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Why it pays to use software to send notices on all your jobs

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Experts in this video

Megan Britt
Megan Britt
Terri Mosley
Terri Mosley

You might know by now that preliminary notices are required in some (okay, most) states to protect your lien rights. But have you considered sending them even when they aren’t required?

Sending preliminary notices (aka NTOs, prelims, preliens, NOCs, etc) are known to speed up payment, reduce DSO, and grow your business bigtime. In fact, as a best practice to keep your cash flow as strong as possible at all times, we recommend sending notices on all your jobs, even when it’s not required.

Terri Mosley, CFO of Mammoth Restoration will join Megan Britt, Levelset Payment Expert on Thursday, February 24th at 2pm CST. Together, they’ll show you first-hand how streamlining your notices with lien rights software will:

  • Save you time on receivables and paperwork
  • Get you paid faster across the board
  • Help you put an end to chronic payment problems once and for all

 

Speaker 1 (00:04):
So welcome everyone to today’s webinar. We’re really excited to speak with you about the benefits of sending notices to protect your lean rights and how you can use software to make it easy to send those notices on every single job. Easy is definitely gonna be the name of the, so if you’re here today, you might be totally new to the whole notice process and just trying to get a grip on what they are and how they can help you or you might already know all about sending them. And you’re wanting to learn how you can use our software to send them on a larger scale or make your current process easier. No matter where you are, I, that you will all leave this session with a better grip on the steps you need to take to have a Bulletproof notice process that doesn’t stress you out.

Speaker 1 (00:49):
So before we move forward I do wanna let you know that we are recording this live session. So if you need to use it for anybody on your team later if you know, somebody that signed up and missed it we are, are recording it and then you’ll receive a link to the recording tomorrow. If you wanna watch it again or share with your team. And then if you do have any questions during the presentation, go ahead and enter them in that chat box in the Q and a box. And then we’re gonna get to all of those at the end. So my name is Megan Brit and I am one of our construction payment experts here at level set. I have been with level set for actually just realized I’m very close to my my one year anniversary, which I’m excited about. I have been working though alongside with softwares and industries that service the construction industry for about seven years now. So very familiar with how, some of the, the pains of running your business as well as some of the pleasures. And I’m excited to talk to y’all about how we can streamline some of your payment processes. And then my co-host today is Terry Mosley. She is the CFO at mammoth restoration. And then Terry, I’m gonna kick it over to you to, to introduce yourself.

Speaker 2 (02:10):
Okay. Like Megan said, my name’s Terry I’m the CFO of mammoth restoration. We do restoration work. We also have a construction division. We also have a plumbing division and a pest control division as well. So lots of things. I tell people I learn something new every single day here, because something happens. You can just not imagine. And we’ve been using level set. It’s, I think it’s been seven, seven months now. We started in the summer of year and I’ve worked for mammoth restoration coming on my two year anniversary in may. And when I got here, we were not using anything for any kind of preliminary notices or any kind of liens. So it was all new for us.

Speaker 1 (03:03):
Yeah. And we are gonna learn a lot about how implementing level set has impacted mammoth. And Terry’s gonna be filling out in on that. But regardless of again, whether or not you have a restoration company you’re working more or so with general contractors, right? This is all gonna be applicable across the board for how level set can help streamline your payments. So if this is your first time at a level set webinar, I wanna give you a quick overview of who we are and what we do. So we all know that the construction industry presents all sorts of challenges when it comes to getting paid. So level set is here to help with that. Our lean rights management software helps you track mechanics lie and notice deadlines, verify job site information, and basically just makes it easy to manage your lean rights paperwork.

Speaker 1 (03:55):
We also provide access to construction attorneys and other legal services. Plus we have all kinds of resources on our website from profiles, outlining contractor payment histories to educational guidelines. So definitely go check that out. But today we’re gonna be going over a few things, give you guys a quick agenda. So we’re gonna go over that preliminary notice overview. And if right now it sounds like I’m speaking French, don’t worry. It’s all gonna become crystal clear. We’re gonna go over the benefits of sending those notices on every job, regardless of what your state requires. We’re gonna go through the three ways that helps to have software manage this process for you. And then obviously we’re gonna get to that Q and a. So I wanna start for any of you who are unfamiliar with the term preliminary notice colloquial a lot of times when I’m speaking with contractors or with controllers people on accounts receivable, I, I hear them referred to this sometimes as a preLink but basically wanna give you a quick refresher that preliminary notice.

Speaker 1 (05:03):
So it does go by different names as well, based on where you’re located. So for example, in Florida, it’s a notice to owner in Ohio. It’s a notice of furnishings in California, it’s called a 20 day prelim. And then again, I’ve heard people refer to it as Alane or just so depending on what state you’re working in there are different requirements for creating and sending those notices. And in some states, depending on your role on the job, they might not be required for you at all. But at a basic level, a prelim notice is a document that tells the general contractor and the property owner that you performed work are supplied materials to a job they’re usually sent at the beginning of a job before any payments are due so that you can preserve your right to file a lien. In the case of non-payment.

Speaker 1 (05:56):
Now this information is also helpful to owners and GCs, and that’s the reason that notice requirements were invented, right? The whole point is to provide them with helpful information to help make sure no surprise liens are filed on a job. So level set conducted a survey recently that showed that more than 83% of notice recipients find the documents to be helpful or just part of their everyday business. So in states like California or Florida, if you’re a subcontractor or supplier on a job, you absolutely have to send these notices within the required deadlines in order to protect lean rights. But in some instances you are aren’t required, whether it’s because of your location or your role when they are required to protect lie rights, sending notices is a no-brainer right. Now they aren’t always required. And we’re gonna talk a little bit about why it should really still be a no-brainer to send them in a lot of instances. But Terry, I, I know that mammoth does send a lot of preliminary notices. So can you talk us through what your notice process was at mammoth prior to level set and then a little bit about what it looks like now?

Speaker 2 (07:11):
So our system was non-existent which I inherited a receivable list of over $500,000. And so that’s sort of what got me going. And I was like, why are we not doing them? In my old job, I maybe did two a month. And so I did them myself. But we have right now during our slow season, we have 35 jobs going on right now. And there’s no way I have time to do all of that. So we, it is our policy at mammoth that we send a preliminary notice to every single job, every single customer because then we’re not discriminating. We’re not deciding who can pay or who can’t pay. And also we, we started out with okay, only jobs that are over $3,000 and then it was like, we spent more time chasing the $2,000 or the $500. And when I broke it down, it was the cost of, it was way exceeding what we could collect or what we were spending on collecting. So pretty much everybody gets one. And in Arizona, I live in Arizona, the law requires us to send one. So to protect our rights, everyone has to get one.

Speaker 1 (08:33):
Yeah, yeah. We threw out Texas or sorry California and Florida rather, cuz they are two of the larger states that require them. But they’re definitely not the only two. And so territ you, you’re saying like really mammoth didn’t have much of a notice policy before working with level set. Exactly. I want, I wanna make sure. So you led with this, but what was the, what did the receivables look like when you started what it was like after implementing another?

Speaker 2 (09:02):
So I inherited a receivable list of over $500,000 and so many of those were collections because people just decided not to pay. And we are, I think, I think somewhere around between 80 and 90% now we have no over 60 days notices which is awesome for our company because there were so many in that 90 to, beyond that I, I thought was gonna have a heart attack on. But our receivables are under 200, which is really healthy and nothing’s over 60 days and we work with a ton of insurance companies. And so even with that being said, it’s like, I have to pat my team on the back because they do a great job.

Speaker 1 (09:53):
Yeah, that’s awesome. I know having nothing over over 60 days is, is a really big, really big shift and I’m sure that it would help a lot of, a lot of the companies that we have on here with us today to get their receivables to that place. So thank you for sharing that with us, Terry which is the perfect transition entire next topic, which is why you should be sending them on every single job even when it’s not required. So you gave us some really great reasons for sending notices, right? You said you’d been dealing with people who basically in a lot of instances just kind of chose not to pay. And what I wanna go through is three reasons why sending notices on every job helps kind of squash that problem and helps you get paid faster.

Speaker 1 (10:46):
So first by sending that notice at the start of the job, you, you honestly make it easier for your customer to pay you because all of the information that they need to make the payment is listed right there on the notice. Right? Second when there are multiple parties involved in a job, the one that sends notices will almost always get paid before. The ones that didn’t which goes back to the fact that, you know you’ve made it really easy for the owner and the general contractor to pay you. But third your customers, you know, if they’re working with subs and suppliers that are trustworthy, credible and professional, that’s what they want, right? And by sending notices on every job, you’re showing that, you know, what it takes to get paid and that you take lean rights seriously, and that you’re not someone to strangle on.

Speaker 1 (11:35):
So it, it essentially creates a bit of a potential consequence for that person who might decide, mm, I don’t know that I wanna pay this bill, or I don’t know that I wanna make the final payment, right. It creates a a real potential consequence for them which oftentimes just kind of takes that idea out of their head. Now, there is a misconception that your, our misconception, rather that your customers don’t like getting these documents. We also wanna debunk that myth and how the right software will actually make these super, a friendly so it’s not a scary threat for for a legal document, particularly when you’re working again as a sub, a supplier with a general contractor, they’re expecting to get these. But I know Terry works a lot with homeowners. So what, what have your reactions been like from customers when you started sending preliminary notices?

Speaker 2 (12:35):
Well, I mean, I’m not gonna lie. We had some people who sure they see it and all they see on there is lean. And so they panic. But I think just educating the customer that it’s happening. And one of the things we do is our rep helped me design a template that goes out with it. That explains why we’re doing it because Arizona law requires us to do it. And, and we say, right in the letter, this is not a lie. This is just a notice. And as a contractor in Arizona, we’re required to send it to you. And that just sort of already, if they’re reading it, they’ve already realized this is no big deal. This is what, this is what people do in the contracting business. And it’s really common. It is not it’s, it’s not out of the ordinary at all. And so that’s kind of what our letter says so that they don’t panic.

Speaker 1 (13:36):
And we definitely want to let you do that. You know, we always as level set, we are, we’re here representing you. So if there’s specific language that you want to communicate to your homeowner, we can AB or to, to your customer, we can absolutely do that. Terry, I know that one of the things we talked about previously is that your policy as well, that everyone receives notices has kind of helped when you do have people who maybe get that and are a little bit like, oh, I don’t, I don’t know what this is. Can you tell us a little about that?

Speaker 2 (14:12):
Yeah. We we had a gal it was kind of, we had a twofold problem. We, we decided to change our policy to everyone. Because we also had a gal who, you know, she was convinced that we did it, we sent it to her because she, we found out she doesn’t pay her bills. And I was like, well, that’s not true, but thanks for that information. But so she came up and then the other thing was just you spend a lot of money and time chasing receivables and, and that’s just part of the business, but it makes it so much easier when you can say, this is what we have to do for everyone. And then there is not also not that implied thought that, oh, you don’t pay your bills. So it was interesting when she called cuz I hadn’t even thought about that.

Speaker 1 (15:07):
Yeah. but it sounds like that was kind of a, a one on situation too. Yeah. And did that, did that person keep doing business with y’all?

Speaker 2 (15:16):
Well, we don’t have a whole lot of repeat business, but yes. Well, and she paid her bill, so, you know, that’s the other thing it’s like when everyone gets one and that is your policy, then that is it’s part of your system and becomes, you know, a no-brainer and people think they expect it. You know, when we do have, we have property managers who, that they know it’s coming and they have to forward it to their homeowner.

Speaker 1 (15:46):
And then on that end, I guess the, I know one of the, the big things that I hear when I’m, I’m speaking with companies who don’t have a policy like this is, they are worried, you know, they they’ve built a good reputation and they think, is this going to upset the people that I’m working with and make them not wanna work with me anymore?

Speaker 2 (16:06):
Yeah. So for us it has been sort of a blessing have level set because we can not so much make you the bad guy, but, but it’s like, no, we have a third party that sends that. And so it’s sort of, it doesn’t come from me. And so we live in a small town and I know a lot of people and never have, they said to me, you sent this, it’s like, oh, this company sent this to me. So so it’s kind of that sort of, you guys are kind of that middle man for us.

Speaker 1 (16:37):
Yeah. Yep. And that’s, that’s one of the ways too that we can kind of help make the whole process a whole lot easier. So now that we understand the benefit of sending notices I wanna talk about the benefits of using our software to send the notices. So first and for most obvious reason is that it’s much easier to send notices with software, right? So with a software like level set, you simply add the job information into the platform. You can set this up to happen automatically by syncing level set with your accounting or project management system. And we do the rest for you, we’ll track the deadlines, prepare your notices and even alert you of other payment issues having happening on your job. And William asked a question, he said, they’re in 30 states and does the system deal with various state laws?

Speaker 1 (17:28):
It does. Right. And that’s one of the beauties of that deadline tracking. So whether you work in you know, if maybe you’re doing work in multiple states that have different dates, that those initial notices are due the software is gonna track all of the various deadlines. So you can make sure that you are within the guidelines without having to constantly look up different information. And then again, we wanna track the deadlines, prepare the notices, even alert you of payment issues. And we call that our lean rights automation. Right? So Terry, I, you, you touched on the fact that right now, even at tell slows, even, even though it’s the slow season, you have 35 ongoing projects. So, you know, we can imagine that having to manually do this would be pretty difficult, but can you tell me a little bit more about how and why the software has made it easier for you to adopt the process?

Speaker 2 (18:28):
So we use QuickBooks and I know lots of people use QuickBooks, and I know there’s other things that can also be linked, but we have we have it set up so that every job that’s entered into our QuickBooks, which comes, gets to our QuickBooks from our client management program. It automatically imports that into level set for us every night. And so it’s already there for me. I don’t have to manually put it in there. And the other thing I have set up, which my rep has been super helpful with is helping me design the system to work for me. And so one of the things that Autum automatically happens for me is I don’t have to look at every pre lean notice. It automatically happens in the timeframe it needs to happen. And that has been a blessing because in the beginning I was trying to look at every single one and I was missing some because let’s face it, everyone. You just know, I have no idea what your day’s gonna look like and you think, oh, I’ll get to that later. And then later comes and goes. So all of that is all happening beside the, behind the scenes for me. And so I have such faith that it’s already, it’s already done. It’s like a big, huge piece that has been taken off my plate.

Speaker 1 (19:48):
And I know that right now, we’re talking about like the software side of things, the automation and the technology, but you’ve mentioned your rep a couple of times. One of the things that we say here at level said is like, yes, we’re, we’re software and technology, but we’re software and technology reviewed by real people. So can you tell, tell me a little bit about how it’s helped having that, that de that, that rep that you have?

Speaker 2 (20:12):
So my rep is Morgan, so if you get Morgan, you’re super lucky. She’s awesome. She I’m, I’m a little older, so I say I’m a little technology challenged. And so she is very patient with me and walks me through. But every time I say to, to her, oh, I have this issue or, oh, I’m thinking about this person. You know, she’s the one that actually came up with a letter. She’s like, what if we include a letter that sends out with the pre lean to give your people an idea of what they’re getting and, and what it means? And I was like, that’s brilliant. That was her idea. And there’s been a couple things like, I didn’t wanna have to look at every single one and she’s like, we could set this up for you. We have a meeting once a month and really it’s a check-in meeting. You, you know, she’s like, what’s happening, how’s it look. And there’s been a couple things I’ve had to do, cuz I’ve forgotten how to do something. And I email her and she’s right there with a response right away reminding me and in a nice way. Like not, I’ve already told you this before.

Speaker 1 (21:28):
Yeah. Awesome. Now thank you for sharing that. Yeah, so we, we are absolutely talking about all the ways that we can use software and use technology to make this process easy, easier but also wanna make sure y’all know that level set is gonna be your partner in every sense of the word. So one of the things though that, that the software can definitely help out with. Oh, and I, I do see more questions coming into the chat box. Please keep him coming. We’re gonna do that Q and a session at the end. I just wanted to touch on that one that I saw cuz it was relevant to what we were talking about right then. But if I try to read all of these right now, it’s gonna, I’m gonna get to it. So one of the things though that the technology can do is just help you send more accurate notices.

Speaker 1 (22:15):
So when you’re using level sets, lean, right that’s management software, any information that you don’t have or that you are unsure about can be found and confirmed within a matter of days. Now this is key because in some states you can lose your lie rights. If you don’t have the right property owner or job site details. Now, most people I speak to they grab property information right from their contract, right. Or they, maybe they get it from their sales team. Some actually have to call the general contractor to owner or lender information. I even spoke with a ready mix concrete company recently who well what, what he was doing, he’s not doing this anymore. Now that he works with level set, but what he was doing is when they needed to file a notice, he was driving around to the job sites and writing down based on the signs, the names of the companies that were there to figure out who all he needed to send notice to cuz they just had people driving up to their site, getting concrete and driving away.

Speaker 1 (23:25):
So however you’re getting that information whether and whether or not doing it takes up a lot of your time. Cuz again, sometimes it does like in the, in the example where you’re maybe driving around to job sites or if it’s all right there on the contract, it might not. You still have to know that the information that you have is validated for accuracy, right? So if you don’t have your job information validated for accuracy, there’s a 78% chance of having incorrect or incomplete job information, which if I actively invalidates your lean rights. So Terry, I know that you have some good experiences with the scout research team. What’s that been like thus far and what kind of gaps have they helped y’all fill?

Speaker 2 (24:15):
Yeah. I love them. Since we’re in restoration, most of the time the call we get is on someone’s worst day, you know, either they’ve had a flood or a fire or something that has disrupted their home, which, you know, gone are the days when just anyone can come in our house. Like we’re pretty particular about who comes in our house now. So when that happens, we often don’t get good information. When we say who’s the own and they say, oh, it’s me and my name’s John Smith. But in actuality, the scout will find out that the property is deeded to John Smith’s family trust. And in Arizona they are sticklers for even on your contract having that information. Right. So one of the things with how having a pre for everyone is we have good information to put on our contract also. And there was a time when a tenant hired us to do a job and we found out the tenant was not the owner of the home before we started, which was good thing. So yeah, so those Scouts there amazing. And they’re fast.

Speaker 1 (25:30):
Yeah. How based on the type of information, right? It can, it can vary how quickly they get it, but how, what did it mean for y’all that we were able to find out that you had been hired on by a tenant rather than,

Speaker 2 (25:43):
Oh my gosh. It was a $20,000 job and when we were with insurance most of the time we don’t get any money down because the insurance is gonna pay us down the line. So if you have a claim number and we can validate that, then that’s fine. But most of the time they’ll call their insurance company and they will not get a claim number for 24, 48 hours. And so we you’ve already started working. So that job already went in today by the next day, I already know who owns the property because the scout has already checked it. And so yeah, that gal didn’t get the work done cuz she couldn’t authorize it. And so she probably saved us. We were not gonna, we get that money from either the homeowner or the insurance because she was hiring us to do a job that she had no business hiring us for.

Speaker 1 (26:37):
Yeah. Well definitely glad that we were able to catch that before it. So again, regardless of whether your research process is super cumbersome or pretty easy the validation process can be really beneficial coming from that scout research team. Now one other benefit of using software is it, it makes you look more professional right. If you wanna take on bigger jobs work with bigger clients, you have to look professional and show that you know what you’re doing. So software can really help out with this. I’m sure it’s why a lot of, you know, a lot of people switched over to using accounting software and project management software as well. And by using that, those type of tools, you can standardize your notice process so that everything is done the same way and your notices look the exact same every time. This makes for a much smoother process with your customers. And it shows that you take your lean rights and getting paid shows that you take it seriously. So Terry, what would you say are the benefits that you’ve seen at mammoth since standardizing your process with level set?

Speaker 2 (27:48):
Oh my gosh. So many things for sure. Cashflow you know, when you don’t have $300,000 sitting out there that you’re trying to collect and it’s actually in your bank account, you get to make much better decisions and do a lot of different things at you have vision for. Also just it sort of, you know, I mean, I know you guys’s name is level set, but around here, we’re just trying to level up our business. We’ve added multiple new divisions. And with that, like I want them to think we’re professional and this adds, you know, checks one of those boxes for us. And the other thing is I don’t have to do it and no one else on my team has to do this. Someone else is doing it for us and they have the resources to back them. You guys have all the legal, all of that. So essentially you’re saving me an employee basically because that’s someone else that doesn’t have to do that. And I think just the overall culture in our office has changed because I don’t know about you guys out there, but small business is different than corporate. And so, you know, there’s always like, oh, did that guy pay yet? No, he hasn’t paid yet. You know, and we, we just don’t have that anymore because we don’t have a collection problem. And I think that’s all about level set.

Speaker 1 (29:12):
That’s awesome.

Speaker 2 (29:13):
I’d love to take the credit. I found him.

Speaker 1 (29:17):
Yeah. Yeah. You brought on level set. We wanna make you the, the hero in your office as well. So I mean, it, it sounds like that’s even yeah. Impacted your culture. You mentioned that I know you said you went from 500 in receivables to under 200, nothing over 60 days. You touched on this a little bit, but can you tell us a little more about how speeding up that cashflow has helped y’all be able to grow and expand as a business?

Speaker 2 (29:41):
Well we did not used to do plumbing or pest control and our construction business. Piece of it was really small. We are really good in restoration about going in and tearing everything up, but then the homeowner really wants it to be fixed right away. And depending on the scope of the job up, we were not really staffed or had the resources to do really big jobs. They were only just really small ones. And so now our rebuild the vision, it, we have 25 guys working in rebuild and we used to have like 10. And so it gave us even just the vision to think, oh my gosh, we could grow this. And it’s taken off.

Speaker 1 (30:26):
Yeah, that’s fantastic. So that lets you really get in and provide all of the services that, that, that homeowner needs from you. And I know we talked about this a little bit when we spoke earlier this week. I think you mentioned too, that it helped you guys out when you buying some new trucks.

Speaker 2 (30:43):
Yeah. So we everyone has a truck, so we have like 37 tech field positions out there and they all have a truck and we, you know, some of ’em were getting a little old. And so we bought a couple trucks last year that we paid cash for. We’ve bought a couple this year, we’ve paid cash for we’ve financed a couple that we got to put big fat down payments on and that would not have been possible if we hadn’t collected some money.

Speaker 1 (31:16):
That’s fantastic. Yeah, that, that is fantastic. Those are the payment hero stories that, that we like to hear here at level set. And that is, yeah, that is exactly why we exist. And that’s the type of growth and success that I wanna hear from every single person in our audience today. And so do wanna hear a little bit from our audience, I’m gonna pull up the yeah, we’ve got some time to, to go over those questions. So if you do have additional questions that you haven’t asked in the in the Q and a, I’ll go ahead and throw those in there now. Whether they’re for me or for Terry and we can get those answered for you. So I’m looking at one here. Is there a standard percentage of uncollectable accounts that should be used as a benchmark depending on the business size? I wanna make sure I follow Abigail. Is your question more about

Speaker 1 (32:26):
When you get started with levels that as a benchmark? Yeah. I guess maybe I’m not sure that I fully understand your question. I’ll let you add a little bit to that. And then I’m going to, we’ve got some questions that got answered throughout but I wanna make sure that everybody here can see all of that. So the software does work with quick QuickBooks online and desktop. And, and then yes, of course you will be able to send all of this information. We we’re recording this so you can send it out as well. Let’s see, let me scroll up. And then Kevin is asking how the software works. It’s, it’s really pretty, pretty straightforward. One of the things that that you are gonna be able to do after this is we can, we can set up actually like a, a personal webinar where I can show you exactly how level set works, but for the most part, and, and Terry, you can probably speak to this as well. A lot of it, you know, we wanna make sure that we get all job information into level set and we can do that through connecting with, with QuickBooks or another accounting or job management software. And then you can set up your parameters on when preliminary notices are sent. And you can go in and do those manually, or you can do them on your and then you can see notices and deadlines coming up on those jobs. Terry, I don’t know if there’s anything I’m trying to there’s

Speaker 2 (34:13):
A lot of, yeah, I would just say that the software is very user friendly and it completely walks you through it and you always have your rep to help you too. Cuz I know in the beginning I, I was a little bit lost with what button to push and how to do it. And Morgan, like one day we just spent an hour going through each of the ones that had uploaded from the day before. And you know, for me I have to do it to learn it and but it is, you know, I mean I’m an old lady and it’s very easy to use.

Speaker 1 (34:48):
Yeah. And again, we’ve got that dedicated customer service manager that you work with. We also do a training and onboarding for all new level set customers and you can request additional trainings as much as you need whether it’s retraining for yourself or if you bring on new people. So we always want to make sure we keep it where it’s incredibly easy to use

Speaker 3 (35:14):
Megan Piper here. I was thinking I could hop in and read you guys out loud. Some of the questions that I see coming through just to make it a little, a little easier here. So the first question have, do you do anything different when dealing with an HOA? We were told we have to serve notice to every homeowner in an HOA to collect any protection for working with HOAs upfront. Yeah. So that’s, that’s a pretty specific question. Terry, do you have any experience with

Speaker 2 (35:45):
Hos? Yeah, I mean, I don’t know where this person lives, but

Speaker 3 (35:50):
In Ohio it

Speaker 2 (35:51):
Looks like we just have to notify the home owner. And the HOA is also notified because I’m just being nice and I click that button for them. But Arizona law says it’s the actual homeowner. So if there’s multiple homeowners, usually if there’s an HOA they’re usually just a management company and they are they of power of attorney to make decisions based on some parameters that are set for them too. Like in our town it could be like they can do anything with water or they can do anything up to $5,000 or something like that. But usually homeowners associations, we we do deal with, but also the scout will find that the property is owned by the homeowner’s name. And then that’s who gets the preliminary notice. So there’s no confusion as to where it’s going.

Speaker 1 (36:51):
Yeah. I, I know maybe a little bit more from my experience in a, in past life when I used to practice law That information more than likely came from the HOA. But most for, for preserving your mechanics, lie rights and sending proper notices, it’s all gonna be about who the state requires that initial preliminary notice to go to. And most often it is it is the homeowner general contractor sometimes construct and lender. I can’t think off the top of my head of, of a specific instance where I’ve seen that HOA be required for notice.

Speaker 3 (37:36):
Awesome. let’s move on to, we’ve got a bunch in here, so let’s, and we’re not, we’re probably not gonna have time for all, all of your questions, but we will make sure to follow up with every single one of you. If there is a question left unanswered William is asking, we are in 30 plus states to this, does the system help us deal with various state laws,

Speaker 1 (38:00):
Done this a little about the address, your within your List of whether you one state, 10 states it’s just on one off basis, train off to do a project, another state we can help you deal specific loss in each

Speaker 1 (38:39):
Then let’s see. I think I see one that says do you require amount on your notice? So again, some of that might vary state to state depending on the notice requirements. Typically it’s a little bit further down in the process when you’re not paid a, you wanna send what we call an intent to lean which is a document send when you actually have, have had an invoice come due. Most states require attaching an invoice and having the exact dollar amount on that. But a lot of times for the preliminary notice, especially if it’s the beginning of the job, you might only have an estimate and not your actual final dollar amount. So the an on that is, it depends, right? Cuz I, I don’t want to give to hard line of an answer that that maybe bleeds into giving giving legal advice. Most of the time that prelim that’s sent at the beginning of the job isn’t going to tie you to any sort of like price or dollar amount. Hopefully that answered your question. Yep. We’ve talked about how we think with QuickBooks.

Speaker 3 (40:01):
I see one question here, just cuz we’re, we’re nearing the end of our time for Terry about how you were able to get the OK from your ownership and management to move forward with level set.

Speaker 2 (40:18):
Yeah, I think when I presented this, it was it was kind of sticker shock. And the first word out of everyone’s mouth is like, that’s too much money. Oh we can’t, we can’t afford to do that. Oh no, we can’t do that. And one of the things I did was I broke down for them, my hourly rate and how many hours it would take me to do one pre notice and I would have to go to the county website if it was up and find out who owned the property, I’d have to go to the post office to do a certified mail which that could take 20 minutes or it could take two hours depending on who’s at the post office. I have to track the time myself. I can’t miss that 20 to a, or I’ve lost my rights.

Speaker 2 (41:08):
And so I wrapped all of that in and I was like, okay, here’s how many pre notices we get for this much money. And it came out to under $30 a notice and it was not worth my time. And that is how I convinced them to do. I’m like, it’s not worth my time to do these when this company can do it for under $30. So and we have since doing it, you know, like the cash flow and the receivable spoke for themselves, like everyone was like, oh my gosh, you were right. But the other thing too is we’ve only had to file one mechanics, lean on one person. And I think we’ve we have, I think 300 notices and I’m almost up to that. I’m gonna have to buy some more, but like that was our package that we bought was 300. And so in 300 preliminary notices that I sent I’ve had to file one mechanics lane and that was it.

Speaker 1 (42:13):
That’s fantastic.

Speaker 2 (42:15):
Huge. Yeah,

Speaker 1 (42:19):
Yeah, yeah. That is fantastic. And no, I’m, I’m, I’m glad that you, that you walked us through it. Right. A lot of times this is not the type of software that people have really looked into a whole lot or assigned a budget to. But when you really do break down the math between your time to do it, paying someone to do it that alone tends to make a lot of sense. And then when you throw in the sped up cash flow and the time that you will save in having to chase down some of those 60 to 90 to 120 day receivable level set, our hope is that it more than pays for itself.

Speaker 2 (43:02):
It has for us, for sure. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (43:06):
Thanks so much, Terry. Well I do I think, are we at about time?

Speaker 3 (43:13):
Yep. I think that’s that’s about time.

Speaker 1 (43:16):
Okay. I think that that is about time. We’d love to chat more one on one with anybody offline after the fact. But I wanna thank y’all so much for attending today’s webinar. Like I mentioned, you will receive a recording of this in an email tomorrow. This says, or the following day, I’m guessing since tomorrow is Friday, we’re gonna do our best to get them out y’all before the weekend. But I do also wanna mention that if you want more information on how level set can help with sending the notices, managing your lean rights we are happy to provide a customized demo to you or anyone on your team. So just visit the website listed here on the screen that is level set.com/contact us. And we will get you connected with one of our specialists. So thanks again, everyone. And y’all have a great week and thanks so much, Terry.

Speaker 2 (44:11):
Yeah, my pleasure.