Southerly Homes: Transforming their payables with modern sub and vendor payments

While the process technically worked, it came at a cost. Payments required duplicate entry across platforms, manual updates to mark bills as paid and constant reconciliation between systems. The more projects Southerly Homes took on, the harder it became to keep everything aligned.

“We’ve used other software systems, third party bill pay, etc.” Nick said. “The biggest challenge was time, duplicate entry and increased risk of errors.”

“We wasted a lot of time manually marking bills as paid and syncing bills,” added Paul G., pre-construction manager at Southerly Homes. “It was a mess.”

For a growing business, those inefficiencies weren’t just frustrating – they threatened scalability.

Their challenge: Needing a more centralized way to pay

As Southerly Homes looked ahead, the team knew they needed a better system. One that could scale with them, rather than slow them down.

When Buildertrend introduced the opportunity to pilot its new Bill Pay feature, the timing felt right. “We wanted a more streamlined, centralized way to manage invoices and payments inside Buildertrend and reduce administrative work as we scaled,” said Nick.

Because Buildertrend already served as the hub for project and invoice management, keeping payments inside the same system was a natural next step.

“If you already use Bills in Buildertrend, Bill Pay completes the system. It saves time, reduces errors and improves financial control and vendor relationships.”

Nick Quijano

Owner and Operator at Southerly Homes

Just as important, Southerly Homes wanted confidence that accounting data would stay in sync. “The problems we were hoping to solve were relying on one system for everything, and automatic syncing between Buildertrend and QuickBooks,” said Paul.

As a pilot customer, Southerly Homes also appreciated having a voice in shaping the product. “We trust Buildertrend and wanted to be part of testing and improving the system before it rolled out to everyone else. It was great being able to submit feedback and have the Buildertrend team work on it to improve it.”

From a setup standpoint, the transition was relatively smooth. Banking details and ACH setup were handled quickly, allowing the team to begin paying subcontractors electronically sooner than expected. “Setup was straightforward,” Nick said. “Paul handled most of the ACH and banking details, and once complete, we were able to start paying subs electronically fairly quickly.”

The biggest lift came not from the technology, but from change management – reaching out to subs and vendors to collect ACH information. “Setup was easy, although having to reach out to every single sub to inform them of the change and have them input their ACH info was a little time consuming,” Paul said.

Even so, the team viewed it as a one-time effort that would pay off long-term.

Their success story: Faster payments, clearer financials and scalable growth

Today, Bill Pay is fully embedded in Southerly Homes’ workflow, so everything is tracked, approved and paid all in one place.

“We use Bills for invoice tracking and approvals, and Bill Pay to process payments in the same system, with everything syncing to accounting,” Nick said.

The impact has been immediate. By eliminating duplicate entry and manual processing, the team significantly reduced the risk of missed or delayed payments while gaining clearer insight into each project’s financial health.

While the time savings are hard to quantify exactly, the improvement is undeniable. “I can’t put a number to it, but it’s made everything considerably faster and easier,” said Paul. “It’s a huge improvement to the process we had in place before.”

Subcontractors and vendors have noticed the difference, too.

“Our subs and vendors appreciate faster, more consistent ACH payments,” Nick said. “We’ve had fewer payment questions and fewer issues. This was more a change for us as the payer than it was for the subs and vendors who at the end of the day want to receive their money regardless of the process.”

Most importantly, Bill Pay has removed a major operational bottleneck. “Bill Pay allows us to handle more projects and vendors without adding administrative staff, supporting scalable growth,” Nick said.

“If you already use Bills in Buildertrend, Bill Pay completes the system. It saves time, reduces errors and improves financial control and vendor relationships.”