How to automate expense management in Jonas Premier

Key takeaways

• Jonas Premier, now presented as Premier, is a cloud construction ERP for general contractors and builders, with job costing and project management.
• Costs can be organised across up to five job levels, such as project, phase, task, building or lot.
• Premier lets employees and subcontractors submit expenses from the field with receipts attached.
• Vergo proposes job, level and cost item from history, texts for receipts and posts GL journals or AP invoices through the Premier API.

Where should you go next?

• Vergo's Jonas Premier integration
• What expense management software integrates with Jonas Premier?
• Get started with Vergo

How do you automate expense management in Jonas Premier, step by step?

1. Connect Premier. Vergo connects through the published Jonas Premier API, reads your jobs, accounts and cost items, and posts coded card spend as GL journals, or as AP invoices with the receipt added as a document.
2. Connect your existing cards. Connecting your existing cards involves no card applications, no re-issuing and no banking change.
3. Collect receipts by text. Employees handle everything by text message — no app to download, no portal login — and Vergo chases missing receipts itself instead of waiting for a report.
4. Code job and cost item. Vergo suggests the job, the level within it and the cost item for every receipt line.
5. Post to Premier. Confirmed spend posts as GL journals or AP invoices with the receipt attached, and job costs update.

What does Premier need on each card transaction?

• Job and the level within it: phase, building or lot.
• Cost item: labour, materials, equipment, subcontract or overhead.
• Account for the general ledger.
• Receipt, attached as a document.

Where does Premier's field entry stop and automation start?

Premier gives field staff a way to submit expenses and attach receipts, and its validations keep coding consistent. The superintendent still decides which lot or phase a purchase belongs to, on a phone, at the end of a long day. Vergo reads the receipt itself, line by line, and predicts the coding from what was actually bought — the job, level and cost item — not just the vendor name on the header.

A practical example

A homebuilder on Premier tracks costs by community and lot. A superintendent buys framing hardware for two lots and a generator rental for the whole site on one card. Vergo texts for the receipts, suggests the rough carpentry cost item split across the two lots and site equipment at the community level for the rental. The project accountant confirms, and the costs post to Premier.

How Vergo handles this

Vergo proposes the coding by inference from your own accounting structure and history — no rule library to build, no keyword lists to maintain, and new vendors are coded on first sight. Approval workflows are optional and fit how you already control spend: route by GL account, by amount, or by project — or skip approval flows entirely and let policy flags catch only what breaks a rule. Card spend, employee reimbursements and AP invoices run through one coding model — same coding, same review, one reconciliation — and payment stays on the rails you already use.