I'm Sarah, the accountant for our family construction business. My husband runs the sites; I handle billing and invoices. On a bank-funded restaurant renovation, the bank required AIA G702 and G703 payment applications, and I'd never done one. Two months after the project finished, the bank emailed about a nearly $10,000 balance caused by my math mistakes.
Learning AIA forms the hard way
I read articles, worked through tutorials, and watched a lot of videos to understand the forms. Every time my husband asked me to send an invoice to the owner, it was a nightmare: calculator out, half a day at the computer, adjusting numbers and deducting retainage, which I was learning for the first time.
The bank's email about the $10,000 balance made it clear this had to change. I was afraid to think about how many mistakes I'd made on earlier projects, or what would have happened if the bank hadn't caught this one.
Finding a tool
I searched for software, ran demos, and compared options, and went with APARBooks. It has strong accounting features for a business our size at a low price. It doesn't just produce the AIA payment application; it also calculates project expenses and profit. After almost a decade in this business, I've never had this clear a view of a project's finances, or found the work this easy. The AIA payment application turned out to be a small part of what the software does.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why are AIA payment applications hard to do by hand?
They require precise calculations, including retainage deductions, and each application builds on the previous ones. For someone new to the forms, a single application took Sarah half a day, and errors compounded into a nearly $10,000 discrepancy the bank caught after the project closed.
How does APARBooks help with AIA billing for a small business?
It generates the AIA G702 and G703 payment application and handles the retainage math, and it also tracks project expenses and profit, so a small family business gets accurate applications without a dedicated AIA specialist.
Built for Contractors. Built for Construction Accounting.
APARBooks is purpose-built construction accounting software for general contractors and bookkeepers. Manage job costing, AIA progress billing, subcontractor payments, retainage, change orders, lien compliance, and WIP reporting in one place.
