THE INVOICE WAS RIGHT. IT CAME BACK ANYWAY.
Four things cause most of it, and they take about an hour to tell apart. The percentages don't agree with what the general contractor's own field staff observed. The billing period fell outside the cut-off in the subcontract. The work was performed on a verbal and there's no priced change order behind the line. Or the lien waiver, certified payroll or insurance certificate that had to travel with the application didn't. Only the first is a genuine argument about the work. The other three are administrative, and each one is fixable before the next application goes out. Work out which you have before you escalate, because escalating a paperwork problem to a project executive costs you credibility you'll want later for a real one.
The reason a disputed application is worse than a late one is that it stops the clock, and a late one only extends it. A late invoice is still an invoice, aging toward a conversation you can have. A disputed one is nothing until somebody agrees what it's worth, and every day of disagreement is a day your own cash finances somebody else's project while your AR aging reports money that may never come in at that figure.
WHAT IT MEANS.
A disputed invoice in construction is a pay application the general contractor has refused or reduced while agreeing that some work was performed, which makes it a different problem from a late payment: nobody is arguing about the date, they're arguing about the amount, and until the amount is settled the clock on collection hasn't started.
Almost everything that decides a dispute months later was created or missed in the week the work happened. A daily report with a photograph, a written direction with a number on it, an email confirming a verbal instruction. None of it feels urgent at the time and all of it's what a reasonable reader looks at when two accounts of the same events disagree. The contractors who win these arguments aren't better at arguing. They kept better records while nobody was arguing.
FOUR CAUSES, AND ONLY ONE IS A REAL ARGUMENT.
The percentages don't agree with what the field observed
You billed a phase at seventy percent and the general contractor's superintendent walked it at fifty. This is the only one of the four that's a genuine dispute about the work, and evidence decides it, not insistence. Daily reports, dated photographs and quantities installed against the schedule of values are what settle it; a second opinion from your own foreman is not. Where the schedule of values was front-loaded at the start of the job, expect this argument at the point the billing gets ahead of the visible work, and expect to lose it if the loading was never justified by real early cost.
The application missed the general contractor's cut-off
Most subcontracts state a day of the month by which an application has to be in, tied to the general contractor's own billing to the owner. Miss it by a day and the whole application waits a full cycle, which reads to your office as a rejection and is really a calendar problem. It's the most common cause on this list and the cheapest to eliminate: the cut-off comes off the subcontract at setup and goes into the billing calendar, so nobody has to remember it under pressure at month end.
There's no priced change order behind the line
The crew performed extra work on a verbal instruction and the application carries the cost with no executed change order behind it. From the general contractor's side there's nothing to certify, so the line comes off, and your job now reports a loss on a phase that was really a billing failure. The subcontract almost always already entitles you to a written direction before proceeding. Where the work is already done, a change order letter that states the instruction, who gave it, when, and what it cost is the document that recovers it.
The compliance documents didn't travel with it
Conditional lien waivers for you and your lower tiers, certified payroll on public work, an insurance certificate that hasn't lapsed. On a lot of projects the application is refused by a system before a person reads it, because one of these is missing or out of date. Nobody at the general contractor experiences this as a dispute, which is why it can sit for weeks: from their side the application was never complete. Tracking vendor compliance beside the billing, and not in somebody's inbox, is what stops it recurring.
WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE IN DOLLARS.
Get the reason in writing before you respond to it. A reduced line with no comment is usually a percentage disagreement; a whole application returned is usually a cut-off or a compliance failure. If nobody will put a reason in writing, that itself is the finding, and it tells you the conversation belongs a level up.
Daily reports, photographs, quantities, the change order log and every email around the instruction. Assemble it before you make an argument, because the argument you can support is often smaller than the one you want to make, and discovering that in the meeting is expensive.
Split the application. Bill everything nobody is arguing about now and carry the contested line separately. Contractors routinely hold a whole application hostage to one disputed line and finance the difference themselves for a month. The undisputed portion was always collectible and there's no reason for it to wait on the rest.
Notice periods for claims, and the preliminary notice and lien deadlines where you work. Both are jurisdiction-specific and both are shorter than people assume. This is the step to do while the dispute is young, because the deadline doesn't pause while you negotiate, and a right you've let expire stops being leverage.
THREE CONTROLS, ALL OF THEM CHEAP.
Read it off the subcontract the week the job is awarded and give it to whoever produces the applications. One recurring reminder per active job. This eliminates the most common cause on the list for the cost of ten minutes per job, and it stops your billing calendar from depending on one person's memory during the busiest week of the month.
A number, a date and a signature before anybody builds extra work. The person who enforces it's whoever assigns the crew, so this is a dispatch rule and not an accounting one. It removes cause three entirely, and it removes the argument in which your own superintendent's recollection is the only evidence you have.
Waivers, certified payroll and insurance certificates for you and your lower tiers, with expiry dates visible before an application goes out. Cause four is the one that produces the longest silences, because from the general contractor's side there's nothing to respond to. Closing the books and reconciling by the tenth helps here too: an application built from a closed month carries figures nobody has to defend twice.
FLAT MONTHLY FEE. NO SURPRISES.
Three tiers, priced by your trailing twelve month revenue. Which one you're in depends on how much of the work you want off your desk. No hourly billing, no payroll, and no add-ons.
Pricing
| Last 12 months revenue | Monthly fee |
|---|---|
| Up to $1M | $1,900 to $2,900 |
| $1M to $3.5M | $2,600 to $3,900 |
| $3.5M to $6.5M | $3,800 to $5,700 |
| $6.5M to $9.5M | $5,100 to $7,100 |
| $9.5M to $12.5M | $6,100 to $8,500 |
| $12.5M to $15.5M | $7,400 to $11,000 |
| $15.5M to $18.5M | $9,400 to $13,500 |
| $18.5M+ | Quoted individually |
Range reflects the three tiers below. Which one you're in depends on how much of the work you want off your desk. No payroll. No hidden line items.
You stop guessing.
You get the CFO work. Job costing built against the way you estimate, a 13 week cash forecast, monthly WIP, and a meeting every month that ends in decisions rather than a report.
Your bookkeeper keeps doing the books.
You stop touching the books.
Everything in Core, and we run the bookkeeping and the controllership as well. Nobody in your office is answering coding questions or chasing a reconciliation at month end.
We do the books. No payroll.
Every job shows its margin while it's still running.
Everything in Executive, plus the job costing and WIP platform set up, loaded with your cost codes, and managed for you every month. You never have to learn it.
We do the job costing.
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