AIA G702 and G703,
explained.

What G702 and G703 actually are

AIA G702 (Application and Certificate for Payment) and AIA G703 (Continuation Sheet) are the two-page billing standard the American Institute of Architects publishes for construction progress payments. Together they tell the owner three things:

• What was completed since the last payment.
• What's on hand but not yet installed (stored materials).
• How much you're owed this period after retainage and prior payments.

G702 is the cover sheet — one page that summarizes the whole application and gets signed by both you (the contractor) and the architect or owner. G703 is the line-item continuation sheet — a wide table with one row per Schedule of Values (SOV) line item.

Why owners require them

When the owner's agreement is on an AIA form, the pay application usually follows G702/G703, because:

• The format is auditable — every dollar traces to an SOV line.
• It separates work in place from stored materials, which lenders need.
• Architects can certify percent complete without re-inventing the math.
• It's familiar to every architect, lender and owner's rep who has ever certified a draw, so nobody has to learn your spreadsheet.

Worth knowing what A201 actually says, though: §9.3.1 asks only for “an itemized Application for Payment prepared in accordance with the schedule of values.” It never names G702. The form is convention, not a General Conditions mandate — which is why an owner can require something else.

The fields that actually matter

On G702 (cover sheet)

• Original Contract Sum. The contract value you signed.
• Net Change by Change Orders. Approved CO total to date.
• Total Completed and Stored to Date. Sum of column G from G703 (work in place + stored materials).
• Retainage. Line 5 is a fill-in: 5a is the rate held on completed work, 5b the rate on stored material, and G702 ships with both blanks empty because the rate is a contract term. If your contract holds different rates on labor and materials, they compute separately — that's why there are two sub-lines.
• Less Previous Certificates for Payment. The total you've already been paid through prior pay apps.
• Current Payment Due. The bottom line — what you're asking for this period.

On G703 (continuation sheet)

For each SOV line item:

• Column C — Scheduled Value. What you valued the line at when SOV was approved.
• Column D — Work Completed From Previous Application. What was billed and certified through last period.
• Column E — Work Completed This Period. What you completed since last application.
• Column F — Materials Presently Stored. Materials on site or in bonded storage, not yet installed.
• Column G — Total Completed and Stored to Date. D + E + F.
• % (G ÷ C). The percent-complete column — the only one on the form without a letter, because it's derived, not entered.
• Column H — Balance to Finish. C − G.
• Column I — Retainage (if variable rate). Only used when your contract retains at different rates per line. On a flat contract-wide rate you leave it blank and carry retainage on G702 line 5.

The three margin leaks to watch for

1. Front-loading the SOV. Tempting on long jobs — pad early scopes (mobilization, demo, foundation) so cash arrives earlier. Owners, lenders and draw inspectors look for it, and a schedule of values that prices early scopes above their cost is the most common reason an SOV comes back. Price each line at what it costs and recover cash by billing accurately and on time — not by weighting the front.

2. Stored materials documentation. Column F is real money — if your steel arrives June 1 and gets billed June 10 but installed July 15, that's six weeks of cash flow you'd otherwise wait on. Owners require: bill of sale, bonded storage proof, insurance certificate, photo of the stored material with project tag.

3. Retainage release timing. Some contracts reduce or partially release retainage at a defined milestone — often a stated percent complete. It's real money and it is never automatic: if the clause exists and you never bill against it, the owner keeps holding the full amount to the end. Find the reduction language in your payment article and calendar the milestone.

Why it's such a grind by hand

Assembling G702/G703 by hand for one project is a recurring monthly slog — pulling SOV from the contract, reconciling against the previous app, walking the site to mark completion percentages, entering numbers into the spreadsheet, exporting to PDF, getting the field super to confirm, then sending to the architect for certification.

Multiplied across a portfolio of active jobs, pay-app preparation eats a real slice of the office's month. That's why most modern construction software ships an AIA generator — the math is mechanical once the SOV is current.

How neuroBLDR handles it

neuroBLDR keeps your schedule of values live. An approved change order lands on it as its own line, so the G703 carries the same change the G702 cover does. When you open a new pay app, each line comes in with the work completed on your prior billed applications, and the retainage percent carries forward. You enter this period's work, and neuroBLDR prints the G702 cover and the G703 continuation sheet in its own layout, not the official AIA document.

On the owner side, a magic-link portal shows the application line by line and lets them download the PDF. They pay you however they already pay: check, wire, or their own bank's ACH. You record the payment in neuroBLDR. A draw can't be marked paid while a sub who billed that period has no signed lien waiver on file, unless an admin overrides it, and the audit trail records which one happened. The next pay app opens with the prior numbers carried.

In neuroBLDR

neuroBLDR builds your G702/G703 from a live schedule of values, in its own layout. Run the pay app check before you send it to the owner, and it flags a line billed backward, a big jump on one line in a single period, and a line billed ahead of its schedule progress.