Construction AP automation and invoice matching

Construction AP automation captures subcontractor and vendor invoices and AIA pay applications from email, reads them with AI, codes them to the job, phase, and cost code, matches them against the subcontract and purchase order, tracks retainage and lien waivers, routes them for approval, and posts the coded entry into the construction ERP. It replaces the manual entry, email approval chains, and ERP re-keying that slow construction AP teams down.

By email. Each company gets a dedicated AP inbox, so subcontractors and suppliers send invoices and pay applications straight to it, or your team forwards them. Every attachment is fingerprinted on arrival to catch duplicates, then read into structured line items. There is no login for your vendors and no portal to force on them.

Modern document AI reads printed and scanned invoices reliably, and accuracy is highest when the extraction is checked against a purchase order and budget rather than trusted blindly. Buildalytic pairs capture with matching, so a misread line does not silently become a posted payable. A human reviews the exceptions.

Retainage is treated as a first-class number, not a note. It applies the contracted percentage to each schedule-of-values line, carries the cumulative held balance forward across billing cycles, handles step-downs such as 10 percent to 5 percent at 50 percent complete, and accounts for stored materials, so the held balance is right at closeout instead of reconstructed.

It matches each invoice against the subcontract or purchase order and the delivery or work completed, and it accounts for approved change orders. Line-level matching with tolerance bands and cumulative billing means a commitment cannot be over-paid: overbilling, out-of-scope charges, and cost-code mismatches are flagged before approval, not found at month-end.

Approved, coded invoices post into the ERP you run with the job cost, cost code, and retainage attached. Viewpoint Vista, Sage 300 CRE, CMiC, Foundation, Sage Intacct Construction, and Procore are common examples. Where an ERP exposes an API we connect to it directly; where it does not, which is common with legacy construction ERPs, we set the integration up through the ERP vendor. Your ERP stays the system of record and the general ledger.

Yes. Conditional and unconditional waivers are tracked per vendor per job, and payment is held until the required signed waiver is received, so no waiver, no payment is enforced, not just flagged. Notice to Owner and lien-rights status are tracked alongside, which is where double-payment and lien exposure come from when AP runs on a simple two-approver rule.

Yes. Each vendor keeps a certificate of insurance and any required licenses on file with expiration alerts, and payment is held the moment coverage lapses. On prevailing wage and Davis-Bacon work, a subcontractor’s certified payroll and compliance documents are verified as a condition of payment alongside the lien waiver and insurance certificate.

Yes. Vendors and subs onboard with a W-9, and their spend is tracked so the 1099-NEC workpaper separates reportable labor from non-reportable materials and flags backup-withholding cases. When you pay a sub and its material supplier together, the joint check is recorded with the agreement and documentation attached to the payable.

Generic AP tools capture an invoice, code it to a GL account, route it, and pay it, which works for a two-line vendor bill. They do not read AIA pay applications, carry retainage per line with step-downs, code to a job, phase, and cost code, gate on lien waivers, or post into a construction ERP like Sage 300 CRE or Vista. Construction AP breaks exactly where those obligations start, and that is what Buildalytic is built for.

Both. General contractors use it to process subcontractor and supplier invoices, and subcontractors use it for their own vendor and material-supplier AP. The job-cost coding, retainage, and lien-waiver logic apply on either side of the ledger, and a firm that is a GC on some jobs and a sub on others runs both in one place.

Onboarding is measured in weeks, not the multi-month IT project a rip-and-replace requires. The longest single step is usually onboarding subcontractors to the portal and waiver workflow. Because Buildalytic posts through your ERP’s own interface, there is no system to migrate before you see value.