Type the retainage and the payment due the pay application actually prints. When a figure misses, the base it does match is named, so you know whether the rate is wrong or the base is. Line 8 is typed rather than derived on purpose: it is the amount that leaves the bank, and a form can hold retainage correctly and still subtract Line 7 wrongly.
Retainage on an AIA-style G702 is two products and two subtractions. Line 5a is the rate times completed work to date, which is Column D plus Column E on the continuation sheet. Line 5b is the rate times materials presently stored, Column F. Line 5 is the two added. Line 6 is Line 4 less Line 5, and the check itself, Line 8, is Line 6 less the previous certificates on Line 7.
That chain is fully determined. Given the rate and the three column sums, every figure below Line 4 has exactly one correct value. This is why a receiver can verify a pay application rather than trust it, and it is the whole basis of how retainage is calculated on a pay application.
The rate is rarely the problem. The base is. Three failures cover the wrong bases this page can name:
Each one moves the check by the same dollars it moves retainage. The checker above names which of them a stated figure matches, and when it matches none of them it reports the rate the stated figure implies against the base you entered.
10% is common on private work, and 5% appears where a contract steps the rate down partway through the job. Both are conventions, not rules. The contract sets the rate, the bases, and the release terms, and on public work state statute caps what can be held and sets deadlines for paying it out. Some contracts hold a different rate on stored material than on completed work, which is why the two rate fields above are separate. Read the retainage clause before you flag anything.
Retainage is one line of a pay application. The free G702/G703 calculator takes a whole schedule of values and runs the checks a typed figure can reach: each printed column total against the rows above it, the sum of Column C against Line 3, the sum of Column G against Line 4, the certificate chain from Line 3 down to Line 9, and two ties to last month, Line 7 against the prior Line 6 and the Column D total against the prior Column G total.
The per-row identities are the ones typing cannot reach. G = D + E + F, H = G / C and I = C - G are computed for you from the four columns you type, so they hold on every set of figures the page will ever accept and can never disagree with what you typed. What the document prints in Column G, H or I is never typed in, so a printed Column G that does not equal D plus E plus F is invisible from here. Checking that, or a retainage column printed on every line, means the document itself has to be read, which is set out in what a G702 checker cannot check. The pay application review checklist is the order to run all of it in.
This page checks one document you retype. Upload the PDF or the Excel file and every line is read off it and reconciled, including the carry-forward against last month’s application once both are in the account.
Check a real pay application freeFree during Early Access. No card.Multiply the retainage rate by the base, twice. Line 5a is the rate times completed work to date, Column D plus Column E on the continuation sheet. Line 5b is the rate times materials presently stored, Column F. Line 5 is 5a plus 5b. Line 6 is Line 4 minus Line 5, and the payment due on Line 8 is Line 6 minus the previous certificates on Line 7. The rate itself comes from the contract, not from the form.
Both rates, in the two rate fields above. The first drives Line 5a against the Column D plus Column E base. The second drives Line 5b against Column F. Leave the second blank and the completed-work rate is used for both. Entering them separately is also what lets the page name a specific failure: when Line 5b as printed matches the completed-work rate applied to Column F instead of the stored-material rate, the check says which rate was used rather than reporting a bare difference.
Because a blank rate is not a rate of zero and a blank column is not a column of zeros. Reading a blank rate as 0% computes Lines 5a, 5, 6 and 8 as though the contract withheld nothing, and then reports a correct document as four printed figures that do not match the rate. The same rule covers every base, one at a time: leave Column D out and the 5a base is this period alone, which reds a document that ties, and leave Line 7 out and the payment due comes out high by every dollar already certified. So each line prints the field it is waiting on, and the checks that need that field say so instead of showing you a difference against $0.00. A figure of exactly 0 is a different thing and it is accepted everywhere: a rate of 0 for a contract that holds nothing, a Column F of 0 for a form with no stored material, a Line 7 of 0 on a first application. Type the 0 and every check runs.
Because 0.10 and 10 are a hundred times apart and nothing on the page can settle which one you meant. A spreadsheet formula holds a rate as the fraction, so 0.10 there is the 10 this box takes, and a page that guessed would either multiply a correct document out to a retainage of $300.00 on a $300,000 base or silently accept a rate a tenth of one percent. So the field says which unit it takes and computes nothing until the rate is in it. Type the percentage. If your contract really does hold under one percent, write the sign with it, so 0.5%, and the figure is taken as it stands.
Read the grand total of that retainage column off the bottom of the continuation sheet and type it into Line 5 total as printed. Leave 5a and 5b blank unless the form prints those separately as well. The bases do not change: Column D plus Column E and Column F still come off the same grand-total row, so the printed total is still checked against the rate and both bases. Checking each line of retainage against that line’s own values needs the whole schedule, which is what the upload path reads.
Because the form splits the two withholdings on purpose. Line 4 is Column D plus Column E plus Column F, everything completed and stored to date. Retainage is then taken in two pieces: 5a at the rate on completed work, Column D plus Column E, and 5b at the rate on stored material, Column F. Folding Column F into the 5a base double-counts it as soon as 5b is computed too, and it hides the case where the contract holds a different rate, or nothing at all, on material sitting in a yard that is not yet installed. Line 5 comes to 5a plus 5b either way, which is how a document can add up and still use the wrong base.
No. The calculator runs entirely inside the page, there is no account to create, and nothing is uploaded, stored, or sent anywhere. If you would rather not retype a document at all, PayAppCheck reads the numbers off the PDF or Excel file and runs the same arithmetic on every line of it.
PayAppCheck is software that checks arithmetic. Not legal, accounting or tax advice. Retainage rates, release terms, and lien requirements come from your contract and your state statute, so verify them against both and with your accountant.