Oracle Textura helps Moss hone its competitive edge with streamlined payment management

Moss is a national privately held construction firm providing innovative solutions resulting in award-winning projects. With regional offices across the United States, theirs is a family business, forged on longstanding relationships and unwavering trust.

As they state, they put their world-class experience and entrepreneurial spirit to work across all areas of construction management for a wide range of sectors, including luxury high-rise residential, landmark mixed-use developments, hospitality, K-12 and higher education, justice, solar energy and battery storage, and sports.

Founded in 2004 with two projects and two employees, Moss now ranks at No. 55 on the Engineering News-Record 2023 Top 400 Contractors. Operations Controller Lewis B. Newton II has been with Moss almost from the start, joining the team in March 2005.

Over the years, he has supported the organization’s digital transformation through the implementation of innovative technologies both in the field and in the back office. As Newton says, “We use technologies like Oracle Textura to make sure we maintain a competitive advantage. The more you automate, the better it is, especially as we've grown so exponentially.”

By the early 2010s Moss had migrated to CMiC accounting construction management software and begun reaping the benefits of using a full ERP platform. But the pain and inefficiencies of manually processing the subcontractor payment applications remained.

“That was tedious because you're talking about maintaining the contract values, making sure that the calculations are correct. And often they weren't,” says Newton.

A client’s requirement leads to efficiency improvement

In 2018, one of Moss’ clients, a national real estate developer, required the Moss team to implement Oracle Textura while working on a multimillion-dollar project in West Palm Beach, Florida. “We had heard of the platform,” says Newton. “And our team saw it as an opportunity to explore something new and to streamline and automate the construction payment management process.” They implemented Oracle Textura for that first large project, working with the Oracle client services team to make sure the implementation, while meeting their client’s requirements, also worked for their own processes.

“It was very beneficial once we got things up and going and really understood how we needed to configure things. Both the project management side and the financial side saw a vast improvement with processing time and overall efficiency,” says Newton.

Newton remembers how much more efficient the process became with the lien releases automated, submissions done electronically, and all the workflows in place for communications and approvals. He recalls that his accountants were happy that they could let the project managers communicate directly with the subcontractors via Oracle Textura to iron out any discrepancies, and they no longer needed to be in the middle of it.

Finding a path to standardization

As Newton says, “Change can be difficult. However, we saw an opportunity to test the functionality of Oracle Textura, to get a good idea of its benefits and how it could be implemented across the board for all Moss projects." As the project progressed, project managers reported how much more productive they were with the new efficient process in place. It was at that point that Newton decided to build his case for standardizing the payment process on Oracle Textura by including the real-world efficiency gains his PMs were experiencing.

“We were able to get Oracle Textura standardized for all projects, whether in budget or not. The benefits are that great.”
—Operations Controller Lewis B. Newton II

He facilitated sessions where the PMs on the project who had used Oracle Textura shared their positive experience with PMs on other projects. He had them demonstrate what they did on their monthly cycle so the other project teams could compare and assess the differences between the manual process and the automated process. They discussed the shorter timelines for processing pay apps, the time saved by eliminating all the manual steps and back and forth between PM and subcontractor, and even the drop of stress levels to get the monthly cycle done on time and accurately every month.

The outcome of those sessions resulted in consensus that Oracle Textura was an efficient solution that everyone wanted.

“We were able to get Oracle Textura standardized for all projects, whether in budget or not. The benefits are that great,” says Newton. “It wasn’t just me recommending it, it turned into the project managers who wanted it in order to be more effective in their roles.”

Supporting business growth

Newton notes that the use of Oracle Textura has had a positive impact on team members who are using the software solution. “The accounting team has transformed from being processors to analyzers; it elevated their position,” says Newton. “They can focus more on aligning themselves with the PMs and being more involved with the budgetary controls of the project.”

Newton adds that he’s been able to support the business’ growth without having to hire proportionally in accounting.

Technologies help hone the competitive edge

In competitive markets, with complex projects and sophisticated clients, technological innovation is becoming more of a selling point for Moss. And not just in the field but in the back office as well.

“Now Oracle Textura is a technology that we’re leveraging for our business,” says Newton.

Reflecting on the process of standardizing on Oracle Textura, Newton adds some words of advice: “Regardless of how fine your payment process is, you're not running as efficiently and effectively as you should be to stay competitive in today’s market. Now with Oracle Textura, we’ve enhanced our process and made it highly efficient.”

Just like it has with Moss, Oracle Textura will increase your productivity and mitigate risk with streamlined and accurate billing, timely payments, and effective compliance controls.

See Oracle Textura in action and find out why contractors of all sizes choose this solution to increase productivity and mitigate risk.