Construction billing, the way the industry does it
Schedule-of-values progress billing, AIA G702/G703 draws, percentage-of-completion revenue, and retainage on both the buyer (AR) and contractor (AP) side, plus contract PDF parsing.
Real estate development has its own billing language, and most software either ignores it or leaves you to fake it in a spreadsheet. Over the last stretch we built it into Zeno’s Development module: schedule-of-values progress billing, AIA-style draws, percentage-of-completion revenue, and retainage on both sides of the deal.
A Schedule of Values that drives everything
Every contract has a Schedule of Values, the line-by-line breakdown of contract value into billable components. It’s a table with its own lifecycle, and the rest of the billing hangs off it. Draws reference SOV lines, invoices link back to them, and percent-complete rolls up from them. A buyer invoice and the schedule behind it agree because they read the same rows.
AIA G702/G703 draws
Progress billing in construction runs on the AIA G702/G703 forms, the application for payment and its continuation sheet. Zeno generates draws in that shape: bill this period against the schedule, roll up percent-complete per line, and produce the document a lender or owner expects. The draw posts to the ledger on submit as a percentage-of-completion entry, and draw-linked invoices relieve the Contract Asset, so revenue recognition happens as you bill instead of at quarter end.
Retainage on both sides
Retainage is where a lot of construction accounting goes sideways, because it runs in two directions at once:
- On the buyer side (AR), each phase can withhold retainage as you bill, accumulating a held-back balance that releases on the terms you set.
- On the contractor side (AP), the same mechanism withholds retainage from contractor bills, accumulates it, and releases it when the work is accepted.
Both are prefilled, editable per phase, and carried as balances in the ledger.
Contracts that foot
A few guardrails came with the billing engine. Phases group into named parts (A1, A2, B1) for contracts structured that way. Amendments are billable and payable through a single Bill action that shows the outstanding amount. And Zeno won’t save a contract whose phases don’t foot to the total, which is the kind of error you otherwise discover on a draw six months later.
Less typing to get started
New contracts often arrive as a PDF. Zeno can parse one and fill in the New Contract page with the parties, value, and phases, so you edit a draft instead of transcribing from scratch. There’s also a Condo Book tab for organizing per-category plans, attachments, and links against a development.
This is the deepest accounting work we’ve shipped for developers yet. If you bill construction and want a walkthrough, we’d like the feedback: [email protected].