AIA Billing and Pay Applications That Get Certified the First Time
Contractors do not fail because the work is unprofitable. They fail because the money arrives sixty days after the cost does. ManoByte implements the pay application stack that turns your schedule of values into a certified G702 and G703, tracks retainage as a ledger instead of a spreadsheet, and posts to QuickBooks without anyone re-keying it.
Every rejected pay app is thirty days of your money sitting with someone else
Progress billing is the one process where a formatting error has the same cash consequence as a work stoppage. The application goes back, the cycle resets, and payroll does not.
A rejection costs a full billing cycle
A G702 that does not tie to the G703, a stored-materials line the architect questions, a retainage figure that disagrees with last month — any one of them sends the application back and pushes payment into the next cycle.
Retainage stops being tracked and starts being guessed
Held retainage accumulates across dozens of applications and jobs. When it lives in a spreadsheet, the release conversation at closeout starts with a reconciliation instead of an invoice.
Nobody can reconstruct what was billed and when
When an owner disputes an amount eight months later, the answer is in somebody's sent folder. Without a record of who submitted what and when it was certified, the dispute is argued from memory.
The same numbers get typed twice
The pay app is built in one place and the invoice is entered in accounting. Two entries, two chances to disagree, and a month-end spent finding out which one is right.
The full AIA pay application stack, connected to the job and to the ledger
This is not a template pack. It is the billing system your projects run on, configured around your schedule of values and wired into the accounting system you already close the books in.
A schedule of values builder that the pay application is generated from, so the G702 summary and the G703 continuation sheet always agree, because they are produced from the same lines rather than maintained side by side.
Retainage as a ledger, not a column — held, released and outstanding tracked per application and per job, so the release conversation at closeout starts from a number both sides can see.
A certification review workflow with an event log, recording each submission, review and certification with its timestamp, so the answer to "when did we bill this" is a record instead of a recollection.
A generated PDF and a public application link, so the architect or owner reviews and certifies the application without an account, a login, or an attachment that gets lost in a thread.
A two-way QuickBooks connection covering invoices, payments and change data capture, so a certified application becomes an invoice without a second round of data entry.
Change orders that flow into the contract value automatically, so an executed change order is reflected in the next application instead of being remembered, or not, at the end of the month.
How a billing implementation runs
- 1
Map your current cycle
We walk one real project end to end: how the schedule of values is built, who assembles the application, where retainage is tracked, and what the architect actually sends back. The rework in your cycle is usually in two specific places.
- 2
Build it around your contracts
The schedule of values, retainage terms, certification path and approval routing are configured to how your contracts are actually written, then connected to QuickBooks so the ledger agrees without a second entry.
- 3
Run a live cycle with your team
We run a real billing cycle alongside your PMs and billing admin rather than handing over a manual. The measure is whether the next application goes out faster and comes back certified.
AIA Billing and Pay Applications: Common Questions
- What is an AIA pay application?
- An AIA pay application is the standard progress billing package a contractor submits to bill for work completed to date, consisting of a G702 summary and a G703 continuation sheet that breaks the contract into the schedule of values. ManoByte implements this billing stack for construction companies so the summary and the continuation sheet are generated from the same schedule of values rather than maintained separately.
- What is the difference between G702 and G703?
- The G702 is the one-page application and certificate for payment that states the contract sum, the work completed, retainage held, and the amount currently due. The G703 is the continuation sheet behind it, listing each line of the schedule of values with its scheduled value and the work completed this period. They have to agree, which is why ManoByte implements them as outputs of one schedule of values rather than two documents kept in step by hand.
- How do you track retainage across pay applications?
- Retainage should be tracked as a ledger, with amounts held, released, and outstanding recorded per application and per job, rather than as a column recalculated in a spreadsheet each month. ManoByte implements a retainage ledger so the balance is auditable at any point and the release conversation at closeout starts from a figure both parties can see.
- Can a pay application connect to QuickBooks?
- Yes. ManoByte implements a two-way QuickBooks connection covering invoices, payments, and change data capture, so a certified pay application becomes an invoice in the accounting system without a second round of data entry and without the two records drifting apart.
- How does the architect or owner certify the application?
- The application is generated as a PDF and shared through a public link, so the architect or owner can review and certify it without needing an account or a login. Each submission, review, and certification is written to an event log with its timestamp, so the billing history can be reconstructed from a record rather than from an email thread.
- How long does a billing implementation take?
- ManoByte scopes billing implementations to have a real pay application cycle running inside 90 days. The first phase maps your current cycle on a live project, the second configures the schedule of values, retainage terms, and certification path around how your contracts are written, and the third runs a live billing cycle with your team.
Your work is profitable.
Your billing cycle shouldn't hide it.
Tell us how long it takes from work-in-place to cash in the door today, and we will show you where the cycle is actually losing the days.