Dome construction's customer story
How Subcontractor Management Became More Efficient & Transparent
Dome Construction is celebrating their 50-year anniversary as one of leading construction firms in San Francisco, California. They’re committed to their relationships with their clients and their contractor and vendor partners. From office buildings to hospitals, Dome Construction has made a name for themselves as reliable, consistent builders.
Dome has been using GCPay in their payment application and lien release processing since 2012.
Dome Construction’s Billing Supervisor, Carmina Cardenas, explained to us their experience with subcontractor payment before and after adding GCPay to their workflow.
Carmina Cardenas
Accounting Supervisor
Company Info
Founded in 1969
Headquarted in San Francisco, CA
Tangled Web of Communication
Before GCPay, all of Dome’s subcontractors emailed their applications for payment to the construction administrator – just one person! – and await approval.
Often, AFPs were put together in the field, and didn’t have up-to-date information on the latest change orders. After the construction admin received the invoice, each project manager would review the AFPs. If there were rejections or edits, the project manager would email the subs asking for changes. This created a web of communication that was impossible to track.
Lien release tracking was a bottleneck in the payment process. Subs were required to submit lien waivers with their application for payment, but if they failed to do so, the PMs would email them and await the proper documentation.
There was no way a manual system could successfully track these various email strings or make it easy to find compliance documents.
For Dome, the most difficult process (prior to GCPay) was the lack of transparency for their subcontractors. Subs regularly reached out to learn the status of an invoice or change order, only to find it was been delayed by a rejection the sub was unaware of.
Carmina says, “We wanted to offer more visibility to our subs, but we had no way to do that with our process being entirely manual.” Pay app transparency without more man hours was crucial for Dome.
Decision Making
Dome’s billing manager met a GCPay representatives at the Viewpoint conference in 2012, and signed on with GCPay shortly thereafter. Carmina notes, “The billing manager came back and was like, ‘we need this in our life!’”
A key selling point for the Dome team = the subcontractors’ ability to submit their invoice through GCPay and see feedback along the way. Subcontractors have full control of their pay applications and they have full awareness of the stages in the process. If an invoice or change order is rejected, they can see the notes immediately and make adjustments. GCPay even notifies them.
From the business side, Dome Construction loved the audit trail feature. “We knew we’d see every invoice that’s been submitted, and see who had touched it or made edits along the way, which would be monumental in our tracking process,” Carmina adds. The audit trail functionality means the billing team and project managers don’t have to track each invoice manually.
GCPay + Viewpoint Vista
GCPay has been an integration partner with Viewpoint’s Vista product since 2012.
This partnership allows subcontract, change order, and compliance data in Vista to sync automatically with GCPay every 30 minutes.
Payment applications that are approved in GCPay can be exported directly into Vista as AIA invoices with Vista’s import module.
This ERP integration ensures subcontractor invoices and change orders are detailed properly and processed accordingly.
GCPay is the leading subcontract management platform for automating invoicing, compliance and lien waiver management functions. GCPay is compatible with any computer, tablet or mobile device, allowing both office and field employees to increase efficiency while reducing costs in the management of their subcontracts.
Zero Processing Time
As GCPay users, Dome’s payment applications processing time has been cut down to nearly nothing. Invoices can be reviewed or submitted from anywhere. The ERP integration has made their processes smoother than ever. Dome no longer tracks down emails regarding change orders or compliance documentation.
“Whatever is in GCPay is reflected in Viewpoint, and vice versa,” Carmina tells us. “The integration means no mistakes and no guesswork.” And, it’s fast. “What once took days now literally takes zero time because it’s already done in GCPay.”
Carmina says GCPay improved more than just their subcontractor payment processing and compliance tracking. “GCPay is fast, it’s easy, it’s something we can rely on. It’s made us a better general contractor. It truly changed everything,” Carmina adds.
Lastly, Dome Construction cannot emphasize enough how much their subcontractors love working in GCPay. “Subs always know where they are in the payment application process, and they get paid on time because GCPay is perfectly accurate,” Carmina says.
Subs are actually happy with the invoicing process, which makes them want to work with Dome again and again. Dome continues to build relationships with their subs that get stronger over time.
