What does an innovative Canadian contractor have in common with a multifamily contractor in Indiana or a contractor in Texas that specializes in fast-food franchise renovations?
The answer: subcontractor satisfaction and streamlined payment management.
Each of these construction firms transitioned from the custom paper- and spreadsheet-based processes to an automated invoicing compliance and lien waiver management platform to strengthen relationships with trade partners by offering faster, more transparent visibility into payments.
Integrated Advantage
Chandos says that project accountants were spending about 60% of their time processing trades rather than working on other, more important initiatives. The accounting team and project managers spent hours figuring out if discrepancies were math errors or disagreements. Then they’d develop a plan for how to proceed.
The firm initiated payment application automation with GCPay to eliminate its manual payment workflows which minimize confusion about contract amounts and issues related to documentation.
Sean MacDonell, accounting manager for Chandos, says that since implementing GCPay there’s less manual data entry, which means fewer errors. A huge benefit is that GCPay integrates with the company’s accounting system, Viewpoint Vista. The integration automatically imports and uploads data from GCPay into Vista with the click of a button, quickly eradicating errors. “It’s an easy sell once the project managers see how it works,” MacDonell says. “Everyone who has dealt with it so far wants to keep using it on their projects.”
Sufficient Documentation
Wisconsin-based general contractor/construction manager Riley Construction moved away from paper-based subcontractor payment processes several years ago after struggling with late or lost invoices, errors and missing lien waivers.
Through GCPay, notifications to subcontractors are sent out automatically. The software allows subcontractors to only submit a bill with a completed lien waiver. Riley says that GCPay pay app software has saved them about 80 hours a month on invoice entry and waivers, and even more time on the vast reduction in phone calls from subcontractors to project managers—and the subcontractors are much happier.
A Schedule of Values
Verdad Real Estate and Construction Services onboarded with GCPay in 2019. Beyond receiving timelier payments, their subcontractor partners are realizing additional advantages.
Verdad’s senior project coordinator, Tammi Savage, explains how they can set their own schedule of values. The best part, she says is that the waiver is automatically filled out for them. “All subs have to do is print it out, sign it, notarize it, upload it and we get it back.”
Savage adds that her job is more streamlined as well. “I can get my job done more efficiently. I can see if a sub has submitted billing. If they haven’t, I can reach out to them. Having that overview in one spot is more convenient, versus having to go check each folder for that sub. If we were still doing things that way, I would say we’d probably have to hire two more people.”
Visible Time Savings
Indiana-based multifamily and residential housing contractor Cityscape Residential is a newer GCPay customer. The firm was looking for a way to improve the accounting and subcontractor billing part of the payment process. What used to take 4 days has become 4 hours. Cityscape’s president of construction, Mike Patarino, confirms, “In construction, we’re controlled by our pay application process. I told our CFO, if for any reason, you want to get rid of GCPay, I’ll quit.”
He’s not alone.
Dome Construction, one of leading construction firms in San Francisco implemented GCPay over a decade ago. In that time, Dome Construction’s billing supervisor Carmina Cardenas, concludes, “It’s made us a better general contractor. Subs always know where they are in the payment application process, and they get paid on time because GCPay is perfectly accurate.”
Relationships with trade partners in today’s environment is more important than ever. Reshape your conventional paper- and spreadsheet-based processes to an automated invoicing compliance and lien waiver management platform for workflow ease and build rapport.
Contractors Go Tech
Being comfortable with technology is paramount to a contractor’s success and as important to their vision to bringing construction projects to life. The industry has razor-thin profit margins, particularly for general contractors, so being able to execute projects efficiently means using technology to manage projects. The reality of any construction project involves many change orders, which impact the timely completion and profitability of construction projects.
Tech continues to be developed for all size construction companies to become more efficient and more profitable. If you’re in the construction industry and you’re not embracing technology – at least on some level – whether that’s in the preconstruction or subcontractor pay management at the end of the project – you’re going to be left behind.
Final Thoughts
Whether you’re a general contractor or subcontractor, when it comes to timely payments in the construction space, few tasks are more important than knowing contract terms and managing lien waiver requirements.
In many cases, today’s automated payment applications are uniquely well-suited to simplifying the payment workflow.
