Feature Spotlight: Payment processing with Trevor Pillen

Tom Houghton:

You’re listening to “The Building Code,” your guide to a better way to run your business. I’m Tom Houghton.

Paul Wurth:

Love how excited you get, Tom.

Tom Houghton:

I am so excited.

Paul Wurth:

It’s a good way to start the podcast.

Tom Houghton:

Thanks. Starting off with some excitement. Yes you are. Before we get underway with this episode, we going to share some exciting news with our listeners. We have a fan page on Facebook. It’s called The Building Code Crew. You should be able to search for it on Facebook, or there’s a link in the show notes if you want to join. We’d love to see you there. Today we’ve got our last pro service spotlight, which is about Payment Processing and joining us on the podcast is Trevor Pillen, associate product manager. Welcome to the podcast, Trevor.

Trevor Pillen:

Thanks, Tom. Excited to be here.

Tom Houghton:

We’re excited to have you.

Paul Wurth:

What’s a pro service spotlight?

Tom Houghton:

We’ve got multiple pro service…

Paul Wurth:

Just for the audience.

Tom Houghton:

Just in case you’ve forgotten, Paul.

Paul Wurth:

I know.

Tom Houghton:

I know, you know. I understand. You’re trying to take care of our listeners. Of course. So pro service spotlights are highlighting a feature of our pro services that… We have five of them. And so this is our last one that we’ve done. We’ve we’ve talked about web services with Alex Juarez. We’ve talked about BRI, builder’s risk insurance, with our SilverStone friend.

Paul Wurth:

Tony Ravenstahl.

Tom Houghton:

Yeah. Anyway, so we’ve had five of these. Well, four of these. This is our last one, our fifth one, highlighting Payment Processing.

Paul Wurth:

It’s exciting.

Tom Houghton:

So we’re going to talk about all things Payment Processing and how you make all money.

Paul Wurth:

Okay. Great. Happy to have you on here, Trevor. Why don’t we start there? What is Payment Processing on the highest level, and how does it apply to builder trend and our clients?

Trevor Pillen:

Yeah, absolutely. So Payment Processing is a way for you to streamline your current payment process, both inbound and outbound. Really easy. So essentially your customers could pay you with an ACH or credit card, and you can also do the same paying your subcontractors with credit card or ACH. And it’s through our partnership with Chase, which makes it pretty cool. And we’ve been partnered up for, I think just over five years now. So pretty long partnership.

Tom Houghton:

That’s pretty great. And just… I feel like right off the bat, I feel like when I talked to builders, I typically get the question. You said… You mentioned ACH, you mentioned credit card. Do you have to do both?

Trevor Pillen:

You don’t. So you actually choose if you want to get paid by ACH or credit card. Most of my builders start with ACH, transition to credit card because there are advantages of taking both, but you certainly don’t have to.

Tom Houghton:

Sure. Let’s talk about some of those advantages.

Trevor Pillen:

Yeah, absolutely. So ACH is the cheapest way to accept payments. It’s a half percent with a max of 15 bucks. So the nice part about that, if you’re getting larger draws, let’s say 100,000 200,000, it’s going to cost you $15. And we’ve negotiated a zero day hold with WePay, which means that you should get that money within one to five business days, which most banks will hold on to a sum that large for sometimes weeks.

Trevor Pillen:

And the advantages of credit cards are for change orders primarily. If you’re building a home, and you have various change orders of selections, you’re choosing, oftentimes you don’t want to roll those into your mortgage or job payments. So what you’re going to do is you’re going to pay for those out of pocket. And a credit card is a really great way to do that because it’s very easy to build a markup into those change orders to accommodate for that fee.

Tom Houghton:

Nice.

Paul Wurth:

That was very concise.

Tom Houghton:

That was are these rates going to change? Do we need to do a preface that maybe we should check with somebody? For this, you mentioned like half a percent, right, for ACH?

Paul Wurth:

Yeah. So the rates are always subject to change. We recently switched to this structure. So I see it being this way for this foreseeable future, but yeah, currently half percent with a max of 15 bucks for ACH and then 2.95% plus 30 cents for credit cards.

Tom Houghton:

That’s a really good deal. Especially if you think about what’s your time worth in terms of chasing down this money.

Paul Wurth:

Well, I guess that’s where my head’s at. So why did we create this pro service? What did we hear from our clients that was the main pain point that they were feeling about, I guess, paper checks, is that what they would be moving from?

Trevor Pillen:

Yeah. I’m actually…

Paul Wurth:

Both receiving and giving to their subs and vendors, right?

Trevor Pillen:

Yeah, absolutely. From a receivable standpoint, I’m actually a really good example of why this feature is so beneficial. If you send me a paper invoice for a draw payment or a change order, I usually pay on time, and I will cut a check that same day, but there’s a good chance that check’s going to be on my counter for two to three weeks before I find a stamp. And then I’m going to mail it to you, and then you’re going to get it a week after and get it in the bank.

Trevor Pillen:

So when you offer someone electronic invoicing, they’re more likely to pay within two to five days as opposed to your normal AR time of two to three weeks. So it really is the convenience of it. It speeds up how fast you get your money.

Paul Wurth:

Okay. That makes sense.

Tom Houghton:

Yeah. That’s a really good actually.

Paul Wurth:

Is that true for you too Tom?

Tom Houghton:

That is. I actually… I have a invoice from our roofers. We just had our roof replaced. I have an invoice, paper invoice that they mailed us sitting on my counter at home. Have the check, just like you said, I mean, if they would have sent me a link in an email, I would have taken care of it in 10 minutes or less, right.

Paul Wurth:

Who writes checks anymore, too.

Tom Houghton:

I know.

Paul Wurth:

I like go all over my house asking my wife, like, “Where are the checks?” When the one person wants a check.

Tom Houghton:

Sure. So get with the times.

Paul Wurth:

Get with the times. Pay electronically. So that’s really what it is.

Tom Houghton:

Yeah.

Paul Wurth:

That makes sense. So who of our clients? Because, of course, we serve four main markets, right? Especially contractors, remodelers, home builders, and commercial construction companies. Do you find that all four equally find this interesting? Or is there something for every one of them in terms of the benefit?

Trevor Pillen:

Yeah. It truly does work for all markets, which is great. It’s… From a specialty contractor point, you could collect down payments right on.

Paul Wurth:

Oh, that makes sense. That makes sense. Because those are smaller dollar things. And so like say I’m going to do an $8,000 fence, do those exist? Probably.

Tom Houghton:

Yeah, definitely.

Paul Wurth:

Yeah. So you want either collect a little down payment right there electronically. Can they swipe something or is it just… Right now is it reading the card.

Trevor Pillen:

Yeah. Good question. So we don’t have any swipers or card readers for a very specific reason. Number one, they’re pretty outdated. You don’t really see them anymore out in the field.

Paul Wurth:

That is true. Why is that?

Tom Houghton:

Security.

Paul Wurth:

Security?

Tom Houghton:

Yeah. I’ll jump in on that one.

Paul Wurth:

You can’t… the swipes less secure than the…

Tom Houghton:

Yeah. You should totally be dipping is what it’s called. When you take your credit card and stick it in the reader.

Paul Wurth:

Yep. Oh, that should be the thing.

Tom Houghton:

The chip. Well, yeah, but we don’t want to go down that. Security is a good reason not to do…

Paul Wurth:

Security. Is that why?

Trevor Pillen:

Well, you brought up a good point. So there’s dipping. There’s swiping. There’s keying. There’s invoicing. There’s all these different ways of collecting credit cards. Usually when you’re looking at payment platforms, there’s a different rate associated to how you collect that credit card.

Paul Wurth:

Didn’t know that.

Trevor Pillen:

So the nice part about Buildertrend is they negotiated a blended rate. So we don’t care if you key it in on the app, your customer pays themselves, your key it in over the full site. Your rate is static. So you know exactly what that rate is going to be. So it’s way easier to build into your cost. As opposed to have to worry about, “Oh, I got to go meet the customer in person and get a lower rate.” That just takes away the convenience.

Tom Houghton:

Absolutely. I think it’s a good idea.

Paul Wurth:

That makes sense. So when you were consulting our clients on their Payment Processing and what they would do, would you consult them to build their known rate into the actual cost? Because I got to believe that as a client of ours or a con contractor, you’re worried about two things, right. Well, how much is this going to cost me? And is this going to be easier for the client and me? I think the second one is obvious the answer. So can they afford it by just building it in, right?

Trevor Pillen:

Yeah. Well, there’s a couple of different ways of looking about it. So with ACH, we talked about that beginning. That’s minimal, right? We’re talking about a half percent max of 15. We’re not worried about that.

Paul Wurth:

That one makes sense.

Trevor Pillen:

Yeah. With credit cards that 3% can add up. It is a very small number, but like I said, because it’s static. Specifically I said change orders. If your markup on change orders is 30% across the board. Now it’s 33%, and you’re making your customers happy because they’re getting their points, and you’re getting paid quicker.

Paul Wurth:

Yeah. That makes sense.

Trevor Pillen:

So yeah, usually on larger new home remodel, things like that, we’re seeing credit cards primarily on change orders, but for your specialty contractors like a fence? $8,000? We have a lot of people that put those on credit cards.

Paul Wurth:

Absolutely.

Tom Houghton:

It’s a smart play.

Paul Wurth:

So that all makes sense. Right? Get paid faster by your clients electronically. Now the other one’s interesting that a lot of people don’t think about, and I think there’s even more or a bigger benefit with this one. So why don’t you explain why as a contractor, would I then pay my vendors and subcontractors electronically?

Trevor Pillen:

Yeah. So if you’re already using the bills and POs tab in Buildertrend, this is a great way to get rid of writing paper checks. In order to pay your subs through Buildertrend, it’s one extra click than what you’re currently doing if you’re using those tabs. So when you actually go to pay a PO, as we know, it marks it as paid in Buildertrend, but this takes it a step further. It sends the money electronically to your subcontractors. And the best part about it, it’s free for the builder. It doesn’t cost a dime to pay their subs through Buildertrend. Which is great, right? You’re eliminating the checks. And your subcontractors are the ones who are taken on the fee, but it’s minimal. I call it gas money to go pick up a check. It’s $1.99 per 10,000.

Trevor Pillen:

So if you can convince your subs to take the five minutes to set this up, you can start paying them immediately. It’s truly a great feature. And we recently introduced mass pay as well. So if you get multiple POs across several jobs, instead of paying each one individually, check them all, pay them all in mass.

Paul Wurth:

So I’ve talked to a lot of contractors is the pain point that Friday payday, and the chaos of their subs and vendors and trades coming to their office and picking it up? Or even their administrative person trying to mail everything out? And then when you’re inevitably there, people are arguing about the dollar amount. Is that sort of what you’ve heard or?

Trevor Pillen:

Yeah, that’s actually a really popular. So Friday paydays, I’ve had numerous conversations about this, where a subcontractor will come in and get their check. And as much as you love them, they stay and talk for hours. And that could take out part of your day. So if you do pay on Fridays, I oftentimes have a conversation with you and try to figure out why are you paying on Fridays? What’s the point of it? Are you paying upon completion? Is that just your pay period? How does that work? And then we kind of work with… Yeah.

Trevor Pillen:

So one of the biggest things is net 15 net 30, right? 15 pay on the 30th. A lot of our contractors who have started using online payments have actually switched to pay upon completion. So, because subcontractors, if they get their work done on Monday, they have to wait all week for a check on Friday. But now if they get it done Monday and click request payment on Buildertrend, you can click that one extra click and pay them electronically on Monday. So there’s an advantage for you as well. Your subs get paid a little bit quicker. And once again, this doesn’t cost you any money.

Tom Houghton:

Yeah and they’re happier. You’re… I mean, both of these offerings, both your clients paying you, and you paying your subs, everyone’s just happier in this process.

Trevor Pillen:

Yeah.

Tom Houghton:

Yeah.

Paul Wurth:

Seems like a no brainer.

Tom Houghton:

Right. Let’s just make the world happy place. Just pay and get paid right there.

Paul Wurth:

That makes sense. Before we talk about you, Trevor, because the listeners are interested, let’s talk about what’s the best way for a listener who’s a client of Buildertrend to learn more about both sort of sides of this offering?

Trevor Pillen:

Yeah. So we obviously have our marketplace that is a great place to go to…

Paul Wurth:

Now hold on. I don’t know that that’s obvious to our listeners. What… Explain the marketplace. I know you’re not responsible for it, so I won’t hold you to this being the best marketing pitch of all time, but what is the marketplace?

Trevor Pillen:

Yeah, let me digress here. So the marketplace that lives underneath the gear icon in Buildertrend. So if you go there, it’s going to give you a rundown of all of our pro services. And it’s going to give you a detailed description of what each one is with the ability to even get more information or set it up right from that page.

Paul Wurth:

Okay. So step one for everybody, because beyond the pro services, there’s some other things that we offer with your monthly subscription, like being able to brand your account, get your contact us page integrated. A few of the things, website development, I guess that’s one of the pro services, but go to the marketplace, check it out. And you can find that by signing in, go into your cog wheel in the top right, and it says marketplace. At that point, you should be able to navigate yourself. Click.

Tom Houghton:

Yeah. But don’t do this while driving. Pull over.

Paul Wurth:

That’s always the asterisk with our instructions. Okay. So go to the marketplace, check it out. And then while you’re there, the last thing you should do, is it titled Payment Processing?

Trevor Pillen:

Yeah. So it says Buildertrend Payment Processing.

Paul Wurth:

Super literal name we went with there. Huh?

Trevor Pillen:

Well, they actually named Payment Processing, if you want to do the full thing, it’s Buildertrend Payment Processing, powered by Chase.

Paul Wurth:

Okay. Again, super literal.

Trevor Pillen:

Yeah. You can’t miss it.

Paul Wurth:

Go ahead and tap the marketing team maybe for a revamp there. But anyways, let’s go ahead and go on the payment process. And from that point on we’ll guide them through learning more. Right?

Trevor Pillen:

Exactly. It’s just going to give you the information about it. It’s going to show you the transaction fees associated to it. There’s a learn more button, and that will take you the rest of the way. And once again, the cool thing about this feature is there’s no additional monthly costs. There’s no set of fees. There’s no contracts. So any one of you could set this up. You’re not worried about having to use it. In fact, a lot of my contractors set this up as a supplemental way to start accepting payments. They know this isn’t going to replace their entire process right away. They’re going to use this maybe for one or two payments could start it and then organically, it’s just going to kind of filter through and be the go to.

Paul Wurth:

Sure. That’s a good point. So you can try it out. Right. And just see if it’s convenient. And it very may well be convenient for some clients over others. Right. It’s just good to have an option.

Trevor Pillen:

Yeah, exactly.

Paul Wurth:

Yeah. That makes sense. Anything else for Payment Processing?

Trevor Pillen:

You have no reason not to do it.

Paul Wurth:

I mean, that’s kind of the case we’re making. Or at least check it out.

Trevor Pillen:

Yeah. Definitely. That’s the point. You should at least dip your toe into it and, and try it out because it’s 2020, you should definitely be getting paid faster.

Paul Wurth:

And it applies to workflow really at every part of the life cycle of a job, right? From lead management, you can accept a down payment or a payment for the proposal. During the job, you can do change orders and selections. And then after the job or closing out the job, you can pay people.

Trevor Pillen:

Yeah. It takes a full circle from start to finish.

Paul Wurth:

Full circle. All right. Well, we have a Buildertrend employee on the podcast. That means that we have to ask some questions.

Tom Houghton:

That’s right.

Paul Wurth:

Or we get to.

Tom Houghton:

We do.

Paul Wurth:

Do you want to do that?

Tom Houghton:

I do.

Paul Wurth:

This is your forte.

Tom Houghton:

Fun facts. We’ve got three fun fact questions for Trevor. Just to set this up though, Trevor’s been around Buildertrend trend for a while. Just about over five years. Is that right?

Trevor Pillen:

That’s right.

Tom Houghton:

That’s pretty impressive. So how many Buildertrend… This is not a fun fact. This is just set up. How many Buildertrend buildings have you been in?

Trevor Pillen:

I’ve been in two. Well, technically three. Because I interviewed at the Q Street office, and I started at the Miracle Hills office. And now we’re here.

Paul Wurth:

So two.

Tom Houghton:

And now we’re here.

Trevor Pillen:

So worked in two.

Tom Houghton:

We’ll give him two and a half.

Paul Wurth:

You can’t Just physically visit a Buildertrend office and say you were there.

Tom Houghton:

Otherwise, I think we’ve been to a lot of them.

Paul Wurth:

Right.

Trevor Pillen:

Paul, you’re the first person I interviewed with there.

Paul Wurth:

Is that right?

Trevor Pillen:

Yeah.

Paul Wurth:

You keep telling me.

Tom Houghton:

Paul doesn’t remember that day.

Paul Wurth:

Was it five years ago?

Tom Houghton:

He was sick.

Paul Wurth:

See you later. Yeah.

Tom Houghton:

Oh man. Trevor, I’m going to keep some of your fun facts, musical. Because one of the fun facts about you is that you have a lot of musical talents. In fact, you were probably, I would say a founding member of the Buildertrend band.

Trevor Pillen:

The Boots. That’s right.

Tom Houghton:

That’s right.

Paul Wurth:

Oh, we got to get a… We’ll get a picture of that on the show notes.

Tom Houghton:

Okay. Picture of that producer Kayleigh’s nodding her head.

Paul Wurth:

The original Boots. Not the Reboots.

Tom Houghton:

Not the reboots. Yeah. We might need some sort of color commentary of what happened with that.

Paul Wurth:

Well, there were some artistical differences in the original Boots. So we’ll just leave it at that. We’ll save that one for VH1 behind the music.

Tom Houghton:

So give us… Fun fact number one, give us one of your songs that you have completely memorized.

Trevor Pillen:

“Uptown Funk” by Bruno Mars.

Tom Houghton:

Okay. It’s good to have in the bag. Get the crowd going with a little “Uptown Funk.”

Trevor Pillen:

Right? You got to always have one of those in there.

Paul Wurth:

How many songs do you have fully memorized? I would assume a lot. Right? Because you perform.

Trevor Pillen:

Yeah. When I used to play in a band, we had, I think, 96 songs on our set list, and I have the majority of them memorized.

Paul Wurth:

You used to play in a band? I thought you were always just your own solo thing? Can we talk about that for a second?

Tom Houghton:

Let’s talk about it.

Paul Wurth:

What instrument did you play?

Trevor Pillen:

So I played a guitar.

Paul Wurth:

Yep. Okay. And obviously vocals. Backup?

Trevor Pillen:

If you asked my band, not the best of vocals, so backup.

Paul Wurth:

Okay, cool. And what was the band name?

Tom Houghton:

A little embarrassing. It’s called the The Grandersons. We were based out of Lincoln, Nebraska.

Paul Wurth:

Okay. We’re going to leave that there. I don’t even know want to know what that is.

Trevor Pillen:

Yeah. I guess.

Paul Wurth:

I’m sure there’s to elaborate story.

Tom Houghton:

Somebody’s going to be Googling this.

Trevor Pillen:

It’s actually a very basic story.

Tom Houghton:

Okay. There you go.

Paul Wurth:

Well, let’s just keep that one in the holster.

Trevor Pillen:

Perfect.

Tom Houghton:

Okay. So on your road to success, you’re obviously going to have a movie made about you someday. So who would play… Who would you pick to play you in a movie about your life?

Trevor Pillen:

Oh gosh.

Tom Houghton:

And your success.

Trevor Pillen:

You know what? I’m going to have to go with Nick Swardson. He’s kind of my doppelganger-

Tom Houghton:

That’s…

Trevor Pillen:

… in an interesting way. And he has a good sense of humor.

Tom Houghton:

That’s a fun one. I was not expecting that.

Paul Wurth:

It’s just a very unfair question to ask somebody.

Tom Houghton:

Why?

Trevor Pillen:

It’s loaded. It’s hard.

Paul Wurth:

Because it’s impossible to answer correctly, like, “Oh, who would play you?” and you’re, “Brad Pitt? What do you think?”

Tom Houghton:

Nick-

Paul Wurth:

You know what I mean? You can’t… “Oh, I don’t know. How about a most attractive, talented person in the world? That’s who I’ll pick.” And then you’re just like, “Well, yeah. That’s obviously not true.”

Tom Houghton:

But I liked his pick. It wasn’t Brad Pitt.

Paul Wurth:

That is true. You had a good answer. I’m just saying it’s a tough question

Tom Houghton:

For those of you don’t know Nick, we’ll put a link in the show notes. All right. Last question for you. What is your go-to karaoke song?

Trevor Pillen:

Oh goodness. Go-to karaoke song. In all honesty, I’m not a big fan of karaoke.

Tom Houghton:

You’d rather just do the real thing.

Trevor Pillen:

Yeah. But I have to go with an Eagles song. Usually something like “Hotel California.”

Tom Houghton:

Classic.

Trevor Pillen:

Because everyone knows it. Tequila Sunrise, something like that.

Paul Wurth:

Sure. Love the Eagles.

Tom Houghton:

Okay. Crowd-pleaser absolutely.

Trevor Pillen:

You got to do some people sing along with you, so you’re not so embarrassed.

Tom Houghton:

Yeah.

Paul Wurth:

Great.

Tom Houghton:

It’s a smart play.

Paul Wurth:

So if you want to learn more about Trevor, he promises that if you call in and have really good questions about Payment Processing, he’ll sing you a little ditty at the end of it. Just ask for Trevor.

Tom Houghton:

Like a P Diddy?

Paul Wurth:

A little ditty is a little bit of a song.

Tom Houghton:

I’m just giving you a hard time.

Paul Wurth:

So, okay. Call in, find out about Payment Processing. And next time, well, Trevor, you’re a big part of our Buildertrend University. Every month we have it here. You do a great job of leading education classes, and you go out there, and you spread the good word of Payment Processing. So even better if you come to Omaha, which we all encourage everybody to do that.

Tom Houghton:

Absolutely.

Paul Wurth:

We’ve got dates the rest of the year already scheduled, sign up our Buildertrend University. Come ask for Trevor, and he’ll send you a song.

Tom Houghton:

He’ll serenade you.

Paul Wurth:

That’s my promise to you.

Tom Houghton:

Wow. That’s quite the promise.

Paul Wurth:

Trevor and I talked about this before. He’d already committed to it.

Trevor Pillen:

All right. Great.

Tom Houghton:

Well Trevor’s seems like he completely knew that was going to happen.

Paul Wurth:

Exactly. All about good communication here.

Tom Houghton:

Good stuff. All right. Well, speaking of communication, Trevor, thanks so much for coming on the podcast today and sharing about Payment Processing. And of course, if you want to learn more, make sure you check out the marketplace up in the cog wheel. That’s what Paul called it there.

Paul Wurth:

I think that’s what you called it too.

Trevor Pillen:

That’s what I called it.

Paul Wurth:

So maybe we’ll just get marketing on that one as well.

Tom Houghton:

Anyway, thanks Trevor so much for joining us.

Trevor Pillen:

Thank you guys.

Paul Wurth:

Appreciate you.

Tom Houghton:

Love what you heard. Don’t forget to rate and subscribe to our podcast so you can hear from more guests that will benefit your business. Also, please check out our show notes page for more information on what we discussed on this episode. You can find it at buildertrend.com/podcast. Thanks for listening. And we’ll see you next time on “The Building Code.”