The Materials section

What the Materials section is

Materials is a benchmark-first view of one question: what do you pay per unit for the materials you buy, against what operators like you pay for the same thing? It is not a purchase-order tool and it does not track inventory. It reads the supplier invoices and bills that already flow into Verinode, canonicalizes each line item to a standard material (drywall, paint, fasteners, lumber, insulation, PPE, and the rest of the restoration materials catalog), and holds your price against a peer distribution, by region, so a few dollars of drift per sheet or per gallon becomes a visible, ranked dollar figure.

Verinode does not decide what you should pay or who you should buy from. It surfaces where your price sits relative to operators like you, ranks the gaps by yearly dollars at stake, and leaves the call to you.

Where to find it

Open Materials from the sidebar. The route is /materials. The page header reads "Materials" with the materials icon, and an Add Data button sits in the top right, the same universal data button every section uses (upload, photo, paste, voice, or forward, all through one capture modal).

The page has two layers that share the same screen:

• Home, the row-stack view that loads first and stays mounted underneath everything else.
• The aspect deck, an overlay that opens in-page (no navigation, no leaving /materials) when you click an Explore tile, a Take Action tile, or a Market context tile. It slides over the home view and can be closed to reveal the home again.

The Materials home

The home is a stack of rows, top to bottom: a hero panel, Take Action, Explore, Market context, and Most recent. Each row is described below in the order it appears on screen.

Hero panel

The top panel changes shape depending on how much data Verinode has on you and whether peer pricing is unlocked for your account. There are three versions.

Day one, before your first canonicalizable purchase. The eyebrow reads "Market Reference" and the headline is a count of common restoration materials Verinode already has a published reference price for in your region. Underneath: "Market reference prices for [N] common restoration materials. Your own prices appear here as supplier invoices arrive." If there is no regional reference data yet either, the line reads plainly: "Add Data. Your material prices appear here as supplier invoices come in." Three secondary figures sit below the headline: Reference Prices (the count, labeled "Common Materials"), Your Materials (blank until you have data, labeled "From Your Invoices"), and Your Spend (blank, labeled "Trailing 12 Months").

Once you have your own prices and peer pricing is unlocked, with a real opportunity found. The eyebrow reads "Material Prices" and the headline is the count of your own materials tracked. A pill calls out the single biggest opportunity by name, for example "Top opportunity: Drywall & Finishing." The subtext reads: "You pay above operators like you on [N] of [N] material groups. Closing the gaps is worth about [$X] a year." Three secondary figures: Tracked Spend (your trailing 12-month material spend), Above Cohort (how many of your material groups you pay above the peer median on, out of your total groups), and Biggest Opportunity (the dollar figure behind that top pill, with the material group name underneath).

Once you have your own prices but peer pricing is not yet unlocked, or no peer match exists for your materials. The eyebrow still reads "Material Prices" with your tracked-material count as the headline. The subtext reads: "[N] material(s) tracked from your invoices across [N] supplier(s). Peer pricing appears as more operators contribute." Secondary figures: Tracked Spend, Suppliers ("On Your Invoices"), and Market References ("For Your Materials").

In every version, "material groups" and "materials tracked" means canonical materials, standard entries like "Drywall 1/2 in. (Sheet)" that your raw invoice line items get matched to, so the same material bought from two different suppliers under two different descriptions still counts once.

Take Action

The first row under the hero is where Verinode puts the things worth doing right now. It always opens with two fixed tiles, then adds up to three real opportunity tiles.

1. Start here / Talk to IQ. The first tile always opens a conversation with IQ about materials. IQ's opening line explains what it watches: "I watch what you pay for materials (drywall, paint, fasteners, lumber, PPE) and hold each price against what operators like you pay, so you can see where money leaks a few dollars at a time." If you have no purchases on file yet, it asks you to forward a supplier invoice to your Verinode inbound address or connect QuickBooks, and asks what you buy the most of.
2. Make Your Materials Spend Work / Deepen Your Materials Spend. This tile tracks how complete your materials data is. Cold (no data at all), it reads "Upload Your Data To Switch It On" with a short promise line: "What you pay per unit for drywall, paint, fasteners, and more, against the low, median, and high for operators like you, by region." Partially filled in, it reads "[N] Of [N] Sources In. Add The Rest," and lists each source (supplier invoices, QuickBooks bills or A/P aging, and similar) with a checkmark or an open circle showing what is present and what is still missing, and what each source unlocks once it lands. A button at the bottom reads "Add Data" (cold) or "Add What's Missing" (partial). Once every source is in, this tile retires and stops appearing.
3. Up to three opportunity tiles, one per material where you pay above operators like you, ranked by dollar impact. Each reads: "You pay [$X] per [unit] for [material name]. Operators like you pay [$Y]," with a line underneath, "Worth about [$Z] a year at your volume." A small caption on the tile shows the confidence label for that cohort (see the confidence ladder below) alongside how many peer operators are behind it. Clicking any of these opens the aspect deck straight to Biggest Gaps.

Explore

Five tiles, one per analytical angle on your materials data. Clicking any of them opens the aspect deck on that tab (details on each tab further down):

| Tile | Color | What its number means | |---|---|---| | Price vs Peers | Teal | How many of your materials are priced against a peer cohort right now. Before a cohort exists, it falls back to how many of your own prices are tracked, then to how many market references you have to start with, then to a dash. | | Your Suppliers | Violet | How many materials have more than one supplier identified on your invoices, so you can see who is cheaper. | | Spend Mix | Copper | Your total tracked material spend over the trailing 12 months. | | Market Context | Amber | How many of your materials have a published market reference price. | | Biggest Gaps | Ember (red) | The total yearly dollars you could recover by closing every gap where you pay above the cohort. Before that figure exists, it falls back to a count of materials priced above cohort, then to a dash. |

Every tile always renders, even with a dash, so the aspect is discoverable before you have any data.

Market context

This row surfaces materials that have a published market reference price but no peer cohort of your own yet, up to six of them, so the section is never fully blank while you are waiting for enough of your own data to build a peer comparison. Each tile shows the material name, the reference price per unit, and the caption "regional market reference per [unit]." This row disappears entirely once every referenced material also has a peer cohort, or if there is nothing to show.

Most recent

The last row lists your most recent material purchases, one tile per line item: the dollar amount, a short description (title-cased from what your invoice said), and the quantity and unit bought. When you have no material purchases on file yet, the row reads exactly: "Material purchases appear here as supplier invoices flow in by email, upload, or QuickBooks."

The aspect deck: five tabs, one analysis each

Clicking any Explore, Take Action, or Market context tile opens the same overlay deck, landed on the tab you clicked. The five tabs, in the order they appear left to right, are Price vs Peers, Your Suppliers, Spend Mix, Market Context, and Biggest Gaps. Each tab is described below.

Price vs Peers

Shows every material where a peer cohort exists, grouped by material family (Drywall & Finishing, Paint & Coatings, Fasteners, Lumber & Sheet Goods, Insulation, PPE, Fleet Build-out, Roofing & Exterior, Floor Coverings, Tile & Masonry, Site Protection, Cleaning Chemicals, Restoration Consumables, or Other Materials), each group collapsible so a long list stays scannable. The intro line reads: "[N] material(s) priced against operators like you. The band shows where most of them land; the dot is you."

Each row shows the material name, your price per unit, and (when a cohort exists) a horizontal band: the shaded section spans the peer 25th to 75th percentile, a tick marks the peer median, and a dot marks your own price. A trailing figure shows the dollar difference between your price and the peer median, colored so paying above reads as a warning tone and paying below reads as favorable. A small caption underneath the material name shows the confidence label for that cohort.

Empty state, verbatim: "Peer pricing appears here once enough operators like you contribute invoices for the materials you buy. Your own prices are always tracked."

Your Suppliers

Shows which supplier you buy each material from and what you pay them, grouped by material. When more than one supplier carries the same material, the cheaper one is marked cheapest, and the tile shows what switching to the cheaper supplier is worth per year. Where a peer median exists for that material, it is shown alongside for context ("cohort $X/unit").

Empty state, verbatim: "Your suppliers appear here as invoices identify who you buy each material from. Once two or more suppliers show up for the same material, you will see which one is cheaper."

Spend Mix

A ranked bar breakdown of your trailing 12-month material spend by family, largest first, each bar's length proportional to its share of total spend. The intro line names the total: "Where your [$X] of tracked material spend went over the last 12 months, by category."

Empty state, verbatim: "Your material spend by category appears here as supplier invoices come in."

Market Context

Lists every material where Verinode has a published market reference price, shown for context only. The intro line is explicit about the boundary: "A published market price for the materials you buy, shown for context only. It is never mixed into the peer band on Price vs Peers." Each row shows the material name, whether the reference is regional (named by state) or national, the reference price per unit, and, when the units match, how your own price compares to it.

Empty state, verbatim: "Published market reference prices appear here for the materials you buy, as context next to your own prices."

Biggest Gaps

The same ranked opportunity list that feeds the Take Action tiles, but complete: every material where you pay above operators like you, ranked by yearly dollars at stake, each row showing your price, the peer band, and the dollar-per-year figure. The intro line totals it up: "The materials where you pay above operators like you, ranked by yearly dollars at stake. Closing every gap is worth about [$X] a year at your volume."

Empty state depends on unlock. If peer pricing is unlocked and nothing is above cohort, it reads: "No material where you pay above operators like you right now. Nice." If peer pricing is not yet unlocked, it reads: "Peer pricing unlocks the gap between what you pay and what operators like you pay."

The confidence ladder

Every peer comparison in Materials carries a confidence label rather than a hard on/off switch, because Verinode would rather show you a thin signal honestly labeled than hide it behind a wall. From weakest to strongest: Early signal, Indicative, Observed, Verified. The label reflects how many peer operators are behind the number, without a fixed count printed anywhere in the product; treat "Early signal" and "Indicative" cohorts as directional, and lean harder on "Observed" and "Verified" ones when deciding whether to act.

How material data flows in

Materials does not have a manual entry form, on purpose. Data flows in three ways, and Verinode reads every line the moment it lands:

1. 1Forward a supplier invoice to your Verinode inbound email address. Verinode reads every line item on it.
2. 2Upload a bill, invoice, or A/P aging report through the Add Data button in the header, or through a Take Action tile that asks for it. The same modal accepts a photo, a paste, or a voice note as well as a file upload.
3. 3Connect QuickBooks (or let an existing accounting connection sync) so bills and payables flow in automatically without any manual step.

Once a line item lands, Verinode matches its description to a canonical material in the restoration materials catalog, normalizes its unit price to that material's standard unit (so a price quoted per pallet and a price quoted per sheet land on the same footing), and rolls it into your trailing 12-month totals, your supplier breakdown, and the peer comparison. This is the same canonicalization the nightly peer-benchmark rollup uses on the cohort side, so your number and the peer number are built the same way and are directly comparable.

Related reading

• How benchmarks work for the mechanics behind every peer comparison on the platform.
• Reading a benchmark for how to interpret a percentile band like the one on Price vs Peers.
• Benchmarks overview for how Materials fits alongside the platform's other benchmark families.
• Understanding your margin for how material cost feeds into what you keep on a job.
• Acting on decisions for what happens when you act on a Materials opportunity tile.
• Connecting your data for the full picture of how invoices, uploads, and QuickBooks feed every section, not just Materials.

Data sources