Not every job has a GC: billing a client directly

Most of what's written about billing for subcontractors assumes a general contractor is in the middle. The GC holds the contract, sends the forms, and writes the check. But plenty of trade work is private: a homeowner hires you directly for a kitchen, a bathroom, a deck, a basement finish, or a commercial tenant improvement with the owner as the client.

On a private job the money still moves in stages, and the same questions come up. What did we agree? What's done? What's been paid? What's still held? The paperwork is simpler, but the need for a clear record is the same.

The client is the one paying you. There's no GC form to fill in and no GC to certify the amount. The client agrees the scope and the price, and then pays against your progress. That makes the agreement and the progress record the two things to get right.

Progress billing still works. Set up the job with the contract sum and the schedule of values, just as you would for a GC job. Bill the work done each period, and keep the same discipline with retainage if the client holds any. If you don't hold retainage on a private job, that's a choice to make in the agreement, not a default.

A progress invoice is the right document. Most homeowners don't want a G702 in front of them. A progress invoice shows the work to date, what's held, what's been paid, and what's due now, in plain language. The numbers match the pay app, so the books stay consistent.

Change orders still matter. A homeowner who adds a window or moves a wall is making a change, and it should be recorded the same way: with a number, a date, a reason, and the price. A change the client agreed to in conversation and never wrote down is the most common source of a fight on a private job.

Keep the same record. A private job should have the same history as a GC job: what was agreed, what changed, what was billed, what was paid, and what's still open. When a client asks in month five how the job got to its current number, you should be able to answer from the record, not from memory.

NailMyPay handles private jobs the same way it handles GC jobs. The client gets a progress invoice, with the work, the amount held, and the amount due now. The job record, the change orders and the payment history work the same, so a private job has the same audit trail as a GC job. The first pay app is free, so you can set up one private job and see how the invoice reads before you decide anything else.