The following content is sponsored by Zuuse. 

What does a Canadian contractor have in common with a multifamily contractor in Indiana or a contractor in Texas that specializes in fast-food franchise renovations or a commercial general contractor in Texas or a Bay Area builder?

The answer: subcontractor satisfaction and streamlined payment management.

Each of these firms transitioned from conventional paper- and spreadsheet- based processes to an automated invoicing compliance and lien waiver management platform as a way to strengthen relationships with trade partners by offering faster, more transparent visibility into payments. 

Integrated Advantage

Chandos is one of Canada’s most innovative and collaborative builders and the first and largest B Corp certified commercial builder in North America. Sean MacDonell, accounting manager for the firm, estimated that project accountants were spending 60% of their time processing trades rather than working on other, more important initiatives. The accounting team and project managers used to need hours to figure out if discrepancies were math errors or disagreements and then develop a plan for how to proceed. The firm adopted GCPay, a purpose-built payment application and lien release processing platform, to automate its manual payment workflows as a way to minimize confusion about contract amounts or issues related to documentation.

On the accounting side, there is less manual data entry, which means fewer errors since the platform is integrated with the company’s accounting system, Viewpoint Vista. And with the Vista integration, data from GCPay can be imported and updated in Vista with the click of a button, quickly eradicating errors. “It’s an easy sell once the project managers see how it works,” MacDonell says. “Everyone who has dealt with it so far wants to keep using it on their projects.”

A Schedule of Values

Verdad Real Estate and Construction Services is a commercial general contractor in South Lake, Texas, which specializes in new construction and remodeling projects for franchises like 7-Eleven, Tiff’s Treats and Popeye’s Chicken. The company transitioned to GCPay in 2019. Beyond the benefits of timelier payments, subcontractor partners are realizing additional advantages. Verdad’s Senior Project Coordinator Tammi Savage, explains, “They can set their own schedule of values the way they want to break it out. Then it fits with what they want to bill, not our line item. And the waiver is automatically filled out for them. All they have to do is print it out, sign it, notarize it, upload it and we get it back.”

Savage added that her job is streamlined as well. “I can get my job done more efficiently. I can see if a sub has submitted billing. If they haven’t, I can reach out to them. Having that overview in one spot is more convenient, versus having to go check each folder for that sub. If we were still doing things that way, I would say we’d probably have to hire two more people.”

Visible Time Savings

Indiana-based multifamily and residential housing contractor Cityscape Residential is a newcomer to GCPay. The firm was looking for a way to improve the accounting and subcontractor billing part of the payment process. What used to be a four-day process to do a draw has become a 4-6 hour process. President of Construction at Cityscape, Mike Patarino, confirms, “In construction, we’re controlled by our pay application process. I told our CFO, if for any reason, you want to get rid of GCPay, I’ll quit.”

He’s not alone. Dome Construction, one of leading construction firms in San Francisco, California, adopted GCPay over a decade ago. In that time, Dome Construction’s Billing Supervisor Carmina Cardenas, concludes, “It’s made us a better general contractor. Subs always know where they are in the payment application process, and they get paid on time because GCPay is perfectly accurate.”

Relationships with trade partners in today’s environment is more important than ever. Reshape your conventional paper- and spreadsheet-based processes to an automated invoicing compliance and lien waiver management platform for workflow ease and build rapport.