Building a submittal register from the specification
Reading the specification section by section to produce the list of everything that must be submitted, who owes it, and when it is needed working back from the schedule.
AI automation for construction and contracting firms
The estimate, the project system and the accounting system each hold a cost code structure, and the mapping between them lives in a spreadsheet maintained by one person.
A project generates a paper chain where each hop is a re-keying. A field condition becomes a time and materials tag, then a potential change order, then a priced request, then an executed change order, then a budget revision, then a line on the next payment application. Every hop is a place the amount can quietly diverge.
Drawings are the authority and they are PDFs. A revised sheet arrives as a bulletin, and if it is not slipped into the current set, somebody builds from a superseded drawing. Automated document handling fails exactly where a human has to recognise that a revision supersedes another and that the change was inside a cloud on one elevation.
Waiver collection is the recurring back-office task that generates the most complaints. Before releasing payment, somebody requests waivers from every subcontractor and supplier, checks the form matches the statutory wording where the state prescribes one, checks the through-date, and holds payment on whoever has not returned.
What this work runs through
- Procore
- Buildertrend
- Bluebeam Revu
- Sage 300 CRE
- Excel
- DocuSign
- Request for information, and the log that tracks it
- Submittal register, built by reading the specification
- Payment application with its schedule of values
- Lien waivers in conditional and in unconditional form
- Certified payroll, where the work is publicly funded
- Documents and records
- Quoting and estimating
- Billing and collections
- Compliance and audit
- Recurring reporting
The specific things that go wrong here
Cost codes never match across systems
Estimating carries one cost-code structure. Project management carries another. Accounting carries a third. When the mapping drifts, job cost reports become quietly wrong, and nobody notices until the work in progress schedule looks strange to a surety.
Waiver forms are statutory in some states and free in others
A waiver on the wrong form or carrying the wrong through-date can be void, or can waive more than intended. Templating one form across states is a legal risk rather than a formatting convenience.
Work happens before the change order is approved
The field cannot wait for paperwork, so the physical record and the financial record are out of step for the duration of the job. Any automation assuming approval precedes cost will be wrong most of the time.
Owner and lender portals have one login and no interface
Payment applications are uploaded by hand, often with a required naming convention and upload order. The credential is frequently shared, which is a control problem as well as an automation blocker.
What we would automate, and when we would not
Collecting lien waivers before the payment run
Requesting the right form for the jurisdiction, tracking what came back, checking the through-date, and holding the stragglers.
Chasing an information request to an answer
Logging and routing, then chasing, then propagating the answer to the drawing set and the affected subcontractor.
Assembling the monthly payment application and its backup
Billing week opens and the same numbers get retyped.
Catching certified payroll errors before the agency portal does
Public work adds a weekly statement of compliance behind every payroll run, and the portal is where it comes apart.
Writing an approved change order into every system
An approved change order lands in more places than anyone remembers.
Reading signed field tickets into billable change work
A tag gets filled out at the end of a shift, signed by whichever superintendent is standing there, then rides around in a truck.
Noticing a subcontractor policy that expired mid job
Nothing fires when a policy lapses.
Calendaring notice windows from the first furnishing date
The clock that matters starts at neither the contract nor the invoice.
Building the closeout package final payment depends on
Final payment waits on a stack that already exists in pieces.
Reconciling cost codes between the estimate and the ledger
Three structures and one spreadsheet holding them together, maintained by one person.
Refreshing subcontractor prequalification before the file goes stale
Every prequalification file ages.
Sorting bid invitations into one decided bid board
An estimator opens a mailbox holding invitations from BuildingConnected, from iSqFt, from a plan room link that expires, and from a project manager who just attached the drawings.
Checking a bid package against the instructions to bidders
Public bids fail on paperwork rather than on price.
Matching supplier invoices to signed delivery tickets
A three way match is harder in the field than in an office.
Chasing retention left behind after substantial completion
Retention is money already earned and then held back.
Pulling photo evidence together for a backcharge argument
Photos come geotagged and timestamped at capture, so the field record usually exists.
Lien deadlines are statutory, vary by state and by role, and run from a furnishing date rather than from an invoice date. Two clocks are involved and they start at different moments: a preliminary notice is generally measured from first furnishing, while recording the lien itself is generally measured from last furnishing. Missing one extinguishes the right, which is why anything touching notice timing should calendar and alert rather than file autonomously, and why specific day counts belong to your state rather than to a general rule. Publicly funded work adds prevailing wage and weekly certified payroll with correct classification, and quality certifications add document control requirements: the current revision has to be available where it is used, changes have to be tracked, and records retained. An automation that moves or supersedes a controlled document without preserving that trail breaks the certification itself and not only the workflow.
Related: Field services Manufacturing. Or start from the four shapes of work instead of from an industry.