The monthly pay application, checked in minutes.
Once a month the contractor sends a continuation sheet saying what is complete, and somebody has a contractual window to say yes. This reads it, tests every line against your own record, and shows what that record can stand behind.
The application, checked against the frozen baseline. Fictional project. Every figure is computed from the registers.
The problem this solves.
The payment application is where the money actually leaves. Every other register on a guaranteed maximum price contract measures exposure; this one measures the pay application. In practice the person who has to approve it has a spreadsheet, an evening, and no practical way to test the sheet against the contract inside the response window, so the usual answer is yes.
Figures are from the fictional project used throughout this site, and are arithmetic rather than an industry claim. Your own numbers are the ones worth knowing.
Set up a GMP project from the amendment and the schedule of values 27 s, no voice over. Nothing loads from YouTube until you press play.All eleven films
Change Order Exposure
An application is only as sound as the changes behind it. Enter your open items by cause and see the weighted exposure, the unweighted total beside it, and what each cause implies about who ends up paying.
It runs the same functions as the product, in your browser. Nothing you type is sent anywhere or stored.
The six checks
The same six, in the same order, every month. Each one names the line that caused it and the amount attached to it, so a finding can be shown to the contractor and pointed at rather than argued about.
| What is tested | Against what | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Every line, one by one | The frozen baseline | A line quietly reweighted upward is the cheapest way to accelerate cash |
| Total scheduled value | GMP plus approved owner scope changes | Anything else on the front sheet is a number nobody signed |
| Contingency claimed to date | The contingency ledger | The one line that can move money never tied to a piece of work |
| Retainage held | The rate in the contract | Retainage held short is money released early and quietly |
| The front sheet | The lines behind it | When they disagree, one of the two was edited after the other |
| Movement in a single month | The value of the line | Not wrong on its own, but the row a reviewer should open first |
What the recommended figure is, and what it is not
The product states what your own record supports: completed and stored to date as the lines add up, less the parts no line in your baseline supports, less retainage at the contract rate, less what has already been certified. Every step is shown on the screen with its amount.
It is arithmetic, not advice. It is not a certificate for payment, it does not account for anything agreed outside the record, and it is not a substitute for the judgment of whoever signs. The wording on the screen says so, next to the number, every time. What it gives you is a defensible starting position and a list of questions with figures attached, inside the window you actually have.
Reading the contractor's file
The continuation sheet arrives as a spreadsheet, and an AIA billing form usually holds two sheets in one workbook: the G702 front sheet and the G703 continuation sheet. The import reads the whole workbook, proposes the sheet that looks like a table of lines, and lets you pick a different one. It maps the columns itself, including the multi row headings that form uses, and it deliberately ignores the computed columns rather than trusting them.
Totals and subtotals are held back, because a subtotal carries money that is already on the lines above it. Nothing is dropped in silence: every held row is named on screen with its amount.
What it is not
It does not pay anybody and no money moves through it. It does not replace your accounting system, and it does not tell you what to approve. It records what was claimed, tests it against what was agreed, and keeps both for as long as the contract lasts.
Instead of the spreadsheet
The alternative is a spreadsheet rebuilt each month from the contractor's file, edited in place, with no record of what last month's version said. It works until the month somebody has to prove what was claimed in March, and then it does not work at all.
Questions owners ask
Does this certify the payment?
No. It states what your own record supports, with every deduction traceable to the line that caused it. It is arithmetic from documents both sides already signed, not a certificate for payment and not advice. Whoever signs still signs.
What file does the contractor have to send?
The continuation sheet as a spreadsheet, CSV or XLSX. Contractors always have it, because the PDF they print is made from it. An AIA billing form usually carries the front sheet and the continuation sheet as two sheets in one workbook, and the import reads the right one.
What exactly is checked?
Six things: every line against the frozen baseline, the total scheduled value against the contract sum, contingency claimed against the contingency ledger, retainage against the contract rate, the front sheet against the lines behind it, and any single month movement large enough to be worth opening.
What happens to a line that is not in the baseline?
It is imported and marked. Nothing in your record supports it yet, so it contributes nothing to the supported figure until it is reconciled. That may be an approved change nobody added to the schedule, which is a paperwork failure worth fixing, or a line that was never agreed.
Next and previous
Previous: the GMP baseline. Everything here is tested against it.
Next: the contingency ledger. The one register a payment application is also checked against.
Send us one pay application. We will check it.
One G703 with the names redacted. Six checks against the schedule of values it came from, and a written answer in two working days. No charge, and no follow up unless you ask for one.