Expert Panel: How to Close Your 2021 Books Strong

Does the end of your year look like this: frantically calling customers to collect late payments, stressing over a backlog of overdue invoices, or reporting lost revenue to your boss in end-of-year financial reviews? That doesn’t sound like a fun way to end your year, and definitely won’t set you up for success in the coming year.

To help growing construction companies like yours end 2021 on a high note, we’re bringing together a panel of AR and credit specialists from various contracting and supply companies to share best practices that will help you close out the year without the stress of unpaid invoices.

In this live session, you’ll learn:

• What you can do NOW if customers aren’t paying
• Proactive steps to take so that your receivables are in a better place in 2022
• End of year reports to show job account health and overall cash flow

Transcription

Speaker 1 (00:03):
All right. We’ll see if the participants number starts to climb. Oh yeah. Skyrocketing. Perfect. You guys still hear me? Okay. That’s and Terry and Tim sweet now would not be now would be the, you know, the time when all the technical stuff would fall apart, but it’s not the best time for it. Sweet. Uh, if you are logging in then, and hear my voice for the first time, welcome to Levelset webinar here, we’ve got a great group of, uh, current level site users, as well as myself here. We’re going to get started in just a minute or two. I want to give everybody a moment to get logged in and get settled. If you want to test out for me though, our Q and a function, um, we’ll be using that throughout the call today to collect questions and make sure that we’re answering specifics to you guys.

Speaker 1 (00:49):
Why don’t we start out if you wanna throw your local NFL team, maybe that saints have a game tonight. So it’s top of mind, if you wanna throw your local NFL team and the Q and a to make sure it works, that’d be awesome. And then, like I said, we’ll get, uh, we’ll get rolling in just a moment. Broncos. Nice. I’m flying out to Denver and just a couple of weeks, Kathy, you guys gonna have some snow on the ground for me by then? I hope, I guess you can’t answer can’t you. That’s not fair. Oh, well, um, cool. Say a few things lead, Jennifer. Thank y’all. Um, awesome. All right. 2 0 1, we have 35 folks in your 36 now. Um, see all it’s actually I’m right there with you, Dave. The saints have had an ugly, ugly run of things. Um, awesome. Well then I am going to get us going Vince, Terry, every year.

Speaker 1 (01:42):
You guys can see my screen as well. All good. Sweet. Well then once again, welcome everybody. Um, my name is John Weirich. I’m going to be one of your speakers here today, but I’m really excited because I don’t have to do too much talking on this afternoon’s webinars. Uh, we’ve got a great group of Levelset users here with us from across the country. Um, and you can see a picture of them. I’ll let them introduce themselves in just a moment, but the topic at hand, as all of you know, is, uh, end of the year, close out and accounting best practices. We’ve got Vince, Terry and Kim here and share some of their industry knowledge, tell some stories about how Levelset, um, has been a help with, uh, with that annual task. And, uh, if you guys are ready, I’ll let you go ahead and take it away in whatever order you see fit. Um, if you wanna introduce yourself, let us know where you’re from. Something about, uh, your job that you love. And, uh, I think that was, uh, yeah, those are the two boxes we want to check here. So

Speaker 2 (02:38):
You want me to start or

Speaker 1 (02:39):
Take it away? Okay.

Speaker 2 (02:41):
And then French, I’m the CFO and CIO at 2020 plumbing and heating the part I love about my job. The most is making money. That’s for sure. Not fun, but it’s fun to cross that finish line and spike the football after we’re done. That’s only done after we file our taxes, right?

Speaker 1 (03:07):
Put the big emphatic stamp on it and be done. I don’t blame you. Awesome. Well, thanks for being here. That’s

Speaker 3 (03:15):
My name’s very, mostly I, um, worked for mammoth restoration and Flagstaff, Arizona. Um, gosh, I don’t know if I have a favorite part of my job. I think the biggest thing about my job is every single day is different around restoration. You have no idea. I keep telling my team, we can be a really great reality show.

Speaker 1 (03:41):
Awesome. Well, thank you Vince. I know we talked about it yesterday, but I may have missed it. 2020 is operating in California in Nevada, right? That’s right. Cool. Okay. So California, Nevada and Arizona represented so far. Um, Kim last Molly’s,

Speaker 4 (03:58):
Uh, Kim from Chavez plumbing. We’re located in Austin, Texas. The music Capitol of the world is what I’m telling people. Um, anyway, uh, I am the office manager, uh, and I also run the service department. And my favorite part of my job are the people that I work with. Um, my two bosses are visionaries. They have a very clear, um, goal in mind in being around people like that is absolutely inspiring. And so I really love working for this company.

Speaker 1 (04:34):
Awesome. I’m going to be in Austin even sooner. I fly out there next week. So they begin some of the good fall weather. Well, if you are a first-timer here, I’m going to Levelset webinars. Thanks for jumping on. If you’ve been with us before then, you know how these are going to go. I’m going to turn over the steering wheel here in just a moment. We’ve got a few topics and questions that our speakers are going to, uh, to cover here. Absolutely encourage anybody. Who’s on the call here today. Please use the Q and a function here in our zoom chat. If somebody says something that catches your interest, if you want to ask a ask about a topic that we don’t cover more the merrier in terms of the questions and with that, um, I’ll go ahead and kick us off here with our first question. So topic of the day is end of the year close out to get the conversation flowing here. Um, I wanted to hear from, from our group, uh, if you could talk a little bit about what end of the year reporting looks like for your team and, you know, just as importantly, when it usually kicks off or gets going, um, each year.

Speaker 4 (05:33):
All right. Well, I don’t really have a plan is what I found out, um, talking to, um, Vincent and Terry, um, they, they seem to have a very clear plan. So it actually spurred us to kind of sit down and talk about it and levels. That was absolutely the cornerstone. Um, we looked through our open invoices. We looked through, um, our invoicing system and I found out yesterday that I can integrate the two. So even better.

Speaker 1 (06:03):
Appreciate it, Kim. Um, we’ve been, so you’ve closed out a couple of years. And in your time working with level sat both at a, at 20, 20 and elsewhere, uh, you want to maybe pick up where Kim off.

Speaker 2 (06:13):
Yeah, I’ve been, um, I’ve been involved using Levelset, kind of want to say since 2016, I was with another company called, um, health construction specialties and, and, um, yeah, as far as the year end reporting, you know, it’s really important. Um, you know, that our books are clean at year end. It makes a lot easier to do all your accounting analysis, particularly on accounts receivable. You, if you’ve got clean accounts receivable, it’s not as tough to do to your reserve on doubtful accounts and value everything. So certainly throughout the year, we’re using Levelset to help us, um, ensure that we get paid and go after those who are not stepping up and paying us. And it’s, we’ve been successful with that, but all the other account analysis tasks, you know, there, it’s never, um, really smooth and easy. And my goal has always been a get it there a hundred percent, but, um, yeah, totally. It’s kind of a tough thing to reporting. I mean, we have to report to banks. We have to report to, um, a, um, valuation firms since we’re an Aesop and, um, report to our insurance company, you know, our financial statements and then of course to the government and internally as well.

Speaker 1 (07:43):
Awesome. I appreciate it. Vince and Terry, I, uh, I imagined the things being unpredictable in the restoration space. It may not start the same day every year, but in terms of timeline, what is, uh, what does it do to your reporting look like for, for mammoth,

Speaker 3 (07:55):
For sure. Um, our recording starts probably end of October. Um, and I’m looking for the CFO, just making sure all of our accounts are reconciled is a huge, big thing for me. Um, and making sure things have been cost coded properly incorrectly. So they’re all going to the right spot. Um, and we’ve not used a level. This is our first year losing, using Levelset and we’ve used it about six months. Um, and I am pulling reports for my receivables strictly from Levelset. Um, and so we have been using that reporting function pretty much the whole six months. We’re looking at receivables every week. Um, so that it’s not just an end of the year, um, report function.

Speaker 1 (08:44):
One of those, some of those like protected versus unprotected views that you’re talking about. Very awesome. Well, thank you guys. Um, speaking of how it is supposed to work, always good to, to maybe give a heads up to those in the audience who are, uh, we’re going through year-end for the first time or at a new org, what, as a construction payments, construction, credit, professional, what are some of the bigger challenges that you guys encounter when it comes to your enclose out? And if, uh, I know Terry, I just had you talk a bit, if you want to maybe start us off here and we can pass around from there.

Speaker 3 (09:16):
Yeah. Um, I think the biggest thing for us when we’re trying to close our books is, um, just making sure we have really good data. Um, so the reconciliations that the coding’s all properly done, um, and, you know, like Vince said, um, looking at those receivables that could be doubtful or considered a bad debts, um, you know, deciding are we taking that bad debt this year? Are we passing it onto the next year? So just analyzing those sort of problem children, so to speak before we get too far into the end of the year.

Speaker 1 (09:51):
Yeah. So making some final decisions about problem projects or problem accounts for them. Awesome. Um, Kim, what about you,

Speaker 4 (10:00):
Excuse me for taking that phone call, we just got another job.

Speaker 1 (10:03):
Yay.

Speaker 4 (10:05):
Which is super exciting, um, which I, I like to, to actually credit level. So too, um, because it helps us decide which projects to even bid on to begin with because they helped me identify problems with potential GCs. So when, so I’m trying to lessen those, uh, problems, um, from the very, very, very, very beginning before you even start a project, I’m able to kind of look at clients and see like, if they have problems paying their contractors. But, um, some problems that we’ve experienced is sometimes, um, a contractor might try to run away from a retainer, um, try to run away from paying us and really, uh, getting weekly updates. It’s, it’s kind of like what Vincent and Terry has been saying about this is a daily thing. This is a weekly thing. Um, I’m kind of the worst at it. So when Levelset sends me a, an email every Monday morning, like, Hey, these are the problems that we might encounter. And these are some things you might want to look into. Um, it kind of has helped me be more proactive so that I’m not dealing with these problems trying to close books at the end, just like what Terry was saying. So

Speaker 1 (11:22):
Yeah,

Speaker 4 (11:23):
Absolutely.

Speaker 2 (11:25):
Kathy Broncos fan asked what a CIO is and it’s what a CIO is, is a chief information officer. So you’re kind of in charge of all the systems, all the business systems in the company and the technical people reporting to. Yup.

Speaker 1 (11:45):
Awesome. Thank you for grabbing events. I need to, um, I’m into to remind folks, if you do have other particular questions like Kathy, feel free to use that Q and function here in the zoom chat. We’re more than, uh, more than happy to jump into something specific Vince, anything on the, on the typical closeout problems that, uh, that you might want to add, or you think we’re good for, uh, for topic three.

Speaker 2 (12:07):
Yeah, it seems like the thing I struggle with the most is, um, reconciling all of the payroll related accounts and inventory, and it’s usually the toughest ones to do because there’s just a lot of transactions involved in that. And, um, keeping everything in sync between the general ledgers and subledgers is not an easy thing.

Speaker 1 (12:32):
Well, I imagine too, cause y’all, I guess in all three days it says you’re going to have your, you know, your reconstruction, your contract work, but does everybody have some type of service or like real small revenue streams as well, but they’ve got to Kevin, are you focused on the service side for first? Remember? Right. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (12:47):
Awesome.

Speaker 1 (12:50):
Very cool. Well, um, speaking of year end, we know that taking some of the proactive steps that Ken mentioned and, um, the charity events are so familiar with, there’s a really good way to avoid slowed payment issues. Maybe some of those into the year surprise accounts, but at the end of the day, um, sometimes unpaid invoices happen, right? And when we’re making some of those tough decisions towards the end of the year, about how to handle an unpaid invoice, I’d love to hear from this group, um, maybe some of the tips or tricks that you guys have found successful when you’re looking to still collect on, on invoices that are, uh, going from a little late to a little more concerning.

Speaker 2 (13:24):
Well, I mean to do a good job at that, you have to do your work upfront and not being zone you’re into, you know, improving property. Like we are in construction and it involves filing a preliminary notice and to have a good system in place to file it, prelim your customer and, um, your, you know, the owner of the property and all the interested parties. So they know that if they don’t pay you, there’s going to be a good chance that you, I mean, you have the right to file a mechanic’s lien against their property, and they’re not going to want that. So if we just send them a document out of, Levelset called a notice of intent to lien, typically they’ll, you know, like nine out of 10 times, they’ll just pay, you know, that the other time we may have to file a mechanic’s lien. And then after that we’ll pay, we’ll never have to go to court or anything like that. So when you see those unpaid invoices, then you haven’t done your job pre-learning then it’s, it’s a lot tougher to collect. But if you have that payment assurance system, like Levelset in place, then your odds of getting, you know, making your collection is much greater. Those are taking the right steps to prelim.

Speaker 3 (14:45):
I agree with Vince, that’s what we do. We, we signed up every customer, a preliminary notice that we have that backing for us. Um, I know one of the things I do, I have a team, um, just works on our receivables and I know, um, I got one gal on there who I was told was not that nice. Um, but by the time it gets to me, I make that last phone call. Um, and when it gets towards the end of the year, I just sort of, gosh, I’d really like to clean this up before the end of the year, um, which sort of gets them moving. Sometimes the other thing I do is I just use Levelset and I say, you know, that third party that sent you that pre-lease notice if your invoices not paid, that you automatically are going to get a lien filed against your home. And that scares people and they pay

Speaker 1 (15:38):
Happy to be the bad guy if we need to be. Um, yeah. And, uh, Kim, what about you? I know Texas is a little goofy cause you guys have, like, you got your 15th of December notice requirement, and then there’s still a few weeks of, of, uh, chasing after receivable. So what’s, what’s been successful on your side,

Speaker 4 (15:57):
The bottom sleep. I’m going to be very Frank with you. I am not a CFO. I’m not a CFO. I’m not a CIO. Like my area of expertise is, is people not numbers. Um, and so these are things that like I do kind of struggle with. Um, so what we did is it kind of helped me out, right? Like help the lowest guy on the totem pole is we set it up with Levelset that they’re automatically doing S up to and I can totally customize it. Cause we are really interested in building positive relationships with our contractors, our GCs. So I don’t want to be too aggressive, right. So there are certain things like the, uh, preliminaries and all these other things that we’ve set up with Levelset to automatically send, we start a job from the very first day, like it’s automatic.

Speaker 4 (16:44):
I don’t think about it. I don’t even need to fully understand it all. So I’ll take care of those things for me. Um, and then it gives me a little bit more control and we’re monitoring. Um, we’re monitoring our invoices nor seeing they’re not getting paid. Okay. Now this is where I struggle, because like I said, I’m a people person. I don’t like to anger people. And sometimes I feel really intimidated by the whole process. So being able to play Terry said, you know, here’s the here’s what’s going to happen next. And it’s just kind of automatic now. So can you pay us? And it does it really spurs people into action and having that notice of intent it’s it’s, it does all the hard work for me. And it makes me seem much not bigger, but it makes me, it makes our team look stronger that we have this backing of, of this third party. So it makes people not want to try to push you around. So I love that. Honestly, it, it, it makes asking for money that we’ve earned a lot easier.

Speaker 1 (17:55):
Absolutely. I appreciate that. I want to come back in just a minute to like how you guys use some of your people resources around this, but there were two quick questions. Um, so if we had one question, what if the contract states that you need to, uh, keep the job free from liens? So not an attorney, but we can certainly share some resources that our attorneys have written the short version of the answer to that. There’s, there’s only two states that make it, uh, legal or binding for a company that contract how that their lien rights, a lot of general contractors on the job or parties furnishing labor may need to keep the property free of liens for the purposes of paying their vendors and, you know, due diligence in terms of cashflow. But if you have more specific questions about like how your state handles no lien requirements or jobs, um, are around me rights, absolutely reach out. And we can, uh, we can investigate a little bit further. Kathy, you asked you and kind of resistance from new customers when you send the prelim lien notice before the job even starts. It seems harsh when we just worked hard to win the customer. So being cognizant of those customer relationships, Terry, I know in Arizona, you don’t have much of a choice. So do you want to maybe talk a little bit about how your team messages, the prelims that they send in Arizona?

Speaker 3 (19:12):
Yeah. Um, in Arizona we’re required by the state, um, because our restaurant company does do we do construction as well. We are considered a construction company in Arizona. Um, and Arizona law requires us to send a 20 day preliminary notice or we lose all our rights to lien the property after the fact. Um, so we have a template that goes out with our, um, email and our, um, hard copy version to our customers. And it’s just a nice little letter that I wrote and I just explained Arizona law requires us to do this. Um, there’s no, um, judgment based on who’s going to pay or who’s not going to pay. This is just what the state requires us to do. Um, and I also remind them that is not a link. Lots of people get real confused when they see, when it says preliminary notice or pre sometimes it says pre lien. Um, they panic and they think, I mean, I take phone calls all the time about it and have to explain it to one. But, um, you know, I, most of the time make Levelset and the state, my bad guy.

Speaker 2 (20:21):
Yeah. We can use your financial institution or whoever requires you to do it. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (20:33):
It’s normal. It’s a normal business practice, construction trade, no matter what you are, it’s very normal.

Speaker 2 (20:42):
All the generals seem to know it’s, it’s calming, it’s this, some of the subs who are kind of new and you just tell them, well, it’s, it’s required by our banks or our suppliers, and then they get it. Not that we don’t trust you. Okay. And that kind of thing. So, um, and they’ll, they’ll understand.

Speaker 1 (21:03):
Yeah. Cathy, I hope that helps out Terry I’m sure. Dealing with homeowners too, you have people who are a lot less familiar receiving those pre-leased and preliminary notice documents. Um, it sounds like you guys are using some of the like cover letters that we talked about where you can just kind of, it’s still statutory, but it just lays out. Like don’t get in a panic. Here’s what this document’s signed to do. It’s a, win-win awesome. Kathy, have you got more specific questions? Keep using that quick Q and a, um, otherwise I hope that helps out a little bit jumping back to our slides. Uh, there’s there’s been a little bit of a theme I’m hearing from Holly, all which is that Levelset can help with reporting on some of our revenue and being able to see what’s at risk, but that there’s still certainly a human component to getting paid on these jobs and collecting wonder invoice with your clients outside of maybe preliminary notices or some of the documents that you’ve talked about. I’d love to hear how you guys are usually, you know, using your team members or your relationships to stay proactive about receivables throughout the year.

Speaker 2 (22:06):
Well, you know, on this, um, see the COVID-19 and all of that. We’ve had a lot of people, um, you know, in the office it’s been, I didn’t think it was going to be effective at the start, but it’s turned out to be effective to send people home and, and work. And kind of what I’ve done is I’ve put together metrics, you know, for collection like with your phone systems today, you can typically, you can see who’s making calls and who’s getting the incoming calls and, you know, and then with your ERP system, see, you know, how much money you’re bringing out with Levelset, you can see how many prelims, you know, people have, you have, um, filed and, um, how many releases they’ve done and so forth. So you can see all this business activity that’s going on and monitor it and make sure everybody’s doing your work. And it’s being proactive about collecting money. So that’s where these systems can be really helpful in working remotely. Also these tools like zoom and, you know, the Microsoft office on the cloud where you can work, interactively has been really helpful in being proactive about collecting. It’s using all these tools that we have. Now

Speaker 4 (23:27):
We have monthly billing. Um, we have monthly billing meetings at the first of every month where we kind of review, um, what the last month looked like, um, where if we were paid, if we weren’t paid and then we kind of start like filtering those problems out. Um, and then we’re also being very proactive in like, okay, what are we going to bill for this upcoming month? What are our goals? And we check in, um, about halfway through the month, um, we have weekly meetings with our supplier and that’s always a good reminder to kind of see if we’ve been paid before we start paying them. So, um, that’s been helpful. Um, we use a sauna, um, and we’re able to put templates together and like use those as, uh, reminders along with my weekly emails from levels that, which I adore, um, that also helps me out. So, so, so, so much it’s, it’s, it’s like Terry Vincent has been saying, creating systems in place that are automatic, that you don’t have to think about. And, uh, yeah, those emails are genius,

Speaker 2 (24:39):
But also like you said, um, Kimberly that personal touch, you know, having a meeting every week, going over those statistics and things, just so they, you know, your people kind of know that I’m watching or watching how everything’s going, that kind of thing, but, um, makes, makes it really effective.

Speaker 3 (25:02):
Our company is a little unique because we’re a restoration. And so our homeowners might not be our customers, the person paying the bill is the insurance company. And so we have found with our receivables, um, they’re not all with insurance companies and we could go 60 and sometimes 90. Um, but I have found to that personal touch, like Kim says, like reach out to an adjuster, make a phone call. Um, I think with COVID, we’re all craving connection. Um, and you know, we’re all trying to do a job and just sort of do the best we can do at it. Um, and so we are constantly in communication with our adjusters who are actually pushing the button to say, yeah, we’re going to pay you. Um, and our homeowners that are paying out of pocket are usually not a problem because they already know what’s expected. And what’s what the bills coming.

Speaker 1 (26:00):
Yeah. Frustration is its own fun, thick, a little beast. Isn’t it. When you get a cashflow for the project coming from the people, not on the project, it can be a little complicated. Um, awesome. Well, I appreciate that. Uh, we’ve got two more quick questions and then we’ll, we’ll make sure we leave some time for the live questions. The first one here is going to be, um, specifically around, um, lien rights management. Um, so I just, for those of, uh, those in the crowd who may be a little bit newer to lien rights, I think that there can sometimes be a, just a disconnect between like how does a prelim connect as much too high or in my collections, if anybody wanted to just kind of walk through how their team thinks about protecting lien rights in line with receivables to be a good place to start.

Speaker 3 (26:53):
Um, well, I can talk about my receivables. Um, when I, I have been with my company for about 18 months now, and when I got here, our receivables were over a million dollars. Um, there was not a pre-leasing, um, any kind of system in place for that at all. And they weren’t doing it and they were not collecting a lot. Um, and I was, I was telling John yesterday that I, our receivables are down 70%. We have, we have less than 20% of them over 60 days. And I credit Levelset with that because we pre-lease every single job, whether it’s $500 or it’s $500,000. Um, and it has made a huge difference for us. And the system that is in place is something I don’t have to think about someone else’s doing that behind the scenes for me and covering my butt.

Speaker 2 (27:59):
Yeah. I mean, kind of like I was mentioning before, I mean, giving that prelim notice upfront, just kinda know it serves its purpose. It puts everybody on notice, you know, all lien rights are in place and protected. And if you’re not going to pay me, I could have a piece of your equity in your property. If I enforce it, they don’t want that. So that’s, that’s how I ends up helping you with collection. Unfortunately, we have to do all this extra work, but if you don’t do it, you’re, you’re giving up a free get, you know, that the law gives us, it’s really kind of a gift that’s law that secures our payment. You don’t have this in all industries. You do have that when you improve somebody’s property, which in a position to do it. So you got to take advantage of that.

Speaker 4 (28:55):
I think 10, from a different perspective, um, Terry and Vince are very like, very cracked, like legally, um, these things work, but there’s also a little bit of a mental shift. When you, when you protect your rights proactively, you GC, if you think about their job, uh, general contractor, when you think about their job, they’re managing a bunch of little sub contractors and sometimes they’re just like hierarchy and how they decide to pay. Um, and it’s a little bit of a trickle-down effect and I don’t want to be the lowest guy on the, on the totem pole. I want to get paid for my work. I want to be able to pay my, um, my supplier. And so when I am proactive, when I’m sending those prelim reports, when I am protecting my rights, I’m standing up and I’m letting these GCs now, like, Hey man, work, work on the same level Levelset. And it really helps. It helps them keep in their mind, like, okay, like these guys are legitimate. These guys deserve to be treated with the same amount of respect. Like we may seem small, but we’re not. And, and we have the same resources that we they have and we know it. So it’s a little bit of a mental kind of proactive game too.

Speaker 1 (30:18):
I think that’s, um, that’s a great point. Can, you know, slow payment can happen. Sometimes an invoice is going to be late, but let’s all be aware that we know the rules. We’re trying to treat each other professionally and we can communicate on a little more equal, equal ground here when there are problems. Yeah. Awesome. Well, this is a, I think we’ve covered a lot on this question, so I’ll, I’ll really just open it up. If there are any final comments from the group around how Levelset specifically helps with end of year. Otherwise with a couple of minutes, we have left, I’m going to introduce, um, our non panelists to some of the Levelset tools really fast. And we’ll make sure that we share some contact information for anybody that has, um, additional questions. So not that it’s your last chance by any names, but Terry Vince can anything that, uh, that jumps to mind when you think about Levelset and into the year that we haven’t covered. Yeah,

Speaker 2 (31:13):
It really had to say, no, it also puts it. You know, you gotta worry about your customer too. Cause some of them may be good customers and they don’t want to be Freeland and it can, you know, it puts you in the position to manage that whole relationship with your customer. You know, they’re not all the same. Some of them like to operate differently. So you may have agreements with, um, that make you feel comfortable about payment. I mean, you can turn the whole thing over to an outsource, but it’s a big state because then you don’t have the customer contact. Your outsource company does this. This is the best of both worlds having, you know, a tool that allows you to do it efficiently and effectively, but you’re in control of it completely.

Speaker 1 (32:06):
Awesome. I appreciate that. If, um, again, if you have not had a chance to see much of the Levelset world, uh, I’m going to preview it for you guys really quick. Some of the tools that can and Vince and Carrie’s teams are using, um, I also want to let everybody here know if you got any accounts on the books here coming up towards the end of the year and you are looking at use and lien rights and any type of way we’re going to be offering $150 off of lien claims, uh, for the month of December. So if you’re here today, you’ll see a follow up some additional information in a follow-up email. If you had some colleagues or anybody else who might’ve registered, could make it. And we’ll be including that discounted though as well. Um, and the email, otherwise, let me introduce everybody here to, uh, to some of the cash and construction, uh, to see in the construction cash flow tools, done levels that offered.

Speaker 1 (32:55):
So our panel today have talked a lot about things like preliminary notices, releases, notices of intent to lien. I didn’t know anything in the world about mechanics liens, um, six years ago and every time I think that I know enough now, I realize that that is an endlessly complicated, um, set of rules. One of the big areas that Levelset helps companies like 20, 20 plumbing or like, um, mammoth restoration is by taking the guesswork out of main rights requirements and the process of sending notices. So what Levelset has is, uh, a software, as soon as a project enters the Levelset system, we’re going to let you know, based off your state, the state requirements, what steps should be taken and when to make sure that we’re sending the right notices and being proactive about payment during that project, once the customer is happy, every feeling good and we’re building work, we’ll also keep you informed of common steps, like sending a lien waiver, lien release, or maybe sending a monthly notice.

Speaker 1 (33:54):
If you’re a contractor or supplier in Texas like Kim, the idea of our lien rights management system is to give a business or a team of AR pros. One place to go to see how we secured our lien rights. Are we at risk of not being paid? And what can we do about any late or, or soon to be paid invoices that we need to address one more plug here for the Q and a, if anybody has some specifics, otherwise I wanted to talk really quickly about job radar and Vince, Kim, Terry, you guys have any experiences you want to speak to. I’d love to hear it. I always described our job radar solution as a payment fire alarm and your construction ecosystem. So for all the contractors and suppliers that we work with all over the country, we have a very, very good insight usually into when cashflow is slowing down on the job. And if Kim’s on a project, but the drywall subcontractor is dealing with slow payment and maybe filing a notice of intent to lien or looking into filing a lien, we’re going to let Kim and anybody else on that project. Now I see you nod and your candidate, you received,

Speaker 4 (34:56):
Oh my gosh, she had this saved, this, this saved our funds. Um, one particular project. We were on this project. And then we got notices from this job radar, Hey, like these other subcontractor contractors are not getting paid. Um, so we sent a, we sent a notice of intent to lien and that changed it for us. We got paid and I’m looking over some of our I’m in contact with some of the others have contractors and they still have not gotten paid. Um, and this was about a year ago. Um, it absolutely was so integral in us, um, being aware of what’s going on, on, on the job and making sure that, that we took care of, and it was genius. I loved the job radar.

Speaker 1 (35:42):
It’s definitely one, it’s one of the newest tools and products we’ve been able to bring out to our users. So I’m happy to hear it. There were two questions in the Q and a thank you, anonymous and Lee, that I’ll address really fast. So, um, somebody from a midsize framing sub mentioned a lot of times we hear from our contractor, maybe the GC that they can’t pay until they get paid. But it’s hard to understand who the property owner or maybe the developer builder is. Um, as a general rule property owners, even lenders and sureties on a job are going to be required. Recipients of any types of preliminary notices or notice of intent to lien one area. And we haven’t touched on it too much here today, but if you have questions, please let us know that we help out is when our scout team, our scout research team specifically.

Speaker 1 (36:26):
So to answer your question just based off the project address and who your customer might be, um, we’re going to be able to let you know who the owner is, if there’s a legal property description and a lender or anything like that. Um, and that way we can be sending it to everybody that’s required and everybody that may need to know about that document. Yeah. Good question. And then I can’t answer this one because I don’t, I don’t get to use Levelset every day. I just talked to people about it, but, um, Terry Kim Benz, if you guys could guess how much time you’re spending this is entering in phone to Levelset system. I know some of you are integrated.

Speaker 4 (37:02):
It’s nothing. It is nothing. Um, what I do, what I do when I get my first, uh, invoice that we’re going to send to a customer, pull up, labral set, pull up my most, my, um, pay application. Um, and I just in train like the contract price, um, if I’m doing retainage, the, the GC that I’m working with, and if I know the owner, if not, um, it goes to the scout, which is, uh, which is excellent. And they do the research. They help me do the research and if they have any questions, I’ll get an email on my weekly email. Um, or they’re like, Hey, you, you miss something or you may need to double check this. Um, it, it literally takes two to five minutes, um, when I’m actually entering in a new customer, it is, it’s so quick. It’s amazing. Love it,

Speaker 1 (37:56):
Tarian and integrated a little bit. So maybe just like how much time you spend in Levelset each week for those of you guys who are not familiar Levelset can also, sorry, I’ll just give them some background real quick. Terry, for Terry and Vince’s teams, they’ve connected whether three spreadsheet imports, or like a QuickBooks integration, they’ve connected their accounting systems a little bit more directly and the Levelset. So things like project and AR information are coming over behind the scenes, but sorry, take it away, Terry.

Speaker 3 (38:27):
Yeah. So mine is all integrated. I don’t have to enter anything. Um, the only thing I might change is the baby starter job, because it’s important in when we put it in, which may be a day or two off of when we actually start the job. Um, but it’s all doing it for me. All I’m doing is looking to see who’s getting one in the morning and it’s just on my to-do list every day to just check in on it

Speaker 2 (38:55):
At hub construction specialists, we had like about a hundred or 150 new jobs every week. So, um, you know, on our ERP system, we had people monitoring when we’re getting close to that 21 day on deadline, there’s a deadline that you gotta hit in California. You know, within 20 days of the first time you supply the material, you got to serve the pre-lab. So we got to get that information from our customer who is, you know, if we’re working for a sub who the general is, what’s the address of the property we’re improving. Then once we’ve got that, we would just press a button. And we had an integration with levels that it would just automatically populate the new John and the other information. So it was, it’s pretty efficient that way here we’re, um, kind of on an older system. So we use CSV files to kind of update new jobs and AR and all that kind of stuff. We’re going to integrate with our new platform when we get that in place.

Speaker 1 (40:03):
Appreciate it. Um, and I I’m, uh, I’m sorry. I think that question came from Lee, but Lee, if you’ve got any other specific questions about how your team’s tech stack or accounting system may plug in to Levelset, we’re more than happy to, uh, to talk about it last but not least, um, wanting to introduce you guys to, uh, maybe a seasonally relevant product that we have here. It’s colored legal guard, um, products. I’m not sure if any of our panels here today, um, are working with a member of our construction network, but we understand that sometimes you get to the end of the year, and there are questions with legal implications. Are there accounts that are going to need to go towards litigation or whatever? We, uh, we have vast network of those construction litigants here at Levelset and we actually have a product that allows construction companies to kind of have, um, this kind of access to, to an out of house counsel and make sure that they’ve got somebody in their corner when they have to have some of those more complicated questions, again, any, uh, any specifics, more than happy to, uh, to talk over.

Speaker 1 (41:03):
Um, other than that, I think I see one more question from Neffry apologies if I didn’t pronounce that correctly. Um, I would say that we can integrate with really any program. If we’re talking about a CSV export and import process, right? Levelsets, very vendor neutral on where a company’s, um, project or accounting info comes from in terms of the like, we’ll call them out of the box or native integrations that Levelset has available. We plug in directly with QuickBooks, online, QuickBooks, desktop pro core pre-court financials, um, red team, which is, uh, for some smaller general contractors and builders, and we’re working on additional integrations, but we work with folks who are on spectrum or on foundation systems, Oracle based systems, JD Edwards, um, we’re, we’re open to whatever works best for y’all with that. Then we’re coming up on time. If there’s any last minute questions there, one hand up to wherever you need to do to catch my attention.

Speaker 1 (42:06):
Otherwise, thank you guys for all being here again. We’re, uh, excited to answer any questions that come up. We are offering some discounted lien claims and bond claims here through the end of the year. So as you’re going through those end of the year books, if you have an account that needs a little bit of a kick in the butt, if you have questions about how level second help you guys in 2022, to get ahead of some of these end of the year headaches, we are more than happy to, uh, to talk through that in detail, you can reach out at Levelset dot com backslash contact us, and everybody has a great rest of the afternoon. That’s Terry Kim. Thank you guys so much and have done it without a jail. Nice

Speaker 5 (42:43):
To meet Kimberly and

Speaker 1 (42:47):
Doll to see all right.

Speaker 5 (42:57):
I guess that’s it.