Do I have to buy official AIA forms?

Only if your contract says so. Official G702/G703 forms are licensed at aiacontracts.com — single-use documents start around $49.99 and a full AIA Contract Documents subscription runs roughly $2,199.99 per user per year. That cost is why virtually all construction billing software (Werx, Knowify, BuiltSum) produces 'AIA-style' documents instead: original layouts carrying the same information, accepted by most GCs.

Who signs a G702-style application?

The contractor signs a certification that the work billed was performed under the contract; many owners require notarization. The architect (or owner's representative) then signs a certificate approving payment of the certified amount — which can be less than the amount requested if they dispute progress.

How often is AIA billing submitted?

Monthly, on the schedule fixed in the contract — commonly by the 20th or 25th so the GC can roll sub pay apps into its own application to the owner. Miss the cutoff and your payment typically slips a full month.

What happens if my pay app has a math error?

The GC or architect rejects it, and the correction cycle usually costs you the billing period — 30 more days of financing the work. The most common errors are retainage drift across periods, continuation-sheet lines that stop summing to the contract sum after a change order, and previous-application columns that don't match last month's certified totals.

What is AIA billing?

AIA billing is progress billing using the American Institute of Architects’ standardized pay-application format: the G702® Application and Certificate for Payment, which summarizes the contract sum, work completed, retainage, and the payment currently due, and the G703® Continuation Sheet, which breaks the contract into a schedule of values billed line by line. Contractors submit the package monthly; the architect or owner’s representative certifies it; payment follows the certified amount.

Why GCs require it

On commercial work, the general contractor bills the owner once a month and needs every subcontractor’s billing in a format that rolls up cleanly. The AIA format has been the de facto standard for decades: the same nine summary lines, the same continuation-sheet columns, the same retainage arithmetic — so an architect can certify twenty pay apps without decoding twenty invoice styles.

The G702-style summary, line by line

Original contract sum — the value of the signed contract.
Net change by change orders — approved additions minus deductions to date.
Contract sum to date — line 1 + line 2.
Total completed and stored to date — the continuation sheet’s total: all work performed plus materials stored on site, from job start through this period.
Retainage — the percentage withheld, usually split between completed work (5a) and stored materials (5b).
Total earned less retainage — line 4 − line 5.
Less previous certificates for payment — everything already certified on earlier applications.
Current payment due — line 6 − line 7. The number everyone reads first.
Balance to finish, including retainage — line 3 − line 6.

The G703-style continuation sheet

Each schedule-of-values line carries its scheduled value, work completed in previous periods, work completed this period, materials presently stored, the total completed and stored, percent complete, balance to finish, and retainage. Two rules keep it acceptable: the scheduled values must sum exactly to the contract sum to date, and the “previous applications” column must match what was certified last month. When either drifts — usually after a change order or a hand-typed roll-forward — the pay app bounces.

Official forms vs. “AIA-style”

G702 and G703 are copyrighted; official copies are licensed through AIA Contract Documents (single-use from about $49.99, or roughly $2,199.99/user/year for a subscription). That is why billing software produces AIA-style documents — independently designed forms presenting the same functional information. Most GCs accept them; a minority of contracts require official forms, so check yours. BuiltSum is not affiliated with the AIA, and its documents are AIA-style, not official AIA Contract Documents.

Doing it without retyping every month

The painful part of AIA billing is not the first application — it’s the tenth: rolling every line’s totals forward, keeping retainage consistent, folding in change orders, and reconciling previous certificates. You can do it free with our pay application generator (it saves your schedule of values and rolls it forward), check withholding against your state’s cap with the retainage calculator, or let BuiltSum run the whole chain from estimate to certified payment.