Billing software for general contractor owners

General contractor billing software

You cannot start until the deposit clears, so every day it drifts is a day of committed crew time. Smarfle raises it against the job with terms and a due date attached, so the start date stops moving because of paperwork.

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Smarfle · General Contractor Recurring Billing
Next 30 days

$8,420

Active subscriptions

47

Upcoming auto-charges

Acme Office Park

Monthly maintenance

$485

in 3 days

Riverside Apartments

Quarterly service

$1,200

in 12 days

Downtown Plaza

Monthly recurring

$320

in 18 days

West End Hotel

Bi-weekly contract

$680

in 5 days
Auto-charge enabled · Stripe Connect0.5% platform fee

Real Smarfle UI · Live data from your general contractor CRM

Why generic billing software fails general contractor owners

Generic billing tools weren’t built for general contractor. Smarfle was.

Generic billing software

What everyone else gives you

  • A start date moves because the deposit is still in the mail
  • Milestone invoices forgotten mid-project
  • Change orders absorbed because they aren't invoiced separately

Smarfle for general contractor

Built for your actual workflow

  • Terms and a due date sit on the job, with bank transfer offered on the deposit
  • Each milestone tagged to project with reports showing billed vs collected
  • Generate change order as separate invoice tagged to parent project
Step-by-step

How general contractor billing works in Smarfle

From the first touch to the closed loop. No missing pieces.

  1. 1

    Mobilization money is settled at signing

    What is due before anybody breaks ground sits on the job from the day the contract is signed, so the start date rests on something already discussed.

  2. 2

    The schedule of values drives the draws

    Phases and their amounts are recorded once, so every request is measured against the same plan instead of being reinterpreted each month.

  3. 3

    A completed phase raises its own request

    The phase closing is what produces the document, so a milestone reached in week six is billed in week six rather than whenever somebody reviews the project.

  4. 4

    Approved changes bill alongside the draw

    A signed variation goes out as its own charge in the same cycle, which keeps the base contract figure the number everybody agreed to.

  5. 5

    Retention is tracked to the end

    What is held back on each draw stays visible throughout, so the closing conversation is about a known figure rather than a discovery.

Where general contractor billing breaks down

The friction every general contractor owner recognizes.

✕

A start date moves because money is in the mail

Crew booked, materials ordered, and a deposit somewhere between a customer's checkbook and your bank. The schedule slips for a reason that has nothing to do with building anything.

✕

Milestones pass without anybody billing them

A phase completes and the next one begins. The document for the first gets raised whenever somebody reviews the project, which on a busy job means weeks later.

✕

The owner's questions all arrive at once

A homeowner who has heard nothing for six weeks receives a draw request and asks about everything simultaneously. Silence is what turns one document into a week of email.

The math for general contractor owners

290 crew days on a check

Forty-four starts a year, each held three to ten days by a deposit in transit, is roughly 290 days of crew time already committed to a job that has not begun. Those days do not come back and they are not billable anywhere else. A request with a due date and a way to pay shortens the wait to whatever a bank takes.

44

Jobs started a year

3-10

Days waiting on deposit

~290

Crew days at risk

Based on typical general contractor operations. Your numbers may vary.

Features powering general contractor billing

Each one a deep-dive in its own right.

Draw requests carry their own link

An owner opens the request and pays from it rather than routing a check through an office, which is the difference between a Friday and the following Thursday.

Learn more

The owner reads the account unprompted

Signed-in owners see what has been billed, what has been paid and what is outstanding, so the weekly call stops being a recital of numbers.

Learn more

Cost stays attached to the job that made it

Subcontractor invoices, materials and equipment hire are recorded against the job, so the margin on a build is a number you read rather than assemble.

Learn more

Retention and aging read as one page

Everything still owed sorts by how long it has waited, and held retention sits beside it, so closeout is a list rather than an archaeology exercise.

Learn more

General contractor billing software questions

Put it against the job with a date on it and offer bank transfer. A crew already scheduled while a check travels is the most expensive kind of waiting there is.
Yes, billed against collected at project level. A phase that completed and was never invoiced is invisible on a document list and obvious on a project view.
Each approved change raises its own document tagged to the project. Folded into the next draw they disappear, and a variation the owner cannot see is a variation they will query.
Each draw bills from whatever the build shows is finished, carrying its documents with it. That is what stops the next phase from being funded out of your own account.
You can price each line at the figure you charge and keep supplier costs against the job. Smarfle does not apply a percentage over cost automatically, so the markup is one you set per line.

Moving your general contractor billing software off another tool?

Most general contractor businesses arrive at Smarfle from one of the tools below. See a side-by-side comparison.

Smarfle vs JobberSmarfle vs Smith.aiSmarfle vs CallRailSmarfle vs Birdeye
See all alternatives →

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