AIA billing (G702 & G703)

AIA billing is the most widely recognized format for progress payments on commercial and institutional construction. It standardizes how a contractor requests payment so owners, architects, and lenders can review every project the same way. The package is built on two forms from the American Institute of Architects that are nearly always used as a pair.

The G702, the Application and Certificate for Payment, is the one-page summary: original contract sum, change orders, total completed and stored to date, retainage, previous payments, and the current payment due. It also carries the contractor's certification and a block for the architect to certify the amount. The G703, the Continuation Sheet, is the detailed backup — the schedule of values, line by line.

You fill out the G703 first. Each line of the schedule of values shows its scheduled value, work completed in previous applications, work completed this period, materials presently stored, total completed and stored to date, the percent that represents, the balance to finish, and the retainage on that line. The columns total at the bottom.

Those totals roll up into the G702 summary. The 'total completed and stored to date' on the G702 must equal the corresponding total on the G703 — that reconciliation is what makes the application internally consistent. The G702 then subtracts retainage and prior payments to arrive at the current payment due.

The architect reviews the application, may adjust the certified amount, signs the certificate, and the owner pays based on that certification. This review-and-certify loop is the core of why AIA forms exist: an independent party confirms the work before money is released.

Set up the schedule of values once at the start, with line items that sum to the contract sum. Each period, update the work-completed and stored-materials columns, fold approved change orders into the contract sum on the G702, and let the retainage column compute the held amount. Reconcile the G703 totals to the G702 before submitting.

Accuracy matters because a mismatched or over-billed application gets kicked back, delaying payment. Common snags are forgetting to carry change orders into the contract sum, front-loading early line items, and retainage that doesn't tie out across the two forms.

Simple Contractor CRM doesn't generate the official AIA forms today, but the structure it produces maps cleanly onto them: a line-item estimate becomes the schedule of values, progress draws track work completed by period, and retainage is applied per draw. That gives you the same underlying numbers a G702/G703 needs. Native AIA-format export is the kind of capability that would be on the roadmap, not something to claim today.