BNBuilders' customer story
How GCPay Transformed BNBuilders Manual Payment Processing
BNBuilders is a progressive general contractor based in Seattle, Washington. They have always strived to stay on the cutting edge with technology solutions and have been quick to adapt to innovations in the industry. They’re known for their commitment to quality while also pursuing sustainable construction solutions.
We recently connected with Desiree Albano, the Program Manager and former Project Accountant at BNBuilders, to discover how technology has impacted their subcontractor payment processing. Through this conversation with Desiree, we learned about the manual process they left behind and what they’ve accomplished with a more automated subcontractor payment workflow.
Desiree Albano
Program Manager
Company Info
Founded in 2000
Headquarted in Seattle, WA
The Challenge
Before BNBuilders adopted GCPay, their subcontractor administration and payment processing were entirely manual. They received all payment application and compliance documents via email. These emails routed to the project manager on the job so they could double check that the invoice data was correct. If the sub forgot to include billing paperwork, their lien release, or anything else, it was up the accounting team to chase them down.
Desiree estimates that at least 15 emails needed to be exchanged with each subcontractor on a project; wasting valuable time for both the PMs and the accounting group. There was additional risk with the manual process – the amount of time to get the correct documents. Per their owner contracts, BNBuilders must release payment for subcontractors within a certain period of time.
Sure, they didn’t want to pay subs who weren’t compliant with all their documentation, but they had to fulfill their end of their contract. It made for difficult decisions each month.
from five days a month to less than a day.”
GCPay + Sage 300 CRE
GCPay has been an integration partner with Sage 300 Construction & Real Estate since 2003. This partnership allows for information related to commitments, change orders, and compliance documents to sync automatically with GCPay. Approved applications for payment can be automatically pushed to Accounts Payable. GCPay’s integration with Sage 300 ensures subcontractor commitments and change orders are detailed properly and processed accordingly.
Decision Making
Both the project managers and the accounting group at BNBuilders were ready for a technology solution for subcontractor payment processing. At one point, Desiree recalls, their Director of IT connected with the COO of GCPay to learn more about how the solution could work for them.
GCPay made it incredibly easy for Desiree and her team to get started with the platform. The onboarding team helps with new projects and assist with “in-flight” jobs that need to be brought onto the platform. She also appreciated the subcontractor training and resources provided by the GCPay team. “We just told our subs,” Desiree recalls, “sign up for this platform if you want to get paid!” And while there was a bit of pushback from smaller subcontractors at first, she tells us that everyone who uses the program ends up loving it.
Solutions & Results
The most significant outcome for BNBuilders since adopting GCPay is the time savings. Desiree says that the accounting team’s processing time for pay apps has gone from 5 days a month to less than one day as a direct result of using GCPay. Their lien release processing time has also been cut in half, saving them hours every month.
The direct integration with Sage 300 has especially saved time for the accounting team. “The ERP integration was one of the biggest selling points for us,” Desiree says. With the automatic data sync between the two programs, there is no need for manual processing. Desiree points out that GCPay helps them catch mistakes and inaccurate data before they become an issue. “GCPay will be like ‘hey – these two don’t match!’ and give us the opportunity to fix it,” she says.
GCPay makes the accounting group even more efficient because they no longer have to go line by line to check for errors. Last but not least, Desiree emphasizes the impact GCPay has not only on the accounting team, but also the project management team. Their project teams used to spend hours poring over change orders and schedules of values to ensure invoices were correct before passing them on to accounting.
Now, GCPay prevents subs from submitting pay apps against unapproved change orders. It is a huge time saver and helps reduce the risk of allowing overbilling.
