Progress Billing & Draw Schedules (Multifamily)

On a multifamily job, flooring is one of the last major finishes to go down and one of the first line items a lender scrutinizes when the money gets tight near the end of a draw schedule. That timing creates a specific problem. The flooring subcontractor is billing for material that was ordered and staged months earlier, labor that lands in a compressed window, and unit-by-unit completion that rarely matches the tidy monthly boundaries a construction loan wants. If the flooring scope is not structured to reconcile with how the project draws its money, the sub carries float it should not have to carry, the general contractor's pay application gets kicked back, and the whole finish sequence slows down while accounting sorts out what was actually installed versus what was merely delivered.

This guide is about making that reconciliation clean. It is written for the people who actually manage construction finance on Treasure Valley multifamily and tract projects: developers, owner's reps, GCs, and the project accountants who assemble the monthly package the bank sees. The mechanics are not exotic, but they are unforgiving. A schedule of values that lumps flooring into one line, a pay application that bills stored material with no proof of delivery, or a lien waiver that does not match the check that cleared will each stall a draw. The goal here is to describe how a flooring subcontractor should set up its billing so the flooring line advances at the same cadence as the loan, survives lender review the first time, and closes out without a retention fight.

We build flooring as a subcontractor inside these financial structures every day, and the difference between a scope that bills cleanly and one that fights the draw every month is almost entirely in the setup. What follows is how we structure it, what the standard documents require, and where Idaho practice adds its own wrinkles.

The Schedule of Values Is the Foundation of Everything

Every progress billing conversation traces back to the schedule of values, the SOV. This is the itemized breakdown of the contract price that both the GC and the lender use to measure completion. For flooring, the single most common mistake is a one-line SOV entry: "Flooring — $840,000." That line is impossible to bill against in partial increments without arguing about percentages. The fix is to break the flooring scope into components that each track a real, verifiable milestone.

A workable flooring SOV separates material from labor, and separates scope by product and by phase. A typical structure splits out luxury vinyl plank material, carpet material, tile material and setting materials, transitions and trim, floor prep and moisture mitigation, and installation labor for each of those. When material and labor are on separate lines, you can bill 100 percent of a pallet of LVP that has been delivered and stored on site while billing zero percent of the labor that has not yet happened. That distinction is exactly what a lender's inspector is looking for, and it is the reason a granular SOV gets approved while a lumped one gets questioned. If you want to see how we translate a unit mix and product spec into billable line items before the first draw, our multifamily flooring package breakdown walks through the same logic at the estimate stage.

AIA G702 and G703: The Language the Draw Speaks

The construction industry standardized progress billing decades ago, and on institutional multifamily the format is almost always AIA. The G702 is the Application and Certificate for Payment: a one-page summary showing the contract sum, the total completed and stored to date, retainage, previous payments, and the current amount due. The G703 is the Continuation Sheet: the line-by-line SOV with columns for scheduled value, work completed from previous applications, work completed this period, materials presently stored, total to date, percent complete, balance to finish, and retainage.

A flooring subcontractor's monthly billing should mirror this format even when its direct contract is with the GC rather than the owner, because the GC has to roll the sub's numbers up into its own G702/G703 before the package ever reaches the architect and lender. When the sub's billing already speaks G703 — same line structure, same "completed this period" and "stored materials" columns — the GC's accountant can consolidate it without re-keying, and the certifying architect can tie each flooring number back to something observable in the field. Billing that does not map to the continuation sheet forces someone to translate it, and translation is where errors and delays live. We keep our flooring applications in that column structure deliberately, so the flooring rows drop straight into the GC's pay app.

Billing Stored Materials Without Tripping the Draw

Flooring material is expensive, it has long lead times, and on a fast Treasure Valley schedule it frequently arrives on site well before the crews that install it. That creates legitimate pressure to bill for stored materials — the "materials presently stored" column on the G703 exists for exactly this. But lenders guard that column carefully, because paying for material that later walks off the site or turns out to be the wrong product is how a bank ends up funding vapor.

To bill stored materials cleanly, you need documentation the inspector can verify: supplier invoices showing the material is paid for or payable, delivery tickets, photographs of the material staged on site with the project visible, and often a bill of sale transferring title to the owner. Many lenders also require that stored material be segregated, protected, and insured, and some will only fund material stored on site rather than at an off-site warehouse. For flooring specifically, this is where product data sheets earn their keep — showing that the delivered LVP, carpet tile, or porcelain matches the specified product and the approved submittal. When we bill stored flooring material, we assemble that packet up front so the draw does not stall waiting for proof. The unit-by-unit sequencing that governs when material converts from "stored" to "installed" is the heart of a flooring draw schedule that actually tracks the loan.

Retainage: The 5 to 10 Percent That Waits for the End

Retainage — retention — is the portion of each progress payment the owner holds back until the work is substantially or finally complete, typically 5 or 10 percent. On the G702 it is a distinct line that reduces the current payment due. For a flooring sub, retention is the money most at risk, because flooring is a late trade and the punch process concentrates on exactly the surfaces the sub installed: scratched planks, hollow-sounding tile, gapped seams, transitions that were dinged by other trades after the floor went in.

The financial reality is that a flooring subcontractor may not see its full retention until months after the last unit is installed, sometimes after the certificate of occupancy and the final lender draw. Structuring for that means pricing the job knowing 5 to 10 percent of every invoice is deferred, documenting completion rigorously so there is no ambiguity about when the clock started, and protecting the installed floor through the rest of construction so punch items stay minimal. Idaho does not impose a single statutory retainage cap on private commercial work the way some states do, so the retention percentage and its release conditions are governed by the contract — which is precisely why the flooring subcontract's retention language deserves a careful read before signing, not after.

Phased Release Billing so Flooring Tracks the Loan

Large multifamily projects rarely draw as one monolith. They phase — by building, by floor, by unit cluster, by the certificate-of-occupancy sequence a phased project uses to start leasing early. A construction loan funds against those phases, and the flooring billing should follow the same partition. Phased release billing means the flooring scope is itself divided so that Building A's floors can be billed, inspected, and partially released while Building C is still framed.

Practically, this shows up as SOV lines or sub-schedules keyed to phase: prep and install for Phase 1 units, then Phase 2, and so on. It keeps the "completed this period" numbers tied to a physical area an inspector can walk, and it lets the developer pull retention release on finished buildings rather than waiting for the entire project. In Treasure Valley's current build-out, where multifamily is delivered in waves to start absorbing renters as fast as possible, phased flooring billing is often the difference between a floor that funds itself as it completes and one that ties up capital until the whole site is done. Aligning the flooring installation sequence to the phase plan is a conversation we have at preconstruction, and it is a core part of how we work with developers and multifamily builders.

Lien Waivers: Conditional, Unconditional, and Matched to the Check

Every draw that includes flooring will require lien waivers, and getting them wrong is one of the fastest ways to freeze a payment. Idaho, like most states, recognizes mechanic's lien rights for those who furnish labor or materials to improve real property, and lenders protect their collateral by collecting waivers at each payment so that liens cannot cloud the title behind their loan.

There are two families of waiver, and the distinction matters. A conditional waiver releases lien rights only upon the condition that payment actually clears — it is the document you provide with the current application, before the check has landed. An unconditional waiver releases rights outright and should only be signed after the corresponding payment has been received and cleared. The disciplined pattern is: submit a conditional progress waiver with each pay application, then deliver an unconditional progress waiver for the prior payment once that money is in hand, and a final unconditional waiver only at closeout after retention is released. The amounts on each waiver must match the amounts on the pay application and the check, or the GC's title company will reject the package. Idaho's lien framework also imposes notice and timing rules that a flooring sub should track independently, because a validly perfected lien is the leverage that gets a stalled retention payment moving. We keep waiver amounts reconciled to each application so the draw package clears title review the first time.

Closeout, Final Draw, and Retention Release

The last draw is where flooring closeout lives, and it is document-heavy. Final release of the flooring line typically requires substantial completion of the flooring scope, a completed punch list, final unconditional lien waivers, warranty documentation, and often maintenance materials and attic stock — the boxes of spare LVP and carpet tile a property manager keeps for future repairs. The lender's final inspection confirms the installed floor matches the approved submittals before it funds retention.

For a flooring subcontractor, a clean closeout is earned during construction, not at the end. It means the SOV was granular enough to show 100 percent complete line by line, the stored-material billing was fully documented and converted to installed, the lien waivers reconciled to every check, and the installed floors were protected so the punch list is short. When those pieces are in place, the final draw releases the flooring retention on schedule rather than dragging into a dispute. When they are not, the flooring line becomes the reason the whole project's final draw sits open.

Building the Flooring Scope to Bill Cleanly From Day One

None of this is improvised at invoice time. The billing structure is designed at buyout — how the SOV is split, how phases map to the draw schedule, how stored material will be documented, and how retention and waivers will flow. A flooring subcontractor that understands construction finance sets those mechanics up before the first pallet lands, so every monthly application ties to something an architect can certify and a lender can fund.

Alderwood Flooring works as a flooring subcontractor on Treasure Valley and Boise-metro multifamily and tract projects, and we build our billing to reconcile with your draw schedule from the first pay application to final retention release. We are an Idaho Registered Contractor (Idaho RCE-6681702), insured, and bring 20+ years combined experience structuring flooring scope for phased, lender-funded work. If you are planning a multifamily or subdivision build and want the flooring line to track your construction loan cleanly, reach out through our contact form and we will walk through the schedule of values, phasing, and draw alignment for your specific project.