How to automate AIA billing and pay apps
Pull your schedule of values and approved quantities into a G702 and G703 draft on a fixed schedule. A person reviews and signs before it goes anywhere near the owner or GC.
Answered in short
4 things that decide this
- 01You automate AIA billing by pulling your schedule of values and this period's approved quantities into a G702 and G703 draft automatically, instead of rebuilding the numbers by hand every month.
- 02Retention gets calculated and tracked against each line item on your project. Conditional or unconditional lien waivers get requested from your subs and matched against the pay app before it goes out, since waiver rules change by state.
- 03Your draft still goes to a person, the PM or the controller, for review before it reaches the owner or GC's own process. Automation assembles the numbers; you sign off on them.
- 04None of this replaces your architect's or owner's certification of the pay app. It removes the re-typing and the chasing, so whoever reviews it sees a complete draft, not a blank form.
The G702/G703 form isn't the hard part
You know the AIA G702 and G703 forms already. Filling one out isn't your problem. Your real problem is where the numbers come from. Your schedule of values lives in one system. Approved quantities live in a daily report or a field app. Retention changes by contract. Lien waivers need to arrive from every sub before the pay app can honestly go out.
Most GCs rebuild this every month from scratch. You, or someone on your team, pulls the SOV and checks what's actually been approved this period. Then you calculate retention, chase waivers by email, and assemble a PDF by hand. That's hours of work a system can do in minutes, from the same source data.
Automating it means connecting those pieces so your draft assembles itself on your billing schedule. What counts as approved, whether a waiver is acceptable, what an owner will push back on, all stays with you.
What the automation does, step by step
Your schedule of values is the anchor. Every pay app measures progress against it. The SOV needs to live somewhere automation can read: your ERP, Procore, or a spreadsheet if that's still where it sits.
Your approved quantities come from the field. A super's sign-off on a daily report, a percent-complete update, or a change order that's cleared PM approval, all count. Automation matches those against SOV line items for the billing period and calculates what's due.
Retention gets held back per your contract terms, tracked as its own line, and released on the schedule your agreement sets. Your subs get waiver requests automatically, conditional on this payment or unconditional from the last one, checked against the pay app before it's called complete. Waiver language and timing rules change by state, so automation needs to know which state's rules apply to which project.
- 01SOV plus approved quantities, matched by line item for the billing period.
- 02Retention calculated and tracked, released on the contract's own schedule.
- 03Lien waivers requested and matched against the draft, by the rules the project's state sets.
- 04A draft assembled and routed to a person, not sent to the owner automatically.
- SOV and approved quantitiesMatched by line item for the period
- Retention calculatedHeld and tracked per the contract
- Lien waivers requestedRules matched to the project's state
- Draft assembledG702/G703, ready for review
- Person reviews and signsPM or controller, before it goes out
- Owner/GC reviewTheir own process, unchanged
Automation owns the first four stations. You own the last two, and always will.
Some of the systems we have shipped
Related questions
01Can AIA billing automation replace the AIA G702/G703 forms with something else?+
No, and it shouldn't try. Owners and lenders expect these forms as the standard. Automation fills them from your live SOV and approved quantities instead of a manual rebuild each month. Your output is still a G702 and G703.
02Does automating retention change what my contract requires?+
No. Your retention percentage and release schedule come from your contract terms, entered once and applied consistently. Automation calculates and tracks it against those terms. It doesn't renegotiate them for you.
03How do lien waiver rules differ by state?+
States set their own rules on what a conditional or unconditional waiver has to say, and when it's enforceable. A waiver valid in one state can be worded wrong for another. That's a jurisdiction field on your project, checked at request time, not a one-size template.
04Who signs off on the pay app after it's automated?+
Whoever does today, usually your PM or controller, before it reaches the owner or GC's own review. Automation doesn't remove that step. It gets your draft to that person complete and on time.
05Does this connect to Procore, Sage, Foundation, or whatever I run?+
It's built to write to and read from Procore, Sage or Foundation, or whatever you run, to the depth your account exposes. We confirm exactly what that depth is during the audit rather than promise a generic integration up front.
Related
- Billing automation for contractors →The full pay-app, retention and lien-waiver service this answer belongs to.
- How to get T&M tickets back from the field →Where the billable hours behind a pay app get captured.
- Construction software development →What we build for contractors beyond a single workflow.
- Custom software for construction →The integration layer that connects your SOV, field data and accounting.
