Payment Risk Doesn’t Start in Accounting.

• Map estimate assemblies 1:1 onto job-cost codes so a variance means something in week two, not at closeout.
• Charge equipment at a true internal rate (ownership, maintenance, fuel, transport) to the jobs that used it.
• Recalculate overhead at your revenue band. Do not bid 10% if you run 18–28%.
• Weekly: code job costs and rebuild a 13-week cash forecast. Close books by day 10.
• The PM presents cost-to-complete. Accounting does not invent percent complete.
• Track retainage as its own balance per job, with a release date.
• Price growth against working capital. Extra revenue needs cash before it produces cash.

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• Identify the project owner, property interest, payment chain, and any applicable payment bond before bidding so you understand what payment-protection options may be available.
• Ask in writing: bonded? surety? lender?
• Screen payment terms, retainage vs. state lien deadlines, stop-work rights, flow-down/indemnity.
• Understand the risk of purchasing materials, beginning fabrication, or performing work before the contract is executed. Contract status and project activity can affect the remedies available if the award or project changes.
• Price the cost of carrying 60–90 day money into the bid, or discount for faster terms.
• Understand your escalation options before you need them: stop work, notice, lien, bond claim, licensing-board complaint, breach.

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• Do not allow performance to outpace the contract.
• Treat “the contract” as the full stack: exhibits, drawings, specs, general conditions, addenda, SOV, waiver forms, prime flow-downs. Risk lives in the stack.
• Demand unredacted payment terms. Redacting source-of-funds is normal. Redacting pay-when-paid, retainage, scope, or schedule is a hard stop.
• Redline pay-when-paid / pay-if-paid. Otherwise you are underwriting the owner–GC relationship.
• Evaluate retainage terms against the deadlines governing your payment-protection rights.
• Do not waive the right to stop work for non-payment.
• Write the change-order process into the subcontract: who can authorize, in what form, by when.
• Negotiate the Schedule of Values before signature. After that, changing it is an amendment the GC does not have to accept.
• SOV cash rules: mobilization 3–10% billable at start; stored-materials line for long-lead gear; do not bury early cost in trim.
• Confirm waiver forms match statutory language in statutory-waiver states before you sign the subcontract.

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• File the preliminary/statutory notice on time, including on “trusted” GCs. The payment chain is longer than the relationship. Tell the GC you are filing.
• Collect the actual payment-bond copy while everyone is still friendly.
• Calendar notice, amendment, intent, lien, and bond-claim deadlines on day one. Statutory deadlines are unforgiving. Calendar them before the project gets busy.
• Document the dates and project activity that may affect notice, lien, and bond-claim deadlines based on the requirements of the project jurisdiction.
• Set the Pay App date from the GC’s draw cutoff, not your month-end habit. Submit about five days before they submit or you miss an entire owner draw.
• Establish authorized waiver signers and a defined review process. A waiver should never be executed without visibility into the payment it covers and the rights being released.
• Require lower-tier vendors to run the same notice + waiver process. Their missing paper becomes your problem.
• Open the job in the books against the executed SOV. Estimate, contract, and ledger must use the same words.

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• Same Pay App date every month, busy week or not. Slipping the date across six jobs is 30–45 extra days of you being the bank.
• Clean SOV lines a reviewer can approve without a call.
• Bill stored materials on delivery with gate docs, not after installation.
• Confirm the GC actually put your billing in the owner draw.
• Ongoing waivers:
  1. Conditional with the current Pay App.
  2. Unconditional for the prior Pay App only after that payment has posted and cleared.
  3. Annotate Pay App number, period, amount, and exceptions.
  4. Statutory form in statutory states; email discrepancies before signing.
  5. Authorized signers only. Keep a list.
  6. No unconditional against credit cards, uncertified trailer checks, or unread portal releases.
  7. GC side: no release to a vendor until their lower-tier waivers are in.
• List exceptions on every waiver: open COs, prior unpaid, retention. A blank waiver is a blank check.
• Never sign unconditional against a promise, a trailer check, a credit card (chargeback), or an unread portal release.
• Submit T&M weekly on its own Pay Application.
• If payment slips past contract/statute, the collection SOP starts. “It’ll be Friday” is not a date.

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• No extra work without a written directive that matches the contract. Document the field email, then force the paper.
• Daily reports, photos, and timestamps the day the extra happens.
• Send a notice of delay when other trades or design hold you. That notice preserves the later CO and defends against LDs.
• Price the schedule effect inside the CO (extended general conditions, supervision, disruption). Raising time cost at closeout is usually too late.
• If you must perform before paper exists (hospital / life-safety), written notice to GC and owner the same day, with a dollar estimate.
• Do not hide unapproved extras inside other SOV lines “to stay current.”
• Establish an internal escalation path for unresolved change orders and document each escalation step before moving outside the contractual communication chain.
• Amend notices when a CO grows the contract, in states that require it.
• Bill approved COs in the period they are approved.

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• First demand is yours, on your letterhead, citing the contract term, amount, and next date. Counsel can ghostwrite.
• Then copy the people who control money: GC AP, owner, lender, surety.
• Use the stop-work right you refused to waive in Stage 2. Keeping crews on site is a decision to finance the job.
• File intent / lien / bond claim on the statutory clock, not the GC’s clock.
• Evaluate escalation options while statutory rights may still be available. Once deadlines expire, the available remedies can change significantly.
• Evaluate the cost and leverage of available escalation options before moving directly to litigation.
• Do not pull a valid lien just because a flow-down clause threatens to freeze the next check — get counsel on that clause first.
• Accrue and show contractual/statutory interest. Visibility changes days-to-pay.
• Put carriers on notice when someone else’s design or soils created the extra.

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• Close against the contract definition of substantial/final completion, not “GC said punch is done.”
• Chase retainage the day substantial completion hits. It is not a tip.
• Final unconditional only after the final check, including retainage, has cleared.
• List punch, warranty, and pending claims as exceptions if those dollars are still open.
• Collect lower-tier finals before you issue yours.
• Bond-claim and foreclosure calendars still run during punch. Diplomacy does not toll the statute.

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• Breach demand against the party in privity. Expired lien ≠ expired claim.
• Licensing/registrar complaint against the direct contractor where the board takes non-payment.
• Do not sign a late unconditional to “make the draw happen.” That extinguishes the last leverage you have.
• Document the outcome in your customer and project risk profile so the experience informs future bidding, contract negotiation, and credit decisions.

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