What is AIA G702/G703 billing? A subcontractor's guide

If you’ve just landed your first commercial job under a general contractor, you’ve probably been told to “submit your pay app on AIA forms.” This guide explains what that actually means: what the G702 and G703 are, how every line and column works, and what the monthly process looks like from the subcontractor’s side of the table.

The two documents

AIA billing revolves around two companion documents published by the American Institute of Architects:

• G702 — Application and Certificate for Payment. The one-page summary. It states your contract sum, how much work you’ve completed to date, how much retainage is being held, what you’ve already been paid, and — the number everyone cares about — the current payment due.
• G703 — Continuation Sheet. The line-item detail behind the G702. It breaks your contract into a schedule of values and shows, line by line, how much of each item is complete.

The two must agree: the totals row of the G703 feeds directly into the G702. When a GC’s project accountant reviews your application, the first thing they do is check that the sheets tie. (One practical note: G702 and G703 are copyrighted AIA documents. Many GCs accept “G702-style” formats that reproduce the same structure, and many require their own custom form entirely — but the math below is the same everywhere.)

This is progress billing, not invoicing

The mental shift for subs coming from residential or service work is that you are not invoicing for tasks. You are billing cumulatively against a fixed contract. Every month you state the total value of work completed since the job began; what you get paid is the difference between that and everything previously certified. Each application builds on the last, which is why a single error compounds: if this month’s numbers don’t reconcile with last month’s, the application comes back.

The G703, column by column

Each row is one line of your schedule of values. The columns:

• A — Item number. Your line numbering.
• B — Description of work. e.g. “Carpet — Floors 2–4” or “Floor prep & moisture mitigation.”
• C — Scheduled value. The dollar value assigned to that line. Column C must total your current contract sum.
• D — Work completed from previous application. The cumulative amount billed on this line through last month. This is carried forward, not re-estimated.
• E — Work completed this period. What you’re billing on this line this month.
• F — Materials presently stored. Material on site (or in approved storage) but not yet installed — not included in D or E.
• G — Total completed and stored to date. D + E + F, with a percent-complete column (G ÷ C) beside it.
• H — Balance to finish. C − G.
• I — Retainage. The retainage held on that line (where retainage is applied per line rather than in aggregate).

The G702, line by line

• Line 1 — Original contract sum. Your contract value at signing. It never changes.
• Line 2 — Net change by change orders. The running net of all approved change orders, additive and deductive.
• Line 3 — Contract sum to date. Line 1 ± Line 2.
• Line 4 — Total completed and stored to date. Comes straight from column G’s total on the G703.
• Line 5 — Retainage. Split into 5a (a percentage of completed work) and 5b (a percentage of stored material — sometimes a different rate, per your contract). The total should equal column I’s total.
• Line 6 — Total earned less retainage. Line 4 − Line 5.
• Line 7 — Less previous certificates for payment. What has already been certified on prior applications — normally Line 6 from your previous application (plus any interim retainage releases; more on that in our retainage guide).
• Line 8 — Current payment due. Line 6 − Line 7. The check you’re asking for.
• Line 9 — Balance to finish, including retainage. Line 3 − Line 6.

Notice that Line 7 is where history enters the math. It’s also where most spreadsheet errors live, because it depends on getting every prior application right — including any retainage that was released along the way.

The monthly process

1. Know your cutoff and due date. Your subcontract sets the billing period (often through the 25th or end of month) and when the application is due to the GC. Miss the window and you usually wait a full month for the next cycle.
2. Assess percent complete per line. This comes from the field — whoever runs the job knows whether Floor 3 is 60% or 80% done. Get it from them in writing, per line, every month.
3. Prepare and reconcile the forms. Update columns D through I, carry the totals to the G702, and verify everything ties — including against last month’s certified amounts.
4. Sign, notarize (if required), and attach backup. The G702 includes a notarized contractor’s certification on many jobs. GCs commonly require lien waivers, stored-material documentation, and certified payroll on prevailing-wage work.
5. Submit, and track certification. The architect or GC may certify a different amount than you applied for. Whatever is certified becomes the baseline your next Line 7 must reflect.

Why applications get rejected

• The sheets don’t tie — G703 totals that don’t match the G702, or Line 7 that doesn’t match what was previously certified.
• Retainage math is off — wrong rate, rate applied to the wrong base, or previously released retainage re-billed.
• Change orders billed before they’re approved — work in Line 2 or on a G703 line that the GC hasn’t executed a change order for yet.
• Overbilling a line past its scheduled value — column G exceeding column C.
• Missing backup — no lien waiver, no stored-material invoices, no certified payroll where required.

Each rejection typically costs you a full billing cycle — 30 days or more of financing the job out of your own pocket.

The takeaway

AIA billing is not conceptually hard, but it is unforgiving: it’s cumulative, deadline-driven, and checked line by line by someone whose job is to find discrepancies. The subs who get paid on time are the ones who treat the pay application as a repeatable monthly system — with a clean schedule of values, a reliable percent-complete handoff from the field, and math that reconciles automatically rather than by hand. Whether you build that system in software or hand it to a service, build it once and stop re-deriving it every month in a spreadsheet.