Playbook / Construction

How to automate progress billing and pay applications in construction

On most projects, billing is where the cash gets stuck. Pay applications, schedules of values, lien waivers, change orders, and retainage all have to line up before anyone gets paid. One wrong line or a missing waiver restarts the clock. This playbook shows how Rigby reads, matches, and assembles a clean pay app so the money moves on time.

94 days
Average time to collect on a construction invoice, more than double the all-industry norm
82%
of contractors wait more than 30 days to get paid (Rabbet, 2024)
5 to 10%
held as retainage until the job closes out
3 to 5%
invoice error rate adds 5 to 10 days per disputed pay app (CreditPulse, 2025)
$280B
annual cost of slow construction payments across the industry (industry estimate, 2024)
The definition

What does it mean to automate construction billing?

An AI agent reads every pay application, subcontractor invoice, lien waiver, and change order. It matches each line against the schedule of values and the contract, flags what is short or missing, and assembles a complete, ready-to-submit billing package. A human still approves. The agent does the matching, the chasing, and the paperwork.
The cost of doing it by hand

Why construction billing is so expensive.

82%
of contractors face payment waits over 30 days, up from 49% two years earlier (Rabbet, 2024)
Rabbet, 2024
12%
of construction businesses say they always get paid on time (Levelset, 2022)
Levelset, 2022
5 to 10 days
added to a cycle by every short-paid or disputed invoice (CreditPulse, 2025)
CreditPulse, 2025
$273B
a year in late payments inflating construction bids (PYMNTS, 2024)
PYMNTS, 2024
How it works

How Rigby runs construction billing.

Five steps, on the systems your team already uses.

01

Audit

An ops specialist embeds with your billing team and learns how you build a pay app: your schedule of values, your waiver process, your retainage terms, your exceptions.

02

Schema

Rigby encodes your contract logic. SOV line items, retainage percentages, stored-materials rules, waiver requirements, and approval chains.

03

Match

The agent reads each invoice and pay app in any format (PDF, AIA G702 and G703, email, scan), matches line items to the SOV, and checks that waivers and change orders are attached.

04

Flag

Anything short, miscoded, missing a waiver, or over the SOV routes to a human with the reason attached. Nothing guesses.

05

Run

The clean package is assembled and queued for approval. Every action is logged and reversible. The agent learns from each correction.

Scope

What it handles, and what it leaves alone.

We build this

  • Reading and matching pay apps to the schedule of values
  • Lien waiver tracking and exception flagging
  • Change order and retainage math
  • Assembling submission-ready billing packages

Scoped carefully

  • Final approval stays with your PM or controller
  • Ambiguous contract terms are surfaced, not assumed
  • Disputed amounts are flagged for a human, never auto-resolved

We do not do

  • We do not release payment or move funds
  • We do not sign or notarize waivers
  • We do not change contract terms
Proof point

94 days is the industry norm. It does not have to be yours.

[TESTED-BY QUOTE GOES HERE ONCE A PILOT EXISTS]

Construction runs the longest payment cycles of any industry, driven by complex pay apps, retainage, and multi-tier approvals. Rigby attacks the part you control: clean, matched, complete billing packages that give approvers nothing to send back.

Talk to our team
FAQ

Frequently asked questions.

Yes. The agent reads standard AIA forms plus custom SOV formats and matches line items either way.

Clean pay apps, paid on time.

Live in days. Rigby reads, matches, and assembles. Your team keeps approvals and the money.

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