How to Find Accurate Job Information for Your Vital Paperwork

Exploring Levelset’s Scout Ultimate Research Solution

When you’re sending a notice, filing a lien, or working on any paperwork related to collecting payment, having the correct job information is absolutely essential. Unfortunately, when you work on large jobs with lots of moving pieces, the property stakeholder and job site details you need can be time-consuming or just downright impossible to find on your own.

At Levelset, we help construction companies find these necessary job details with different tiers of research solutions. Our Scout Ultimate solution involves a team of expert researchers who will partner with you to personally track down those hard to find details. 

In this live webinar, you’ll get to hear from two of our very own Scout Researchers as they walk you through their process for finding job and property information so you can see just how easy it is to add accurate job information to your paperwork and successfully protect your lien rights.

In this live session, you’ll learn:

• How the Levelset Scout team finds accurate information 99% of the time
• How growing construction companies have partnered with Scout to secure lien rights and speed up collections
• A detailed breakdown of the different levels of research solutions available to you
  

Transcript

Hannah Leis (00:00):
Hey everyone. I see some folks starting to roll in. Um, we’re going to get started in just about a minute or so, um, just to give a chance for everyone to log on. Um, but we’re excited to talk to you about, um, Scott research at Levelset here today. Hey, all for those who are just joining, um, we’re going to get started in about 30 seconds. Just give everyone a chance to settle into their chair, grab a cup of water, and then we’ll get started.

Hannah Leis (01:02):
Alright, well we might have a couple more people trickle in, um, but for the sake of time, I’m just going to go ahead and get started. Um, I just want to start off by saying hello and welcome you all to today’s webinar. We’re really excited to talk to you about how we’ve helped hundreds of construction companies find important job and property information for their notices and other paperwork. I know we have a mix of current Levelset customers on this webinar, as well as some people who maybe have just heard the name Levelset for the first time over the last few days or weeks or months. Um, we’ll definitely cover the basics of who we are and what we do for those of you who are new. Um, and also deep dive, dive deeper into the nuances of our scout research research solution for those current customers who are looking to level up, uh, before I move forward, I just do want to let everyone know that this is a live session.

Hannah Leis (01:51):
So you’ll receive a link to the recording in your email tomorrow. Feel free to share that recording with your team, your boss. Um, watch it again, really anyone you want. Um, but just please do know that. And then also, if you have any questions during the presentation, you can go ahead and enter them in the chat box and we’ll answer those questions throughout the webinar. Um, we also have some dedicated time at the end. So if there’s any additional questions at that point, we can go ahead and answer them then, but feel free to start asking any questions that you may have. All right. So I want to start off with some quick introductions before we jump into the session. Um, my name is Hannah Leese. Most people on my team call me Kev or Kevin though, um, which is my middle name. And I’m the manager of the scout ultimate research team I’ve been at Levelset for just over three years. And I started on the pro research team, which is the sister team to the ultimate team. Um, and I was on that team for about a year and then I moved over to the scout ultimate team. Um, and then over time I had moved into the manager role and we also have, we do have a quick last minute, um, change of person who’s joining us today. We do have Ms. Carla, who’s joining us today as well.

Carly Rosenberg (02:59):
Hi everyone. My name is Carly. Um, I am a researcher on the scout ultimate team. Um, I have been working at Levelset for a bit over two years. I also started on the pro research team, um, spent about six months there and now I’ve been on the ultimate team for about a year and a half.

Hannah Leis (03:17):
Awesome. Um, so for those of you who are new to Levelset, and you’re maybe still learning who we are, I’ll just give you a quick summary. Basically Levelset exists to help contractors and suppliers get paid, protect their lien rights and avoid potential payment problems in order to grow and thrive in the construction industry. The construction industry presents all sorts of challenges when it comes to getting paid. Um, in order to end, in order to solve this challenges, we provide free resources like our payment profiles, which are essentially Yelp for contractors, education, lien, law guidelines, and other payment solutions. We also have a full product suite of solutions, including cloud-based lien rights management, software credit, risk reports, material financing. And of course what we’re talking about today, our job research solution, which we’ll be discussing in detail. Um, so what is Levelset and kind of, how do we help construction companies?

Hannah Leis (04:10):
Most of you on this webinar are current Levelset customers, but I know we have a few people who aren’t and maybe hearing about Levelset for the first time. So to give you a little bit of background on the Levelset system allows you to access the most comprehensive job sheet or job data and construction information to confirm details on your paperwork. That’s things like property owners, general contractors in some states there’s even requirements for lenders or for bonding companies, depending on the type of work that was performed. And depending on, um, some other additional criteria, all of that is very confusing or can be very confusing. And our main goal is to help simplify that entire process to make it very easy, to keep track of who needs to get documents, who has gotten documents and making sure that everyone is getting paid. Um, we also, through our platform offer instant updates about who’s on your jobs in the form of notifications.

Hannah Leis (05:03):
So you’re able to log in to your account and see a wide range of contacts that are on the job contacts that might be on the job, um, that have also sent notices to certain contractors, just a whole plethora of information. Um, and additionally, we also have, um, two expert research teams that can help verify and confirm property information. Um, just as a housekeeping tip, if you have any questions at all, please drop them into the chat and we’ll make sure to answer them at the end. Um, I already see at least one coming in and we want to make sure to get all of those. We have three different tiers of research here at Levelset. No, if you want to go to the next slide. Awesome. Thank you. Um, we have three different tiers of research, the first discount standard, and this is really kind of an automatic tier.

Hannah Leis (05:50):
This doesn’t guarantee that there’s a dedicated researcher looking at any of these projects. Basically we have a behind scenes integration that runs it through not only our internal database, which has millions of jobs, but also a, um, property ownership platform that confirms all across the country, property ownership, project type, um, and, uh, in addition, a description of the property. So this kind of runs behind the scenes and it confirms this information. Folks who tend to be a good fit for scab standard are ones who have really clean project addresses and know a lot about the jobs that they’re working on. Typically general contractors are a good fit for a scout standard, um, as well as sometimes subcontractors, who you might work on a residential property. And you know, that the address is like 1, 2, 3 south main street, um, or have a clean project address like that.

Hannah Leis (06:45):
If you, maybe one of those categories doesn’t fit like you’re missing a general contractor, or you tend to know that your jobs are road work at the intersection of north street and second street, but not exactly what that job address is. You might be a better fit for scout pro, which is our next level of research. Um, and this involves all of the same resources that scalp standard has. Plus there is a human looking at a majority of these documents. So you can use like human judgment to help determine, um, information about the project. Say it was road work that was being done, but there was a drop location that was provided to you of the HEB that was on main street, but the job was actually for the road work there, um, by allowing a person to be researching it rather than a computer system could be researching it, it provides an additional level of protection that everything is being looked at confirmed, making sure there’s no inconsistencies between, um, the data that’s being provided.

Hannah Leis (07:44):
And what is being sent out at is correct. The next tier of research adds all of that human, all of the, um, uh, software platforms that we have. Plus there are phone calls and emails being sent to confirm really hard to find project information. Sometimes this information just simply isn’t online. Um, for example, lenders in California, there’s typically not a record online of those lenders. So to find those required contacts can be very tricky. And the best way is to have someone pick up that phone and actually call say, Carly, hire someone to paint a wall in her house. Blue. There may, if, if just as a wall being painted, there might not be a permit that’s being filed. It might just be a painter working directly with the homeowner. And so calling to confirm information is really the easiest way and most correct way for us to find any of that information.

Hannah Leis (08:38):
Um, so you may be wondering which level of research is right for you. The kind of general rule is the less information you have and love. You want to jump to the next slide, this summarizes a little bit, um, the general rule is the less information you have. Ultimate is probably a better fit for you. Um, if you rarely have general contractors or if you’re struggling to find lenders, because ultimate provides that phone call, we can find information that might not be available online or is really hard to find online. If you tend to have like a medium, good amount of information, you know, you have a good project address, but maybe you’re occasionally mentioning that general contractor, or you have a really solid name of the job each time, but maybe the, exactly where the job is taking places a little iffy scout pro is the level to go for for you. And then on a scout standard, it’s really, if you’re looking for really basic job information such as the property owner or the project description, um, and Carla has some specific examples about how over the past two years, the scout ultimate team has been able to fill in some really hard to find information.

Carly Rosenberg (09:41):
Uh, I think it’s kind of, um, so yeah, like I’ve said, I’m just going to go over a few examples of how scout ultimate, um, it has kind of a leverage compared to other, uh, research teams because of that phone call ability. Um, you can see in this picture me hard at work, um, with my little dog, but, um, there she is, didn’t quite make the cut level have to fix that for the next slide deck. Um, but yeah, I’ll go onto the first example. Um, this example in particular was for a notice in Florida, um, Florida notice to owners have, uh, several required contacts that need to be listed on these documents. Um, and we had a document come in a project that one of our partners sent us where they provided their customer as a general contractor. Um, we were not able to find any information linking this, uh, general contractor to the project address or the property owner.

Carly Rosenberg (10:35):
Um, so we were able to get on the phone called their customer directly, found out they actually were not the general contractor. They were a sub contractor, and then they gave us the name of the general contractor. Um, so this first example, it’s just pretty clear that calling really helped, um, ensure the accuracy of this document. We were able to update the roles. So every contractor on the job was listed correctly. Every contractor on the job got the correction notice. Um, and just one really good example of how have we not been able to call on the phone. This document would have gone out and accurately most likely. Um, the next example I have is, um, a bit similar, but it’s regarding job address. Um, this project was actually given to us by one of our larger volume partners. We’ve researched hundreds of documents for them per month, um, especially in Texas.

Carly Rosenberg (11:31):
Um, and on this job, they listed the project address, um, as on Fort worth Fort worth street in the city of Fort worth. Um, we were checking all of our online databases trying to find this address, find the property owner really pinpoint the site for the project, could not find a thing. Um, so we called the general contractor on the job. It turns out we were given the incorrect project address. It was on Fort worth street, but it was in the city of Dallas. So with this new information, we were able to update the project address, but then also find all the project information, find the site, the property owner, um, confirm the project as a whole, now that we were able to look in the right place. Um, and then my next and last example is actually one of my favorites. Um, this project was for a brand new charter school construction had just started, um, and charter schools can be a little tricky because sometimes they are privately funded.

Carly Rosenberg (12:31):
They’re owned by an LLC or they’re owned by a corporation. Um, but also sometimes charter schools can be public. Um, they’re funded and run by the board of education. Um, we were researching this project for such a new school. This information really wasn’t available online with any of the resources we had. Um, so one of our researchers actually got on the phone or, um, called the charter school directly and just asked, Hey, are you guys private or public turns out they were public. We were originally told they were private. So this was essential because, um, the type of document that was required to be signed out, um, it would have changed or it did change based on it being private Republic. Um, with this phone call ability, we could just, um, get the correct information, make sure all of the notices that we’re sending out are not only as complete as possible, also as accurate as possible. Um, we do hundreds of be the day. These are just three examples, um, of how, um, that scout ultimate level of research really, um, helps.

Carly Rosenberg (13:37):
And then let’s see, well, if you don’t believe me, you can listen to a few of our partners, um, who have some rating or reviews for us. Um, the first one says scout research has saved us a ton of time. It gives us confidence to know that the best research has been done on your end to make sure we’re getting the notices to the owner properly. The second one from Natalie at buffer hands is actually one of my favorites. Um, it says if job details are missing, the scout team finds them. Levelset scout finds, whatever details are missing to file the notices. It reminds me of the wizard of Oz Levelsets behind the curtain, taking care of beauty tails everyday for me. And I love you guys for that. Um, we love Natalie too. Um, that’s really what our goal is here is to be behind the scenes, um, make sure all of the, all of your notices are going out correctly, accurately, completely. Um, and then the next quote and the last post says Levelset scout research fills in the blanks for me, so that if I ever send a notice of intent to mean it’s going to the right person, otherwise I’m just struggling and emailing everyone to try and get the right information.

Carly Rosenberg (14:46):
And then I think we have some time for some questions, um, can have, if you’ve been in the chat, you want

Hannah Leis (14:51):
To answer one real quick. Absolutely. Um, Monica asked, how do you distinguish between multiple projects that are at the same project site site slash address that have different project owners? And that’s a really great question and I don’t have a cut and dry answer for you because it really depends on the context clues that are given about that specific project. The most common situation that this arises in is for homeowners associations, especially in apartment buildings or in condo buildings where each unit may be individually owned by, you know, one unit is owned by Bob. One unit is owned by Joe, but the determining if the project is for the entire overall building the owners association, or if it’s for, you know, Bob’s individual unit or Joe’s individual unit, these are some of the trickier jobs to try to confirm about who the owner is. Um, and we have a couple methods that we use the first is using the clues that are provided on the document, say that the, or that are provided on the project, say that the customer enters like that it’s a specific unit number.

Hannah Leis (15:56):
We can use that information to confirm that it was for an individual unit rather than the overall development. Um, sometimes that information is not provided though. And then we can go ahead and either we have a two-step process, we call directly call the general contractor and see who the work was being done for if it was done for the overall owners association or if it was done for an individual unit. Um, and if they don’t pick up the phone, we go ahead and we can reach out directly to the person who ordered the document. And we can ask if they have any more information about if it was for a specific unit or for a specific, um, or for the overall development, we don’t make any assumptions about things because we want to make sure that all the information we’re adding is completely accurate. So we have a chat feature where we can communicate back and forth directly on the project to like kind of iron out some of those fine details.

Hannah Leis (16:48):
Um, Carol asked that you have a job that is owned by the fire protection district. Is that considered private or public? Um, without looking at the specific details of the job, um, I’m not able to answer the question cause it might depend, it will depend on details about the state, but I can definitely look into it based if you have a little bit more information based on the state or the specific fire protection district name, um, and get back to you, um, in the email that sent out or later this week. Um, one common question we get, and if you guys have any other questions, please feel free to pop them into the chat and we will make sure to answer those one common question we get is basically what happens. What is the ultimate team do when our customers don’t want to give out information?

Hannah Leis (17:29):
Um, this is a process that it actually doesn’t happen as much as you think. The last time I looked at the numbers, it was like less than on less than 2% of the phone calls we make are we told, like, we’re not going to share that information with you. It’s really pretty uncommon. Um, it does happen from time to time though. And we have a couple of approaches that we can use. The first is determining why they aren’t comfortable sharing the information. Sometimes it’s a case of, they don’t know who we are and they don’t want to give information out to a stranger. And so by confirming with them that we actually do work on behalf of a specific customer that tends to alleviate a lot of those fears. Um, sometimes they’re just in a bad mood though, and they want us to call back the next day and the next day they’re in a better mood and we can make it work that way.

Hannah Leis (18:15):
Um, there are the next question I commonly get is what happens if you’ve done everything and Scott ultimate still can’t find the information we need that does happen from time to time. Um, especially when the information doesn’t exist online, if a general contractor or subcontractor doesn’t pick up the phone. Um, we don’t have a lot of other avenues or reply to an email. We sometimes don’t have a lot of other avenues to get that information. So in those cases, we have a whole set of, um, custom, like we have a whole set of custom preferences that you, the customer can determine what they want to happen in those situations. Sometimes they just want us to go ahead and send a document out and that contact we list is requested. Sometimes they want us to notify them and they, because they may have like an additional phone number or an additional email that we can reach out to. Um, so it’s kind of situational, but it’s really up to the complete control of the partner of what they want to happen with those documents.

Carly Rosenberg (19:14):
Um, and then we also have a question from Jenny. Um, really good question says we do a lot of work for department of transportation’s on highway work. How precise can an address get when it’s for a span of highway work or how precise does it need to be? Um, this happens all the time with highway work. Um, usually the most helpful piece of information that can be provided to us is the project name. Um, if, you know, if it’s on one Pacific highway, um, or if you have like a cross street, perhaps that can sometimes be helpful as well. Um, if you were a scout user, um, you would definitely want to be on pro or ultimate plan for this, just because like Kev said scout standard, isn’t going to be able to pick any, um, nonspecific, um, addresses up and their integration. So yeah, with department of transportation jobs, usually the project name is the most helpful piece of information. Um, or maybe if you have a general contractor name that seems to be a good fit for us as well.

Hannah Leis (20:14):
Yeah. As a general rule of thumb, as Carly said, like any thing that you have about the job that you can provide is helpful. I remember a couple of years ago we had one job that we, the only picture we were able to find was like off a groundbreaking that was happening. But the researcher noticed that there was a very odd looking tree kind of in like the background of the groundbreaking that he could clearly see like where it was. And he knew the approximate area that the job was taking place in, but there was no precise address. I think it was like a new multi-family apartment building. So it was this huge development. And using that tree, he was actually able to end in combination with GIS maps. He was actually able to identify exactly where that parcel was. So sometimes just like the name of the development, um, can be really helpful in helping us find information. Um, you never know what’s going to stick sometimes.

Hannah Leis (21:10):
All right. Well, I don’t see any additional questions coming in, but if you guys do have any additional questions, please feel free to reach out to either our five-star support team or directly to your CSM. If you have any specific questions and we will be more than happy to get those answered, I want to thank everyone so much for taking the time today to come join this webinar. And this, as a reminder, this webinar will be sent out probably within the next 24 to 48 hours, along with any contact information to either help find out more about skull ultimate or get you started with Levelset. But thank you again for everyone for coming today.