Building Controls & Solutions — PoC Analysis

Status: Discovery complete — PoC in progress Contact: Jason Bail — Senior Enterprise Engineer (18yr P21 SME) | Adam Martinez — Field Ops (San Antonio) Company: Building Controls & Solutions, Farmers Branch TX Revenue: ~$84M | Locations: ~18 physical branches | Ownership: PE-backed (Platte River Equity) ERP: Epicor Prophet21 (Epicor private hosting — NOT Azure, NOT on-prem) Email: Office 365

Discovery — March 2, 2026

Order Volume (Aug 2025 – Feb 2026)

Data provided by Jason post-call (ordermatic.xlsx). Two order types: N = actual confirmed orders, Y = projected/quote orders.

Month	Actual Orders	Quote Orders	Total	Total Lines	Avg Lines	Orders/Day
Aug	5,608	1,940	7,548	19,972	2.65	359
Sep	5,925	1,909	7,834	21,016	2.68	373
Oct	6,878	2,256	9,134	26,418	2.89	397
Nov	5,769	1,787	7,556	19,108	2.53	398
Dec	7,103	1,926	9,029	20,844	2.31	430
Jan	6,877	2,597	9,474	23,556	2.49	451
Feb	6,530	2,871	9,401	23,662	2.52	495

7-month totals: 59,976 orders | 154,576 lines Monthly average: ~8,568 orders | ~22,082 lines Daily average: ~408 orders/day — trending upward (359 Aug → 495 Feb, +38%) Average lines/order: 2.5 (Jason estimated 5 on the call — reality is half that)

Note: Jason estimated 1,500-2,000 orders/day on the call. Actual data shows ~408/day. Likely either (a) this dataset covers a subset of branches, or (b) he was thinking line items. Clarify before finalizing pricing.

Pricing Implications

At standard $0.40/line with $2.50 minimum:

Average order = 2.5 lines × $0.40 = $1.00 — minimum kicks in on almost every order
At $2.50 minimum: ~$21,400/month — too steep to sell

Recommended pricing for BCS profile:

$1.25/order flat for orders ≤5 lines (covers short orders profitably)
$0.35/line for each line over 5 (captures project orders)
At 8,568 orders/mo avg → ~$10,700/month

Email orders (~60% of volume per Jason) = ~5,100/month to start. Target: grow to full volume over 6 months.

Core Pain Points

1. Individual rep inboxes — no centralization (most critical) Orders go directly to individual sales rep inboxes. When a rep is out, no one else has access → orders missed → irate customers. Branch managers (e.g. “Daniel” in Dallas) handle the majority of order entry; when they’re out, the whole branch backs up.

Jason: “He doesn’t give out his password… orders get missed or nobody’s taking care of it.”

They’ve discussed generic branch mailboxes (sanantonio.orders@, dallas.orders@, etc.) but haven’t implemented. Our forwardable email approach with admin oversight is the right solution and a better fit than Canal’s per-rep OAuth model (too much change management).

2. CSR context-switching Counter customers walk in while email orders pile up. CSRs bounce between walk-in traffic and email queues constantly. Desired state: email handled in background so CSRs focus on the relationship in front of them.

3. Ship-to duplicate explosion Reps create new ship-to records instead of searching for existing ones → 5+ duplicate addresses for the same location. Rule: never auto-create a new ship-to. Match to existing, or if ambiguous, pick the first and let the human override.

4. Poor product data Reps go to competitors’ websites (Nuco, etc.) to look up part numbers, descriptions, dims/weights because BCS’s own P21 data is incomplete. They’re building a Salsify catalog linked by part number (not synced back to P21 yet) — future enrichment source.

Technical Environment

P21: Epicor private hosting. Has API access (Data Services OData + Transaction API).
Email: Office 365. Orders go to individual rep inboxes, not a shared mailbox.
Jason’s setup: Secondary SQL Server running after-hours automations + data cleansing (linked to P21). He’s technically sophisticated — not a black-box buyer.
Competitor evaluated: Canal. Verdict: “fantastic product, can’t sell the ROI on price.” Canal’s per-rep OAuth auth was also flagged as a change management barrier.
Salsify: Product enrichment platform (linked to P21 via part number). Future integration opportunity — could feed our item matching layer.

Order Flow

~60% email/phone, ~40% counter walk-in
Orders arrive in individual rep inboxes (not a central queue)
Counter traffic peaks early morning (contractors picking up for the day’s job)
Handwritten notes are used — CSRs write orders during phone calls, then enter in P21
Outside sales reps often hand off to inside team for entry (they don’t want to learn the system)

Catalog Complexity

Product families from building-controls.com:

Honeywell / Resideo (thermostats, sensors, actuators, controllers)
75F building automation
EasyIO field controllers
Distech Controls
Pietro Fiorentini gas equipment

Part number variants critical to preserve exactly:

/U suffix — field install vs factory (T7350D1006 ≠ T7350D1006/U)
-DR — DIN rail mount
-WX — weatherproof
75F- prefix, VEL-, DPT- model codes
Distech: EC-xxx-N-LON, ECLYPSE-N-V

Fit Assessment

Area	Status	Notes
Order volume	✅ HIGH	~408/day, +38% period trend (Aug 25–Feb 26). Strong candidate.
Email as primary channel	✅ HIGH	~60% email/phone. Core pain is inbox chaos, not PDF complexity.
P21 API access	✅ YES	Epicor private hosting. Data Services + Transaction API confirmed.
Ship-from routing need	✅ HIGH	~18 branches. Branch-local customer assignments.
Catalog/xref complexity	⚠️ HIGH	Poor P21 data quality. Salsify as future source.
Ship-to deduplication	⚠️ HIGH	Existing duplicates. Never auto-create — match only.
Email infrastructure	✅ OK	O365. Forwardable approach works without per-rep OAuth.
Change management risk	✅ LOW	Jason + Adam are motivated. Canal comparison sets low bar on UX.
Overall fit	✅ HIGH	Strong product-market fit. Email-first demo is the right lead.

P21 Integration Architecture

Read (Data Services — OData)

inv_loc: inventory by location (branch) — used for ship-from routing
inv_mast: item master (part numbers, descriptions)
Customer, contact, and ship-to data (critical for deduplication)

Write (Transaction API)

oe_hdr: order header (customer, ship-to, PO number)
oe_line: order lines — each line supports source_loc_id (ship-from branch override)

Ship-To Deduplication Rule

Never auto-create a new ship-to. Matching logic:

Exact ship-to ID match from PO
Fuzzy address match against existing ship-tos (normalize before compare)
If multiple matches: present options to human, default to first
If no match: flag for human review — do NOT create a new record

PoC Scope

What Jason Needs to See Thursday (March 5, 9-11am)

The demo must lead with email, not file upload. File upload is the fallback — email is the hero.

Required for PoC demo:

Email triage — forwarded email → AI recognizes it as an order → appears in review queue
Admin oversight view — one admin account sees orders from multiple reps’ inboxes
Item matching — extract line items → match against BCS catalog (Typesense) with 3-tier fallback
Ship-to matching — resolve to existing ship-to, flag on ambiguity, never create new
Handwritten note capture — photo → extracted order (Adam liked this specifically)
Extraction quality — BAS/HVAC part numbers with suffixes preserved exactly

Nice-to-have (show if time):

Branch-level filtering in admin view
Cross-reference memory (previous orders informing future matches)

Out of scope for PoC (see docs/product/email-inbox-ux.md):

OAuth/direct O365 connector (forwardable is fine for PoC)
Inbox management tools (remove, label, status changes)
Order follow-up threads
Delegated access configuration UI

Phase 1 — PoC Checklist

Typesense catalog seed (seed-bcs-typesense.mjs) — BAS/HVAC SKUs across 5 families
Prompt config (bcs-prompt-config.json) — part number variant rules
Connection setup script (create-bcs-connection.mjs)
Update prompt config: add email-specific extraction rules (sender → customer lookup)
Ship-to deduplication logic in enrichment step
Admin “all inboxes” view — wire up org-level email queue
BCS-specific sample emails for demo (HVAC orders, ~5 lines, O365 format)
P21 mock (Mockoon) — ship_to, oe_hdr, oe_line endpoints
End-to-end demo: email forward → triage → review → P21 mock

Phase 2 — Production

Live P21 Data Services OData connection
Transaction API write integration
Full catalog import from P21 item master
Salsify enrichment integration (part data)
O365 OAuth connector (direct inbox access, no forwarding required)
Multi-branch inventory routing
Delegated inbox access + access management UI

Business Case

Monthly volume: ~8,568 orders | ~22,082 lines (Aug 25 – Feb 26 avg, trending up)
Email share: ~60% → ~5,100 orders/month at launch
Proposed pricing: $1.25/order flat (≤5 lines) + $0.35/line over 5
Projected MRR at launch (email orders only): ~$6,375/month
Projected MRR at full volume: ~$10,700/month
Time savings: Jason cited “can’t get home by five” — at 2+ min/order manual entry, full volume automation = ~280+ hours/month recovered across BCS branches
Competitor: Canal evaluated and rejected on price. We are the affordable alternative with a better fit for their distributed rep inbox problem.