Yep - PO on every order. My guys in the field will go on a day before the job starts - get a good material list and then drop it off to me at the shop. I'll fax it in to the SH the day before and they will pick it up on their way to the job. That's what has worked for us so far - but then we are only a three man operation at this point...
Another thing I do is keep a spreadsheet of all the supplies I have bought - what job they were for and how much we paid for them. Then it automatically calculates my mark-up so I can see what I should be charging for them too. Then once a job is done I can go back and see what I spent on materials to make sure I stayed within my budget...
But like arseegee says, trips to the SH are a killer and I'd rather get more work done out of the field.
I ain't got 20K layin around to stock up on materials anyway...
