Bill the month — a pay app that doesn't bounce

Month-end. It used to bounce. A pay app comes back from the GC's accounts payable for one of three reasons: the continuation sheet doesn't tie to the approved SOV, the waiver is on the wrong form or the wrong amount, or a change order got billed that isn't on the schedule. In STrOp the application, the continuation sheet, and the waiver are all generated from the same schedule of values, so there's nothing to reconcile by hand on the 25th. Here's the one Marisol sends.

Open the period

1. Open the job → Billing. Every application lists with its number, period, status, and what's been paid against it.
2. + New Pay App. The New Pay Application form asks for Period Start and Period End. That's the whole form — Create.
3. The G703 detail builds itself from the SOV: one line per scheduled item, with scheduled value, previous billed, this period, stored materials, retainage, and net due. This is why the SOV deserved the care it got back at award: the continuation sheet is only as good as the schedule it reads.
4. The change order from E14 is already a line. Executing a CO writes its SOV impact back to the schedule and onto any open application, so it's billable this period without anyone remembering it.

Fill it, submit it

1. Per line, enter % complete to date. This period computes to match and caps at 100 percent; billing a dollar amount instead is fine, capped at the scheduled value.
2. The Retainage rate sits on the app. Retainage held and net due compute on every line and roll up to the totals row. Correcting the rate recalculates all of it.
3. Submit stamps the application and opens the AR invoice with the contract's payment terms: due date is period end plus the project's terms days, thirty by default. Not a guess, a date on the receivable.
4. Once submitted, the app is locked. The GC's revisions come back through a revise step, not by editing a submitted app.

The waiver and the package

1. Generate Conditional Waiver appears on the submitted app. The form is the Conditional Progress (§8132) type, the Amount from the app, and the Through Date at the period end. Add exceptions if there are any. Generate Waiver — the statutory language, not something retyped from the last job.
2. Package ↗ opens the print set: the application for payment, the continuation sheet, and the conditional waiver, math tied line-for-line to the SOV. The variant with a notary acknowledgment block is next to it if the GC's terms want it.
3. Send the package. When the check clears, Record Payment on the invoice, and only then does the unconditional form come into play.

Common mistakes

• Signing an unconditional waiver for a check you haven't cashed. Conditional progress is the form for the 25th; the unconditional form comes after funds clear. The lien-waiver matrix is the whole rule.
• Billing a CO that isn't on the schedule. If the CO never executed, it never became an SOV line, and the GC's reviewer will find it. Execute first, bill second.
• Percent complete from memory. The number that survives review is the one the super will defend on a site walk. Ask before you type.

See also

• E15 · Friday, 4:30
• E17 · Where the job stands
• Pay app submission checklist
• Lien waivers — the four California forms