AIA Billing Software for General Contractors

A general contractor bills in two directions

A subcontractor sends one pay application up the chain each month. A general contractor does that too, and then does the reverse for every sub on the job: collects their pay applications, checks them against their schedules of values, holds their retainage, collects their lien waivers, and pays them out of what the owner paid.

Most AIA billing tools are built for the first half only. EZBilling is built for both. The owner contract and every subcontract live on the same project, so what you bill, what you owe, and what you are holding are always looking at the same numbers.

Billing the owner

Each project starts with a schedule of values, lump sum or unit price. Every billing period you enter progress against the lines, and EZBilling produces the application summary and the continuation sheet in the AIA G702/G703 format.

• Work completed this period, work from previous applications and stored materials are tracked per line, cumulative to date.
• Approved change orders update the contract sum and become billable lines.
• Retainage is calculated at the project rate or line by line, with held and released amounts kept separately.
• Pay applications are sent from the app and every send is logged against the record.

Paying subcontractors

Subcontracts carry their own schedule of values and their own retainage. When a sub bills you, their pay application is recorded against that schedule, so you can see what they have billed, what is left and what you are holding.

• Subcontractor retainage is held as a separate payable until you release it.
• Backcharges reduce what a sub is owed for costs you carried on their behalf.
• Joint checks pay a sub and their supplier together and are tracked against the same payable.
• Lien waivers and certificates of insurance are tracked per subcontractor alongside their payments.

Retainage on both sides of the job

Retainage owed to you by the owner and retainage you owe your subs are different balances, and both move during the job. EZBilling carries them in separate ledger accounts from ordinary receivables and payables, so an aging report never mixes money that is due now with money that is held until completion.

Retainage can be released part-way through a project. The reduction appears on the pay application, and the release is recorded as a movement of an existing receivable, not as new revenue.

Accounting that understands jobs

Invoices, bills and payments post journal entries automatically to a double-entry general ledger. Costs carry a project and a cost code, using CSI MasterFormat divisions and labor, material, subcontract, equipment and other cost types.

From that, EZBilling reports work in progress: percent complete, earned revenue, and how far each job is over or under billed.

Compliance and closeout

The paperwork that holds up payment is part of the same system: conditional and unconditional lien waivers, insurance certificates with expiration dates, WH-347 certified payroll for prevailing wage work, and the closeout documents used alongside AIA G704, G706, G706A, G707 and G707A.

Who EZBilling is for

Small to mid-size commercial general contractors who bill on AIA-format pay applications and want billing, subcontractor management and job cost accounting in one place, without buying an enterprise ERP.