Commercial · General contractors

Committed is most of your exposure.

The day you sign a $458,200 drywall subcontract, that money is spoken for — and it will sit there for seven months while the ledger shows almost nothing spent. BLT carries the whole subcontract value from signature, against the estimate it was bought out from, on the schedule of values line it belongs to.

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Schedule of values

The SOV is the phase structure. Not a second spreadsheet.

Estimate, buyout, subcontract, invoice, and pay app all sit on the same line. The application due on the 25th ties because there is nothing to tie it to but itself.

Building B · shell Pay app 07 · due the 25th $2.11M / 4.22M
SOV lineBaselineCurrentCommittedActual
02 · Sitework386,000386,000—381,400
03 · Concrete742,000768,50094,300651,900
05 · Structural steel1,180,0001,180,000402,000778,000
07 · Thermal & roofing465,000465,000465,000—
09 · Finishes412,000458,200396,90061,300
23 · Mechanical905,000905,000690,000215,000
PCO-11 · Added roof curbs—38,40038,400—
PCO-14 · Slab depression, elev. 2—21,900—24,760 ↑
Contract total4,090,0004,223,0002,086,6002,112,360

$2,086,600 Committed against $2,112,360 Actual. Half of what this job owes has been signed and not yet invoiced.

Two halves of one contract

The trailer and the accounting office, on the same line item.

In the field

The daily log closes at 4:30 and it counts heads.

Manpower by sub, weather, and what stopped. A delay recorded the day it happened with a photo attached is a time extension request. Written from memory in August it is an opinion.

  • Manpower by subcontractor, counted not estimated — eleven Elite Drywall on level 3, nine Cascade Mechanical in the penthouse, four of your own carpenters
  • Weather on the row: 0.6" of rain and a 41° morning recorded against the day the slab didn’t pour
  • Delays logged with the cause, the trade held up, and the photograph, the hour they happen
  • Vision AI reads the day’s uploads and routes a missing guardrail to the sub who owns that scope, not to the whole distribution list
  • Sub crews clock in with a code from the gate — no badge system, no app store, GPS on the row
  • Inspections photographed and signed on the phone, filed against the SOV line they clear
In the office

Cost to complete, per line, on the 24th.

The pay application is not a document you assemble. It is a view of a ledger that has been correct all month.

  • Cost to date, Committed, and cost to complete on every SOV line, updated the moment a sub invoice posts
  • Buyout tracked against the estimate line by line — you see the $46,200 you gave up on Division 09 in February, not at closeout
  • Change orders carry their own SOV lines, so the base contract stays legible through PCO 14
  • Retainage held per subcontract at 10%, released per line, reconciled to the dollar
  • An expired COI or a missing conditional waiver holds that sub’s payment before the wire goes out — not discovered by the insurance audit in November
  • The application on the 25th exports from the same rows the field filled, with the daily logs behind them
Buyout variance 2 hrs ago
Division 09 bought out $46,200 above the estimate, committed in full on Feb 9. Estimate carried $412,000 for drywall and acoustical ceiling. Elite Drywall subcontract signed at $458,200 — the whole value moved to Committed that day. Two other bids came in at $455,000 and $471,000, so the market is above the estimate, not the sub.
Open the SOV line
Buyout

Know it in February, not at closeout.

Buyout is where a commercial job is won or lost, and it is over before the second month. BLT compares every executed subcontract to the estimate line that carried it, states the gap in dollars, and shows the other bids so you can tell an estimating problem from a market problem.

BLT AISubcontractsEstimates
The daily log

A Thursday, written as it happened.

Every entry carries an hour, an actor, and a line item. This is the record a schedule claim is built from six months later.

Daily log · Building B · Thursday
06:31weather41°F, 0.6" overnight rain — elev. 2 slab pour pushed to Mondaydelay
07:04manpowerElite Drywall 11 · Cascade Mechanical 9 · Pace Electric 6 · self-perform 430
09:18vision.flagGuardrail removed at level 3 north edge — routed to Elite Drywall, scope ownersafety
10:52sub.invoiceCascade Mechanical progress billing 04 posted to 23 · Mechanical, 10% retained148,200.00
10:53gate.holdPayment held — Cascade general liability COI expired Apr 30, no conditional waiver on fileheld
13:40pco.openPCO-14 slab depression at elev. 2 priced from the structural RFI response21,900.00
15:12inspectLevel 4 fire caulk inspection passed, 22 penetrations photographed and signedpass
16:30log.closeSuperintendent closed the day — one delay, one safety flag, one payment gated—

COI expiry blocks the wire

Every subcontractor carries general liability, auto, and workers’ comp dates. Thirty days out it warns you. On the expiry date it holds the payment.

Waivers per pay period

Conditional on billing, unconditional on payment, tracked per sub per application. The missing one is on the screen before the check run, not after.

Retainage to the dollar

Held per subcontract, released per line at substantial completion. What you owe at closeout is a number you already have.

See the ledger

Run one job through a pay app cycle.

Free on one project with every feature. Load the schedule of values and the 25th stops being a week of work.

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