This page walks through each billing scenario from the project's Billing tab. For the underlying concepts (Lump Sum vs. Unit Price, Billing Drivers, retainage), see Fixed Fee, Unit Price, and AIA Billing.
- Open your project and go to the Billing tab.
- Enter the Billing Date, and the Start / End Dates if applicable (these are required to create AIA documents).
- Make sure every line has a line number — they're required to invoice. If any are missing, see Missing Line Numbers below.
- In Work Completed: This Application, enter what you're billing this period:
- Lump Sum lines: enter the percentage to bill in the % / Qty field.
- Unit Price lines: enter the quantity of units completed in % / Qty.
- Or enter a dollar amount in Value and the %/Qty calculates automatically — work from whichever number you have.
- Use the Progress column (set by your project's Billing Driver) as a guide for how much to bill.
- Check Balance to Finish to confirm the remaining contract value on each line.
- Click Create Invoice (it stays disabled until at least one line has a non-zero quantity, and while any line is missing a line number).
- Optionally check Print AIA forms after creation in the confirmation dialog.
- On success, you'll get links to the invoice and any AIA documents.
Every Schedule of Values line needs a line number before you can create an invoice. If one or more are missing, the billing tool shows a Missing Line Numbers notice. You can either:
- Click Generate to have BlueCollar fill in the missing line numbers automatically, or
- Enter the line numbers yourself.
Create Invoice stays disabled until every line is numbered.
AIA billing produces the standard construction billing documents:
- G702 — Application and Certificate for Payment (the summary)
- G703 — Continuation Sheet (line-item detail)
To generate them:
- Make sure the Start and End Dates are entered on the billing screen.
- Complete your billing amounts for the period.
- Click Create Invoice and check Print AIA forms after creation.
After the invoice is created:
- If Group AIA G702 and G703 in One PDF is enabled, you'll see a single Download AIA form link.
- Otherwise, you'll see separate Download G702 form and Download G703 form links.
This is useful because the owner-facing AIA paperwork is generated straight from the same billing you just entered — no separate spreadsheet or re-keying. If your administrator has uploaded custom AIA templates, the forms come out on your own layout automatically.
When a project has more than one contract, the Sales Orders (Contracts) picker lets you select several at once. The grid then groups each contract as an expandable section, and you can enter billing across all of them in a single pass. On Create Invoice, BlueCollar generates one invoice per contract that has billable lines, and the results dialog lists each invoice — along with any AIA documents — grouped by contract. See the billing grid overview for more on the tree view and saved views.
Unit price billing follows the same steps as fixed fee, except the quantity you enter represents actual units completed rather than a percentage. This is common on DOT contracts where:
- Lines carry estimated quantities at fixed unit rates,
- Actual quantities billed will differ from the estimates, and
- Projections let you forecast actual quantities separately from the contract.
To release (bill) previously withheld retention:
- Toggle Bill Retentions to ON in the billing header. The grid resets — all This Application values clear to zero.
- Only the % / Qty field is editable; every other billing column locks. This keeps you from accidentally changing billing amounts while releasing retainage.
- For each line, enter the percentage of retainage to release —
100 releases all of it for that line, 50 releases half.
- The release amount is calculated as
Unbilled Retentions × % / 100. The retention amount shows as a negative (reducing the held retention), and Unbilled Retentions drops accordingly.
- Click Create Invoice to generate the retainage invoice.
You can't release more than the unbilled retentions balance — the system caps the amount and tells you if you try.
For developers assembling project data for a bank submission rather than billing a customer:
- Enable the Exclude Contract Retainage from Actual Cost preference (so withheld subcontract retainage isn't counted as cost requiring immediate cash coverage).
- Draw support packages aggregate the PDF attachments from vendor bills for accounting and audit purposes.
Access is controlled by the LOAN_DRAW_SUPPORT_PACKAGE permissions (see the permissions table on the main billing page).