immediate.

“It has completely transformed our month-end reconciliation, job cost tracking, and itemized cost tracking,” Chris says. “Now we know where the money goes every day instead of once a month.”

Adaptive Cards also ensure that out-of-scope or last-minute purchases don’t get missed.

“Having the cards helps us keep track of job costs and easily assign and bill costs to clients when they fall outside of the fixed cost budget.”

A Clearer Picture of Profitability

Before implementing Adaptive, a meaningful portion of project spend lacked visibility. “You have that 10–15% of the project that you’re just not clear on,” Chris explains. “This brings that clarity.”

Now, every dollar, whether it’s a major invoice or a $50 material run, is captured, categorized, and visible in real time. “Adaptive Cards changed how we’re doing job cost tracking,” he says, “and give me peace of mind knowing that I can see the real numbers.”

The Takeaway

For Williams Contracting, Adaptive Cards didn’t just replace company credit cards. They solved one of the biggest blind spots in construction finance.

Small purchases that once slipped through the cracks are now captured automatically, tied to the right jobs, and visible in real time.

As Chris puts it: “There’s no way you’re going to track everything without it.”

For builders looking to gain true control over job profitability, that level of visibility makes all the difference.

Learn more about Adaptive Cards.