Bills allow you to track and manage the actual costs of your jobs – from the moment a bill or receipt is received through approval and payment. 

With Buildertrend Payables, your entire accounts payable workflow lives in one place. Capture bills, review and approve them, and pay vendors all from the Bills page. 

What are Bills?

Bills represent real costs incurred on a job, including subcontractor or vendor invoices, material purchases, and receipts submitted from the field. 

Using Bills helps you:

• Track actual job costs in real time
• Maintain accurate financial reporting
• Ensure costs are reviewed before payment
• Stay aligned with your job budget

Accessing Bills 

To begin working with Bills, select a job and navigate to Financials → Bills.

From the Bills page, you can:

• View incoming bills and receipts in the Inbox, where new items are captured as draft bills
• Review bills in the In Review tab that are awaiting approval
• Access bills in the Ready for Payment tab once they have been approved 
• Track completed payments in the Paid tab
• Use the All Bills tab to view and manage all bills across statuses
• Create new bills as needed

Managing Bills with Buildertrend Payables

Buildertrend Payables brings your entire accounts payable workflow into one place — from the moment a bill or receipt is received to the moment it is paid.

Bills, Receipts and Vendor Credits can be captured through email, mobile upload, or bulk upload and will automatically generate draft records within the Bills page.

Draft bills allow your team to review and confirm details before they impact job financials or sync to accounting.

Buildertrend can automatically extract key information like vendor, dates, and cost items to reduce manual entry. From there, your team can assign cost codes, link the bill to a job or Purchase Order, and prepare it for approval.

Approvals are managed directly within the bill. Once approved, the bill moves to Ready for Payment, where it can be paid or synced to your accounting system.

Creating a Bill

In Buildertrend, you have the flexibility to create a bill from scratch, from an existing Purchase Order, or directly from the Inbox. This provides a streamlined and efficient way to manage your job costs.

The workflow increases financial accuracy and improves communication with subcontractors and vendors, ultimately helping you stay on budget and maintain better control over your project’s financial health.

When creating a new bill, you can upload multiple files at once directly from the + Bill dropdown. This allows you to drag and drop or browse multiple invoices, receipts or Vendor Credits in a single step.

Once processed, these files will appear in your Inbox as draft records. Buildertrend automatically scans each document and identifies whether it is a Bill, Receipt or Vendor Credit. If the document type cannot be confidently identified, you will be prompted to select the appropriate type. The document type can also be changed manually while the record is in draft.  

Create a Bill from Scratch

To create a bill manually, begin from the Bills page for your job. 

Select + Bill.

From here, you can either enter bill details manually or upload a file such as an invoice or receipt.

If a file is uploaded, Buildertrend uses OCR (optical character recognition) and AI to scan the document, identify the document type and automatically extract key details. This information is then populated into the record, helping to reduce manual entry.

You can then use bulk actions within the cost area to Merge selected items, Edit cost codes, or Edit cost types. Use the check boxes to the left of the Line Item to choose which cost items you'd like to change.

You can review auto-filled fields using a side-by-side view of the Bill and the uploaded file by clicking the File Icon in the top right of the Bill window.

When you are finished, select Save to finalize the bill. 

Create a Bill from a Purchase Order

Creating a bill from a Purchase Order helps reduce manual entry, minimize errors, and keep committed and actual costs aligned. 

To begin, open the Purchase Order you would like to bill against. From the Bills/Lien Waiver section, select New Bill. 

Next, choose how much of the Purchase Order you would like to bill. You can apply a percentage or enter a specific amount for each line item.

Once selected, click Create Bill.

The bill will open with key information already populated from the Purchase Order:

• Title: The title will automatically populate using the format: [Purchase Order Number] – [Purchase Order Title] – [Bill Sequence Number] (e.g., first, second, etc.).

• Pay To: Will assign the Bill to the same subcontractor or vendor assigned to the associated Purchase Order.

• Linked Purchase Order: Displays the associated Purchase Order.

• Cost: The cost line totals specified during creation will be applied. 

Review and update any remaining fields as needed, then select Save.

💡Pro Tip:

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If you frequently create bills from Purchase Orders, you can enable a Purchase Order suffix on the bill number to make these relationships easier to identify. 

 

When enabled, the suffix appears in the Bill # column and also carries through to your accounting system, helping improve traceability and simplify reconciliation. This setting is compatible with the optional Continuous ID / number across all jobs setting. 

To turn this setting on: 

• Navigate to Company Settings
• Select Bills / POs / Budget
• Enable Add PO suffix to bill number

Create a Bill from the Inbox

Bills, Receipts and Vendor Credits can be captured through bulk file upload, email forwarding, or mobile upload and will automatically appear in your Bills Inbox as draft records.

Buildertrend uses AI to identify the document type and extract and populate key details from the file, including:

• Subcontractor or vendor
• Dates
• Cost items

To review a draft bill, open it directly from the Inbox. 

From here, review the bill details and make necessary updates. You can assign cost codes, adjust line items, and link the bill to the job or Purchase Order. 

When you are ready, select Save draft to keep your changes without moving the bill forward, or Send for Approval to move the bill to the next step.   

Vendor Credits Overview

Vendor Credits allow you to track credits issued by a subcontractor or vendor and apply them to future payments. This may include refunds, returned materials or corrections to billing errors.

Vendor Credits can be created manually or captured through file upload. When an uploaded document is recognized as a Vendor Credit, Buildertrend automatically identifies the document type and populates available credit details for review.

Once a Vendor Credit is available, Buildertrend automatically displays it when you pay that subcontractor or vendor, allowing you to reduce the amount owed without manually calculating the credit.

Create a Vendor Credit

From the Bills page, select the + Bill dropdown, then select Add Vendor Credit. 

Enter the Vendor Credit details, just as you would a bill. Assign it to the appropriate job, subcontractor or vendor, and cost code. When finished, select Save to Job to save it as a draft or Mark as Available to make it available for use on a future payment. 

Apply a Vendor Credit

When you pay a subcontractor or vendor, Buildertrend automatically displays any available Vendor Credits for that payee. Select the Vendor Credit you want to apply, and the payment total will update to reflect the reduced amount owed. 

You can apply Vendor Credits when paying bills through Buildertrend Payments or when recording a payment in Buildertrend. 

If using Buildertrend Payments:

• Partial Offset: If the Vendor Credit is less than the total amount due, the credit is applied and Buildertrend processes the remaining balance as a payment. The subcontractor or vendor receives an email summarizing the bill, credit applied, and remaining payment amount.
• Full Offset: If the Vendor Credit fully covers the bill, no money is transferred. The subcontractor or vendor receives an email confirmation, and the bill and Vendor Credit are marked as paid and applied.

In both cases, the corresponding bill payment record is automatically created and synced to your accounting system, eliminating the need for duplicate entry or manual reconciliation. 

If recording a payment:

From the Bills list, select one or more bills for the same subcontractor or vendor, then select Record payment from the More Actions menu. You can also open an individual bill and select Record Payment. From the payment workflow, add the available Vendor Credit and complete the payment details. 

For more information about paying or recording payments for bills, see Paying a Bill section. 

Vendor Credits and Accounting

Similar to bills, Vendor Credits sync to your accounting system when you initiate the sync. What happens when a Vendor Credit is applied depends on how the payment is made:

• With Buildertrend Payments: The bill, applied Vendor Credit, and bill payment record sync automatically to your accounting system.
• Without Buildertrend Payments: The bill and Vendor Credit sync, but a bill payment record is not created. You will need to record the payment separately in your accounting system.  

Approvers on Bills

To help teams clearly identify who is responsible for reviewing and approving a bill, you can assign approvers directly within the bill or by setting up a tiered approval workflow.  

Assign Approvers within a Bill 

Open a bill and use the Approvals dropdown to select the user(s) who should review it. After selecting the approver(s), select the checkbox to the right to confirm your changes. 

Once selected, click Send for approval to move the bill forward.

The bill will move into an In Review status while awaiting approval.

Assigned approvers will receive a notification and can review the bill directly within Buildertrend to approve it.  

Once all approvals are completed, the bill will automatically move to Ready for Payment, allowing your team to proceed with payment or sync it to your accounting system.  

Set Up a Tiered Approval Workflow 

A tiered approval workflow allows you to define a specific order of approvers for bills. The workflow is configured at the company level and, once enabled, automatically applies to all newly created bills.

To create a workflow, navigate to Company Settings → Bills/PO/Budget and scroll to the Bill Approval Workflow section.  

From here, you can assign:

• Specific users, and/or
•  Dynamic roles for flexibility:
  • Job Project Manager(s): Pulls users assigned as Project Managers in Job Details. 
  • Job-level approver(s): Pulls users assigned as additional approvers in Job Details. 

If your workflow includes multiple approval levels, each level must be completed before the next level is notified and able to take action.

For each level, choose how approval is determined:

• All approvers: Every approver at that level must approve the bill before it advances.
• Any one approver: The first approval advances the bill to the next level. Any remaining approvers at that level are automatically marked as Skipped.  

Approval Process

When it is an approver's turn, they can either approve or reject the bill. 

• Approve:  The bill will automatically route to the next approver (if applicable). Once all approvals are complete, the bill moves to Ready for Payment, allowing your team to proceed with payment or sync it to your accounting system.  
• Reject: A comment is required and will be visible directly on the bill. The bill will remain in In Review, and the user who sent the bill for approval will receive an email notification.

After resolving any issues, click Resend for approval to restart the approval process.  

This resets all approvals and rejections, but prior activity will be saved in the Activity Log.

Lien Waivers

Lien waivers help document payment agreements between builders and subcontractors or vendors. Lien waivers can be applied to bills before or after payment and managed throughout the payment process.

Conditional vs. Unconditional Lien Waivers

Buildertrend supports three types of lien waivers:

• Conditional – Used when the subcontractor or vendor is signing in exchange for payment. Conditional lien waivers can be released before payment or sent as part of the payment workflow.
• Unconditional – Used after payment has been made to confirm payment has been received.  
• Final Unconditional – Used after final payment to document the final release for a subcontractor or vendor. Final Unconditional waivers use existing Unconditional lien waiver templates.

To apply or manage lien waivers on an individual bill, open the bill and locate the Lien Waivers section. From here, you can apply a Conditional, Unconditional or Final Unconditional lien waiver and select the appropriate form for each. When multiple lien waivers are applied, each is managed independently with its own form, status and available actions. 

Once released, Buildertrend tracks the signature status and notifies the subcontractor or vendor by email. Signed lien waivers remain associated with the bill for future reference.

When paying multiple bills at once, you can also choose to send Conditional lien waivers as part of the payment workflow. Select Send with payment, then choose the conditional lien waiver template you would like to use. The company's default conditional lien waiver template is selected automatically, and Buildertrend shows how many bills in the payment are covered by the selected template. 

Within each subcontractor or vendor group, the Conditional lien waivers section shows each applicable bill and its waiver status. Use the checkboxes to select which waivers to send with the payment, or select the Preview icon to review the waiver before completing the payment.

Bills that will receive a waiver display as Unreleased. Bills without a matching template display as Pending, while bills that already have a waiver display the waiver's current status. Lien waivers are applied individually at the bill level, so each applicable bill receives its own waiver.

For more information on Lien Waivers, visit the following article here.

Paying a Bill

Buildertrend's Bill Pay feature allows you to complete the final step of the payables workflow by paying vendors directly within Buildertrend. 

Once a bill has been approved, it will move to the Ready for Payment tab, where your team can take action.

To pay a bill, open it from the Ready for Payment tab. From there, use the available payment options to complete the transaction. You can also pay multiple bills at once using bulk actions from the Bills page. 

When applicable, Conditional lien waivers can be selected and sent as part of the mass payment workflow.

After payment is recorded, the bill will move to the Paid tab, giving your team a clear record of completed payments.

If your account is connected to an accounting system (QuickBooks, Xero, Sage Intacct), payment details can also be synced to ensure your financial records stay aligned.