Issue link: http://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/105134
Contract Billing continued which we have to adjust to. However, in my experience, the continuation page is acceptable under all contracts even if the contractor uses their own Page 1." One of many precautions BRESCO takes at the beginning of every job is to call the general contractor's office to find out the format they use for billing, says BRESCO's Vice President of Finance Anne Shiller."If we do not use the same format,we try to get them to send us their format," she says. "We still use our format internally, but we may have to convert that information and put it on their forms." When Jessie Cason moved to BRESCO's contract department in 1988, there was no AIA or Excel, which meant many long stretches trying to reconcile the contract amount with change orders and other totals. "Progress billing was not being done much, if at all before this time," she says. "Once the equipment arrived on site, we would send the customer an invoice and they would pay for what they knew they had. Sometimes we would keep a running list of what we billed them for so they would not have to look through all of the invoices. At the time, all of our invoices were handwritten on carbon paper." BRESCO first became acquainted with AIA when a customer sent in a form and requested the billing department type all of their equipment on it. "We made copies of the same form every month and used White Out to blot out the previous months transactions," says Cason, who now jokingly refers to AIA as the salvation to billing a balanced contract."Having it balanced from the beginning, and keeping it that way when change orders and back charges are added to the contract helps me to see where I am going.As requests for payments are made, updating appli1 4 FEDA New s & View s "The person who sends you the contract is usually your point of contact. Always be as nice as possible to these people. They can make or break your application." Billing Clerk Gloria Dille cable columns keeps me intact as to where the equipment is from month to month. It is very important that the total balances to the contract amount from the beginning. If you do not start out balanced, you will never end up this way without pain." Truthfully, it seems that a certain level of pain is synonymous with contract work, particularly when it comes to getting paid. No one knows that better than Birmingham, Alabama-based, BRESCO. A contractor, itself, the distributor has been in the design/build business for more than 30 years and worked on a number of major projects, including the D/B Federal Correctional Institution-Aliceville Facility in Aliceville, Ala., and the Alabama State University Football Stadium in Montgomery, a job it completed last fall. And while its contract and sales division accounts for roughly 40 percent of "hard-earned" sales, owner George Tobia is the first to admit there are easier ways to make a living. "Some projects can experience severe delays and the fact that most contract bid jobs hold a 10 percent final retainage hurts cash flow," he says. "Sometimes it takes six months to a year before the final payment is received. "Profit margins are also a concern. They are extremely small due to the competitive nature of the bid process and the overhead is high because of the increased staff that is required in accounting, installation, project management, and engineering." Burdens aside, that staff and its decades of experience have kept BRESCO viable in a hyper-competitive market, adds Tobia. Cason is one of many on the team with more than 20 plus years to her credit—and oh what a difference 20 years makes when a significant portion of your business is dependent on monthly draws. "Our job is not just about billing, it's about keeping the money rolling," says Cason, whose list of duties include contract billing, certified payroll and maintaining the safe that holds a hard copy of each of BRESCO's contracts. "That's the one important thing that everyone involved in this kind of work should keep in mind—progress billing keeps the cash flowing." There's also a lot of fortitude involved. At times, a customer request can make keeping the money rolling all the more difficult. One that comes to Cason's mind: an owner's response to a job that changed contractors midstream. "We had equipment stored in a trailer on site and after the owner requested an inventory of the equipment, we had to send an empty trailer to the site and transfer the equipment from one trailer to the other," she says. "I've seen a lot of projects where the information required seemed redundant or the circumstances required multiple adjustments to meet a customer's expectations. But if it means getting paid, one bends over backwards and tries to get through the completion of the project with as much expediency as possible." Everyone in contract billing has got a system for nudging the noodle. At BRESCO, every project starts with a courtesy call to the contractor and project manager. Contact information is exchanged and both are encouraged to call if a billing issue occurs. Establishing a good rapport at the beginning of a project helps when favors are needed on both ends, says Dille. "The person who sends you the contract is usually your point of contact," she says. "Always be as nice as possible to these continued on page 41