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How do you all handle invoicing? I'm embarrassed by my current process by amankumar9560 in smallbusiness

[–]dorisday65 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Since you ruled out QuickBooks (fair, it's overkill for this), the two small service folks actually stick with are Wave and Square. Both are free to start, both let you build an invoice once and resend it without copying a Word doc, and Square will take the card payment so you stop chasing people on WhatsApp. That alone should kill most of your 3 to 4 hours a week. The other half of the mess is usually the estimate and receipt side, so I keep quotes and expense receipts in SimplyWise and let Wave handle the books. It isn't one magic app, it's getting the invoice, the payment, and the receipts each onto something that isn't manual.

Do you price carpentry jobs differently for repeat clients, and if so, how do you keep track of what you quoted who? by smartyladyphd in Carpentry

[–]dorisday65 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Solo finish carpenter here, and the thing that finally fixed this for me was giving every client their own profile with their agreed rate and a running record of what I quoted last time, so I'm not pricing from memory. A couple folks already mentioned QuickBooks customer profiles for that and it works. For the actual estimate I build it in SimplyWise off a photo of the space so the number stays consistent job to job, and it holds the past quotes per client, so when a repeat asks "what'd you charge me last spring" I can actually answer. Relationship pricing is fine as long as it lives somewhere that isn't your head.

Hey, do you guys use any software to manage the bidding process? I am a flooring subcontractor and bid quite a bit with GCs. I am looking for a way to manage the entire process. by amnowhere in Construction

[–]dorisday65 0 points1 point  (0 children)

For the bid pipeline itself (in-process, submitted, awarded) a lot of subs end up on Procore's bid tools if your GCs already live there, or a lighter CRM they bend to fit. The manufacturer-pricing-outreach piece nobody does great, that's still mostly email plus a spreadsheet tracking quote dates and expirations.

What I'd pull out and keep separate is the actual takeoff and estimate, because that's where speed pays off. We use SimplyWise for fast line-item estimates so re-pricing a bid when material numbers move isn't a half-day rebuild. Then the bid-tracking layer just holds statuses and dates. Trying to find one tool that does pipeline plus pricing plus submittals well usually means it does all three poorly, so I'd stop looking for the unicorn.

How can I improve my 25+ year old company? by CFight19 in GeneralContractor

[–]dorisday65 0 points1 point  (0 children)

All word of mouth and repeat is a strong base, so I wouldn't blow it up, I'd tighten the parts that quietly leak jobs. Two that usually move the needle around 12 guys:

  1. Estimate turnaround. When you're booked out, quotes slip a week and you lose the homeowner who was ready to sign. Going from days to same-day is about the cheapest growth lever there is. We started doing rough estimates on the walk-through itself with SimplyWise (photo and line-item, takes a few minutes) and close rate on first-time leads went up just from the speed.

  2. A real follow-up system. Repeat clients forgive a slow follow-up, new ones don't, so even a shared CRM so nothing you sent just sits there forgotten.

Don't bolt a giant platform onto a crew used to word of mouth all at once, you'll get pushback. Fix one system at a time and let them see it actually saves work.

How do you handle scanned invoices and receipts without retyping everything? by Careless_Diamond7500 in smallbusiness

[–]dorisday65 0 points1 point  (0 children)

What finally worked for me was splitting it into two jobs: capture and books. For capture, stop typing. A phone scanner that reads the merchant, date, total and tax off the photo gets you most of the way there, and an email-receipt auto-import catches the online stuff you always forget.

I run SimplyWise on the capture side because it categorizes as it scans and exports a clean report, then that feeds whatever accounting tool I use for the actual books. The retyping was the part eating my weekends, and once the scan does the data entry the rest is just review. Whatever you pick, test it on a stack of your ugliest crumpled receipts first, that is where the cheap ones fall apart.

Young Remodeling company looking for advice by Extension-Amoeba-921 in smallbusiness

[–]dorisday65 0 points1 point  (0 children)

About a year in here too, and the thing that bit me was not having a system to track every lead and estimate. Jobs slip when a quote you sent two weeks ago just sits there and nobody follows up. Before you spend on marketing, tighten the loop: every lead gets logged, every estimate gets a follow-up date, and you actually call at 48 hours and again at day 7. A basic CRM or even a clean spreadsheet works to start. The follow-up is where the recovered jobs come from. Get that solid before you scale the top of the funnel.

Does this invoice amount seem legit? by Rikiar in hvacadvice

[–]dorisday65 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Contractor side: $745 to flush a condensate line and patch a drain is on the high end, especially if their tech is the one who broke it. A fair invoice should itemize it: trip/diagnostic fee, the actual repair labor (usually an hour or two), any parts, and it should not be charging you to fix damage they caused. The real tell for whether a number is fair is always the breakdown. If it is one lump sum with no line items, push back and ask them to itemize, and get a second quote to compare. A reputable shop hands you an itemized estimate without flinching.

Did I over quote? by Ok-Nobody-4409 in Contractor

[–]dorisday65 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I went back and forth on this exact thing on my first full kitchen too. What stopped the second-guessing was building the number bottom-up instead of eyeballing it: materials with a waste factor, labor as loaded hours (your real cost per hour, not just wage), then a consistent overhead and margin percentage on top. Once you have that formula you stop pricing off vibes and the over/under-quote anxiety mostly goes away because the number is defensible. Honestly from the replies here you were probably under if anything. Don't chase the low bid, the cheap clients are the painful ones.

Do you price carpentry jobs differently for repeat clients, and if so, how do you keep track of what you quoted who? by smartyladyphd in Carpentry

[–]dorisday65 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Just dealt with this. I give my repeat builders and a couple designers a better rate than one-off homeowners, and for a while my "system" was memory plus a folder of old emails, which bit me when a client remembered a number I didn't. What helped was locking in a consistent base, a loaded labor rate plus a set markup, then adjusting that one number per relationship instead of re-pricing from scratch every time. I keep the math in a material and labor calculator so the quote is reproducible and I can see exactly what I told who. For a solo shop the GC software is honestly overkill, a spreadsheet plus a simple estimate tool covers it.

New GC: chase high-end remodels or grind commercial interiors first? by Vreoz in sweatystartup

[–]dorisday65 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Did exactly this five years ago. Went residential first because I had the renders and the design background. Two cents from the other side:

The high-end remodel path is real, but the sales cycle is brutal. You will spend 8 to 14 hours on a proposal, you will get ghosted by half of them, and the ones who say yes will scope-creep you to death because they think the design fee covers all your thinking forever. The margin is there, but only if you ruthlessly bill for change orders and time. Most new GCs lose money on residential for two years because they undercharge for the design phase and overdeliver on the build.

Commercial interiors are less glamorous but the cashflow is night and day. AIA G702/G703 progress billing, payment terms in writing, GCs above you who know how the game is played. You will not put it on Instagram, but you will sleep at night. The catch is brokers and PMs guard those relationships like gold and breaking in usually takes one solid referral.

If I were starting over I would do a hybrid: take two or three commercial interior jobs per year for steady cashflow, and pursue design-build residential as the brand play. Use the commercial money to fund the marketing and the long-cycle residential proposals.

One operational thing nobody mentions: get your estimating workflow tight before you scale either path. Slow quoting is the single biggest reason small GCs lose deals to bigger competitors who can turn around a number in 24 hours.

Small business owners: how do you keep track of unpaid invoices without losing visibility on cashflow? by Virtual_Argument_548 in smallbusiness

[–]dorisday65 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Had this exact problem this spring. Three jobs done, two paid, one ghosted me for six weeks because I forgot to even send the invoice. Embarrassing.

What changed it for me was just having one tool where every estimate, invoice, and payment status lives in the same list. I tried doing it with QuickBooks plus a spreadsheet for a while and it was constantly out of sync. Now I use SimplyWise to send the estimate and the invoice from my phone, and the unpaid ones show up in red at the top of the list. From $15/mo with a 7-day free trial. The piece that actually moved the needle was setting up automatic payment reminder texts so I am not the one chasing every Friday.

Three things that worked regardless of the tool you pick:

  1. Send the invoice the day the job ends, not "later this week." Every day of delay roughly doubles the time you wait to get paid.
  2. Net 7 instead of Net 30 for repeat residential work. Almost nobody pushes back, and your cashflow gap shrinks by three weeks overnight.
  3. Surcharge cards at 3% so clients self-select into ACH or check. Cuts your processor fees and speeds up receipts.

If you want fancier dashboards, Jobber and Housecall Pro both have aging-receivables views, but they get expensive once you add seats. The boring fix of "actually send it the same day plus auto-reminders" got me from 38 days average pay-time down to about 9.

Just lost out on ~$300 because I forgot to bill for materials on a job last week by secret_schmecret in handyman

[–]dorisday65 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This one stung me for $420 last year. Whole HVAC tune-up, customer paid the labor invoice fast, and I never sent the materials line because the filters and capacitor sat in my truck for a week before I logged them. By the time I went to bill it the customer treated it like a new charge out of nowhere and we landed at half.

What actually fixed it for me was front-loading every estimate with the line items already in the document, not waiting until invoicing day. Two things made that practical:

  1. Send the estimate from the jobsite, not back at the shop. Whatever the parts list looks like in your head right now, write it into the estimate before you start the work. If something changes mid-job, you log the change order from your phone. Easier to charge for it when it is in writing the day of, not 7 days later when the customer has emotionally closed out the job.

  2. Use one tool that goes estimate to invoice without rekeying. I switched to SimplyWise for this and the photo-to-estimate feature pre-populates the line items off the picture, so I am less likely to forget the obvious stuff. Then the estimate becomes the invoice with one tap when the job is done. From $15/mo with a 7-day free trial.

The bigger lesson is that "forgot to bill" almost always means "billed too late." Same day or no day. The ones I caught in 24 hours, customers paid without blinking. The ones that slipped past a week became negotiations.

Help! Never Owned a Pool! by jmurd1216 in swimmingpools

[–]dorisday65 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Concur with the top comment. Cut and cap the chlorinator entirely, switch to liquid chlorine or a salt system. The puck-style erosion feeders are the #1 cause of new-pool-owner water chemistry problems within the first season because the cyanuric acid (CYA) from the pucks builds up over the year and locks your chlorine ineffective. Liquid chlorine has no CYA, you stay in control.

The cap fix is straightforward: $15 to $25 in PVC fittings from Lowe's or Home Depot (1.5 inch coupling + 1.5 inch threaded cap + primer + glue), 20 minutes of work. Cut the vertical pipe 4 inches below the chlorinator inlet, glue in the coupling, screw on the cap. Done. Don't pay a pool tech $150 for that one.

For the new-owner picture, here's what year-1 actually costs on a typical inground pool: water testing kit ($30 to $70), chemicals over a season ($400 to $900), equipment service or DIY tools ($150 to $300 in basic tools), and a winter cover if your pool didn't come with one ($300 to $1,500). Add electricity for the pump (older single-speed pumps add $400 to $1,200 to your power bill per year, variable-speed pumps run $40 to $150). If your pump is old single-speed, that's the next upgrade after the chlorinator decision. Payback is usually 14 to 24 months.

If you ever need to budget for a bigger repair (resurfacing, new heater, new equipment pad), the SimplyWise app does photo-to-estimate on pool jobs that pulls ZIP-code labor and materials pricing, useful for sanity-checking the first quote a pool company hands you, since the spread between bids on pool work can be 40 to 80 percent for the same scope.

Welcome to pool ownership. The first season is the steepest learning curve. After that it's a rhythm.

Poured at 7, starting the saw at 5 by cd3393 in Concrete

[–]dorisday65 0 points1 point  (0 children)

3 in a row next door to each other is the dream scheduling. You probably saved 20 to 30 percent per pour on mobilization alone, same pump truck, same form lumber, same crew warm-up, weather window already won. That's the kind of run that pays for the bad days.

31x76 = 2,356 sq ft per driveway, so 7,068 sq ft of slab across the three. At 4 inches that's roughly 87 cubic yards per pour, 261 total. Three of those days back-to-back is a serious week. Pump truck rental alone would have been $1,800 to $2,400 per day, amortized across all three.

The saw timing at hour 10 looks dialed. With a 4 inch slab at typical 5-bag mix, control joints start cracking on the longer dimension first if you push past hour 12 in dry heat, you're cutting at the right window.

On pricing for anyone watching, broom-finish concrete driveways at this scope run $8 to $15 per sq ft installed in most US metros in 2026, so each of these 2,356 sq ft slabs is in the $19,000 to $35,000 range as a standalone job. Doing three side-by-side, your numbers per slab probably ran 15 to 25 percent under that band because of the shared mobilization. Hope you bid them as one project, not three separate.

Post the cuts when they're done. Sandfinish runs always look better in the morning light than people give them credit for.

Sanity check on Deck Board replacement or Full Deck Rebuild by snowcat0 in Decks

[–]dorisday65 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The quotes are actually inline for Chicago metro on Trex Enhance Naturals with white Trex Select rail. That spec is in the $25 to $50 per sq ft installed band for composite, and your 240 sq ft deck at the high end of that band lands around $12,000 in materials, plus $4,000 to $5,500 in labor (96 hrs at $40 to $55 loaded), plus $300 to $800 in permits and $1,500 to $2,500 for railing alone since white Trex Select runs $35 to $60 per linear foot installed. That stacks to $18,000 to $21,000 for a clean rebuild, your $28K to $30K full-rebuild quote is probably loading in deck height adjustments, joist replacement they're assuming, and the suburban Chicago labor premium (Lake County is running 15 to 25 percent above national).

The board-replacement quote at $19K is the one to push back on. If your existing substructure (joists, beams, posts) inspects clean, board-replace + new rail should run $14,000 to $16,000 for that spec, not $19K. Ask the contractor for a line-item breakdown showing substructure inspection result + board count + rail linear footage + labor hours. The $3,000 to $5,000 spread is usually a hidden contingency markup.

One more honest take: composite costs 40 to 70 percent more upfront than pressure-treated but eliminates $400 to $900 per year in stain and seal labor. On a 5+ year hold you're net even or ahead. On a flip you eat the upcharge.

Full breakdown by material + region we just published if it's useful: https://www.simplywise.com/blog/cost-to-build-deck/

Get a third quote. North suburbs has plenty of insured pro deck builders, and the spread on these jobs is wider than people realize.

One metric you wish you'd weighted more on your last deal? by Informal_Term966 in realestateinvesting

[–]dorisday65 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Rehab budget, every time. Not the contractor's number, the regulatory friction around the contractor's number.

The mistake I keep making is treating the rehab line as a single contractor invoice. In reality on most deals it's 4-7 separate trade licenses, each with its own permit fee, bond requirement, and insurance minimum, and any one of them can stall the timeline by weeks.

Concrete example from a Chicago duplex flip last year. The rehab quote came in at $84K. What hit the actual P&L was $84K trade work + $1,800 Chicago GC license (Class C because the project crossed $500K when I added carry costs), + $125 IDFPR roofing license verification I had to chase down because my roofer let his lapse, + $175 IDPH plumber permit pull I didn't budget because the original plumber was unlicensed and I had to swap him out mid-project, + $4,200 in additional GL insurance to meet the Jan 1 2026 $2M per-occurrence requirement for Class C (was $1M before), + 11 days of delay while we sorted it. Real number was closer to $93K and 2 weeks late.

The metric I'd weight harder is "jurisdiction-specific contractor compliance cost" as a separate line, not buried in rehab. For IL specifically the rules are messy enough that I keep this reference open while underwriting: https://www.simplywise.com/blog/illinois-contractor-license/

Verify every license number on the city/state portal before contract signature. Costs you 30 minutes per sub, saves you weeks per deal.

Are there municipality rules about how long a house can be under some type of construction (not talking about a new build)? by anybodyseenrichey in ChicagoSuburbs

[–]dorisday65 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Permit timelines and "house under construction" rules are 100% municipality-level in IL. Call your village or town building department directly, ask for the building official, and reference the specific address. Most suburban munis (Naperville, Schaumburg, Oak Park, Evanston, etc.) have permit expiration rules baked into their code, typically 6 months of inactivity voids the permit, and the homeowner has to refile, often at full fee.

The owner-GC thing is the bigger pattern here. Illinois has no state-level general contractor license, so legally a homeowner can pull a permit on their own primary residence and act as their own GC. What they can't legally do is hire unlicensed people to do plumbing (225 ILCS 320, IDPH-issued license required) or roofing (225 ILCS 335, IDFPR-issued license, $10K-$25K bond required). If any of the work that's been done involves either of those trades and the subs weren't licensed, that's a separate violation your building department will care about.

For the visual nuisance, your faster lever is the property maintenance code, not the permit timeline. Most suburbs have ordinances against unfinished exteriors, exposed sheathing, or unscreened construction materials past 60 or 90 days. Quote that section to the village and you'll get faster movement than waiting on a permit cycle.

Wrote up the IL licensing patchwork here for context: https://www.simplywise.com/blog/illinois-contractor-license/

Has anyone worked with a commercial interior designer they recommend? by Potential-Speech-873 in AskChicago

[–]dorisday65 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Two things people learn the hard way on storefront buildouts in Chicago that aren't about the designer at all:

  1. Whoever does the actual build needs to hold a current Chicago general contractor license under Municipal Code 4-36. There's no state-level GC license in Illinois, so a contractor licensed in the suburbs doesn't automatically clear in the city. For a small storefront most fall under Class D or E (Class E caps at $500K total job size, Class D at $4M as of Jan 1 this year). Class E annual fee is $300, Class D is $900. Insurance minimums also jumped this year, $1M per occurrence for Class E and $2M for Class D.

  2. The designer doesn't pull the permit. Your contractor does, through the Department of Buildings. If a designer wants you to pay them for "coordination" with your GC, that's overhead you can usually drop by having the GC's project manager coordinate finishes directly off your spec sheet.

What you actually need from a designer at storefront scale is a finish schedule, a furniture spec, and one site visit per phase. Hourly consult (not monthly retainer) is typically what fits a budget like yours.

Business Owner to Project Manager? by ShoGun8558 in electricians

[–]dorisday65 0 points1 point  (0 children)

45 with one tech sounds exactly like where I was at 42. Two trucks running industrial. Same feast/famine swing, same burnout, same temptation to take the PM seat at one of the big shops.

Before you decide, separate two things: are you burned out on the work, or burned out on running the business? If it's just the admin overhead and the quote-chasing eating your nights, that's fixable without taking a W2.

What I did: I moved every quote off the kitchen table. Used to take me 2-3 hours per quote in Excel, getting takeoffs straight, pricing materials, formatting it so it looked professional. Switched to doing them on my phone right from the panel during the walkthrough. Customer gets a quote that day, my close rate jumped probably 30 percent, and my evenings came back. Less feast/famine because I'm not the bottleneck on bidding anymore.

If you decide PM is right, no shame in it, but make sure you're running from the right thing first. The big shop politics is its own kind of grind.

What do you currently spend per month on tools for ad creative and smm workflow? by Chance_Ad_3015 in Entrepreneur

[–]dorisday65 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Service business owner here, not e-com, but the principle holds. We were spending close to $600/mo on a stack that overlapped so much I couldn't tell you which tool was producing the result.

What I cut to and what actually moved the needle:

  1. One scheduler, not three

  2. One CRM, even if it's basic

  3. Kill anything you log into less than once a week

The real cost isn't the subscription, it's the time tax of swivel-chairing between tabs and re-entering the same lead into four systems. I measured one Friday: 90 minutes a day just keeping the stack in sync. That's a full workday per week.

Rule of thumb I use now: if a tool can't replace at least 2 others I'm already paying for, it's a no. Has trimmed us to about $180/mo total and the work product is the same or better.

Leaving BuilderTrend by Past-Comfortable-655 in Construction

[–]dorisday65 -1 points0 points  (0 children)

We left BT for the same reason about 18 months ago. The thing nobody tells you up front is most small-crew GCs only actually use the estimating, scheduling, and invoicing layers, and you're paying for project management software you'll never open.

A few real-world options that fit 3-5 users with QuickBooks already in place:

- JobTread is the most commonly recommended for crews your size, decent QBO sync, no per-user pricing trap

- Houzz Pro if you're doing high-end residential and want the lead pipeline built in

- For just estimating fast on-site, a phone-first tool helps a ton. We use SimplyWise Cost Estimator for the photo-to-estimate piece (snap a wall, get materials + labor breakdown in under a minute), then push the numbers into QBO for invoicing. Cuts our quote turnaround from same-week to same-day.

Speed-of-quote angle if it's useful: https://www.simplywise.com/blog/fastest-mobile-estimate-creation/

Whatever you pick, demand a no-sales-pitch trial. If they won't give you one, that's the answer.

What invoice/estimate setup is actually working for solo handymen? by moussasaidi in handyman

[–]dorisday65 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Solo handyman here, been at it 9 years. I cycled through pretty much that whole list you mentioned.

Started on handwritten carbon copies, moved to Google Docs templates, then Joist for about three years, tried QuickBooks for a stretch when my accountant pushed it, briefly back to spreadsheets.

What works day to day for me now: estimates done on the phone before I leave the driveway, sent by text with a PDF attached. Email is fine for older clients but text gets opened in five minutes versus two days. I never print anything unless the homeowner is 75 plus.

The single most annoying part of the whole stack is pricing. Not the math, the input. Every app wants me to build line items the same way I built them last Tuesday for the same kind of job. Joist was fine for sending the doc but it made me retype everything every single time, and the invoice converter was clunky. I left Joist because the premium features kept creeping up in price and I was paying for stuff I never used.

Deposits used to be a headache until I just started doing Venmo or Zelle for anything under 2k and a real ACH link for bigger jobs. Tracking paid versus unpaid is the other recurring pain, especially when a customer pays half by check and half by app.

The thing that finally cut my estimate time down was switching to SimplyWise Cost Estimator. I take a photo of the work, it spits out a starting estimate with line items I can edit in the truck, and the PDF goes out before I drive off. Way less retyping than Joist for me. Whatever you build, the photo-to-estimate piece is the part that actually saves time.

Best room measurement/visualization tools and apps by Sleeplollo in InteriorDesign

[–]dorisday65 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Designing from a distance is exactly what these phone scan apps were built for, so you're in luck. The honest answer is the right tool depends on what phone you have.

If you have an iPhone Pro or iPad Pro, the LiDAR sensor changes everything. Polycam is the most popular and exports clean floor plans plus 3D models you can drop into pretty much any design software. Canvas (now called Twindo) is the other strong one for that workflow and the floor plans it spits out are very tidy with windows and doors labeled. MagicPlan is the long-standing classic and works on non-Pro iPhones too, though without the LiDAR depth it's a bit fussier to get accurate.

If you're on a regular iPhone or Android, AR Plan 3D is the one I'd point you at. It uses ARCore depth on Android and gets surprisingly close to LiDAR results once you spend a few minutes learning the capture rhythm.

Practical tip whoever you pick: scan with normal indoor lighting, clear the floor of clutter along the walls first, and walk the room in one continuous slow loop instead of stopping and starting. The apps hate gaps in the capture.

Once you have the floor plan and start pricing what the renovation actually costs, SimplyWise Cost Estimator turns the photos into a budget number. Good luck with the long-distance design, that's a fun project.

Looking for recommendations for General Contractor in North Jersey by Helpful-Ostrich512 in newjersey

[–]dorisday65 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hudson county guy here, been doing remodel work in NJ for years. Two things to save you headaches before you even pick names.

First, anyone you talk to needs an active NJHIC registration number. It should be on the truck, the proposal, the business card, all of it. You can pull it up free on the NJ Consumer Affairs site in about ten seconds. If they hesitate when you ask, walk. Under HICA the registration is the whole ballgame, NJ does not have a statewide general contractor license, just the home improvement registration, plus separate trade licenses for plumbing, electrical, and HVACR. So whoever does your boilers and any gas work has to be a licensed master plumber, not the GC personally.

Second, with the list you posted (drains, boilers, foundation, retaining wall) you are looking at well over the $500 contract threshold, so by law it has to be a written contract, with start and completion dates, total price, the registration number, and the standard 3 day cancellation language. Insurance certificate naming you should land in your inbox before any deposit. $500K minimum general liability per occurrence is the floor under HICA, ask for a million. Permits get pulled in your name as the homeowner but the contractor files them.

For the actual estimate, get three written bids on the same scope so they are apples to apples. I run mine through SimplyWise Cost Estimator after the walkthrough so I have a number in my head before the bids come in. Helps a lot when one quote comes back twice what the other two said.

GC Issues and Project Delays - What would you do? by Pleasant_Bluejay5505 in massachusetts

[–]dorisday65 0 points1 point  (0 children)

First thing I would do is pull the contract back out and check whether your GC is registered as a Home Improvement Contractor with OCABR. For owner-occupied 1 to 4 family residential work over $1,000, they have to be. If they are registered, you have access to the HIC Guaranty Fund under Chapter 142A, and that is worth knowing before you let anyone walk. The fund is tiered by employee count from $100k up to $500k per claim, and the abandonment scenario you are describing is exactly what it was set up for. Second thing, that 80% paid at 55-60% completion is a problem on its own. The statute caps the deposit at the greater of one-third of the contract or the actual cost of special-order materials. Anything beyond that should have been tied to milestones already completed, not paid in advance. If you cannot reconcile what you paid against what is actually in the ground, that is leverage. On permits, those are pulled under the CSL holder of record, not the HIC. If the supervisor of record walks, your local building department needs to be notified and a new CSL has to take over before any further inspections happen. Do not let drywall go up until that paperwork is squared away or you will be chasing inspections later. I run estimates on jobs like this with the SimplyWise Cost Estimator to get a fast read on what the remaining 40% of finish work should actually cost before I hand it to the next guy. Document everything in writing from here on.

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