Stored materials on a G702: which box is which, and when the money moves

A lot of subs bill the material they've bought but not yet put in. That's fine, and the form has a place for it. The trick is knowing where the money sits on the form and when it has to move.

On a G703 continuation sheet, each line has a few columns that matter here: - C is the scheduled value for that line. - D is what you billed on earlier pay apps. - E is what you're billing this period for work installed. - F is stored materials: material on site and paid for, but not yet installed. - G is the total completed and stored to date, which is D plus E plus F. - H is G divided by C, the percent complete. - I is C minus G, the balance left to bill.

So a stored material bill sits in column F. It counts toward what you've completed, because you've bought the material and it's on the site. But it doesn't count as installed work until it's installed.

When it moves. Once the material goes in, the money should move from F into E for the period the work is done. That's the point at which the GC's retainage on stored material (line 5b) can be released into the work retainage (line 5a), depending on the contract. If the material stays in column F month after month, the stored balance keeps growing and the percent complete looks higher than the work really is. Some GCs will ask why a line sits at 100% with material still listed as stored.

The same material shouldn't be billed twice. The easiest mistake is to bill the material as stored in one month, then bill the install again in the next month, without taking the stored amount out. The G703 will show the line completed at more than its value, and the check will flag it. Track the material by line: what came in, what has been installed, and what's still sitting on site.

Some contracts pay for stored material up front. That's an advance, and it changes the picture. An advance is money you've been paid before the work is done, and it needs to come off the next pay apps as the work goes in. If a GC pays you for materials at the start of a job, the advance has to be recorded on the line it applies to, or the balance will be wrong for the rest of the job. Private clients do this too, and the same rule applies.

Two rules of thumb keep this clean. Bill stored material only when it's on site and you've paid for it. And when it's installed, move it out of F and into the work the same month.

NailMyPay keeps stored material and installed work on the same line, so an install moves the amount across automatically when you turn on auto-release for that line. You can see the stored balance on every pay app, so there's no guessing at what's still on the site. If you're billing stored material for the first time, running a first pay app through the free trial is a quick way to see how the columns fill in.