Pay applications and the G702: how contractors formally ask to get paid

The pay application is the formal payment request: a G702 summary over a G703 continuation sheet built from the schedule of values. How the billing cycle works from SOV to funded certificate.

Contractors don't invoice construction work the way a store rings up a sale. Progress billing runs on a pay application: a formal, structured request for payment that shows what was earned in the period against the whole contract. As Levelset's guide puts it, the AIA publishes one of the most popular construction payment application forms, the AIA G702 — commonly used between general contractors and subcontractors on mid-sized and large jobs, as part of a larger set of contract documents.

The anatomy of a pay app

• The G702 summary: contract sum, change orders to date, work completed to date, retainage, previous payments, and the current amount due — the cover page that states the number being requested.
• The G703 continuation sheet: the line-by-line backup, built directly from the schedule of values: each line shows work completed from previous applications, work completed this period, materials stored, and the balance to finish.
• The paper trail: lien waivers, stored-material documentation and any backup the contract requires travel with the application, not after it.

The cycle is the cash flow

A pay application is not a PDF event; it's a cycle: measure the period's work, price it against the SOV, submit, respond to review comments, and track the funded amount against the job's budget vs. actual position. Each step has a clock, and the cycle repeats monthly per job — which is why the contractors who get paid fastest are the ones whose progress data is already structured when the billing date arrives, not the ones who assemble it afterward.

Billing is an output of the operation

When measured progress, the SOV, change orders and retainage live in the same system, the pay application is a report — generated from the job record, not reconstructed from spreadsheets and memory. That billing operation, implemented per project around the way each company works, is what an ERP for construction companies runs for a contractor.