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Unpaid invoice letter for Operations

[Music] all right now i know we have a mix of current level set customers on this webinar as well as some people who may have just heard the name level set for the first time the last few days uh we'll cover the basis of who we are and what we do for uh for those of you who are new um but before moving forward i just want to say that we're recording this live session and you'll receive a link to the recording in your email tomorrow feel free to share the recording with your team your boss or just if you want to watch it again also you may have questions during the presentation go ahead and enter them in the chat box and we'll answer those questions throughout the webinar we'll also block off a few minutes at the end for any additional questions that you may have so first off who am i my name is dan brown i am an account manager here at level set that means i deal with our existing customers um and i help align their service with the goals they have as a business so today we're going to talk about utilizing processes within level set as part of a comprehensive collection effort that ties directly into lean rights management or lrm and leverages the threat of lean enforcement to help explain payment and reduce your days outstanding so there are three major components to an effective collections oriented lrm process first off is making sure your jobs are noticed even if you're not legally obligated to we'll talk more on this later automating the process and having an end game of escalation and follow-through but first as promised a bit about level set so for those of you who are new and still learning who we are quick summary is that levels that exist to help contractors and suppliers get paid protect their lien rights and avoid potential payment problems or grow and thrive in construction industry we know the industry presents all sorts of challenges when it comes to getting paid so to solve those challenges we provide free resources via our website like payment profiles educational guides our blog and today we'll be focusing on tools and processes around getting invoices paid and reducing your days outstanding so let's start launching into that so the first step for those of you who are level set users um is getting your data in a level set because we can't help jobs we don't know about the really the the making a priority to get that information into the system as part of the overall process is the simplest way to start a collections oriented lrm processes and the simplest way to do this is with integration import some way that really gets your job data into your levels as surface there's a few different approaches we offer one is a direct integration with quickbooks or procore that's a one-way import from that software into level set the next is a spreadsheet customization so whatever you have for your bookkeeping and job data can spit out a spreadsheet we can set that up where all that data is sent into level set to set up your jobs and documentation and then good old-fashioned email we can actually just take job sheet data even your contracts um we've worked with uh spreadsheets of here's all my outstanding ar here is my plans and specifications for the job put it into the system for you um so any of these can also track your accounts receivables which will cover a bit of why that might be helpful later on so this is the first step once we have a process in place get your data in levels on a regular basis the tallest hurdle has been cleared in terms of maximizing returns in the service because beyond making it simpler make sure you're filing the necessary documents within the necessary time frames to protect your projects it also allows you to track your legal deadlines on your projects whether or not you choose to send an employment notice on them as well as all your current outstanding ar on job by job basis to help you confront payment problems before they arise all of our internal data shows that our customers that take advantage of integrations imports have a much higher success rate reducing today's outstanding and here's why because level set is more than just a system of manager lean rights when your ar is linked level set through one of those integration stream ports we can automate pay reminders as a series of steps that can escalate from friendly invoice reminder to an aggressive payment demand letter that threatens lean there's something about getting reminders that go from really demanding that to help people find their checkbooks especially those reminders are linked directly to lean rights so some form of integration or importantly mitchell previous slides necessary for these but with that also opens the possibility of automating lean waiver handling and invoicing things that we know can be very time consuming especially if you need to obtain downstream lean waivers to get paid uh level set let's collect organize those in one place so you're never waiting on a check just because someone downstream from you hasn't set up a waiver yet so your customer is a big old jerk you send all your preliminary documents paraminers and demands and monthly notices you still have outstanding voices now what there's a few documents you can send either manually or automatically within level set to further escalate a notice of intent to lean is a formal notice that you sent your customer and the project stakeholders about your intentional lien fi a project for non-payment it functions as the final demand for payment uh short of a sort of a shot across a bow that hopefully lets people know you're serious finally follow lien we aren't necessarily in the business selling liens but if all else fails you do need to follow through this process for to be effective and lean alone is in the final step there is one other sort of final final document called notice of intent to foreclose the notes intend to foreclose essentially says okay we're going to call lawyer now to make good on our lien so let's say you did all those things and you're still not getting paid what do we do now levelset offers an add-on service called legalguard leoguard hooks you up with a construction attorney in your state that we've vetted who can advise on a line you file for one in which you're involved say a subcontractor of yours has following they can write letters on that nice lowly leather head with really nice cotton content that only lawyers use they can offer additional services as well such as five 30-minute consultations a month a monthly contract review an annual bonding and insurance review and one additional document review uh per year um no sorry per month right now it's offered in 22 states plus the district of columbia it is not all-inclusive however if you have to file a lien in court your attorney will ask you for a retainer but you get 10 off their usual rate going into it with everything in order and a lawyer who knows you your business and your case if it should come to a court battle is really what this is all about we created this service both as a beyond the lean evolution to level set but also to connect contractors with sound legal advice for their overall business health so the goal isn't really to replace in-house collections efforts or whatever current collections relationships you may have but to support them and to ensure all the necessary documentation is in order lel says nothing if not tooling help you make sure you're doing everything you can to protect your projects and equip you to win should you have to go to follow lean and fight for what you're owed um we're not here to file liens for you necessarily we would rather not do hopefully everything else you do ahead of time as far as payment reminders sending in those escalation documents will work to get you paid but we find that it does work best as part of an integrated strategy that extends beyond just filing the legally requiring documentation to using these additional documents to um on a consistent basis to escalate as you are as your invoices remain unpaid and everything we cover days and tend to be thought of as continual process from when you first win a job through protecting your rights on the project and to keep escalation options open for you should you need them so we're going to talk about some some success some success stories on some of the uh the things we've covered today um so for integrations imports texas first rentals is a customer of ours they use a custom spreadsheet import to get their data into level set everything is bigger in texas including the complexity of the lien laws so missing a monthly deadline can be fatal to project lien rights for the unpaid amount uh texas first use that use their import and track deadlines automate processes and they've sent something like 6 000 texas monthly notices protecting up to 78 million dollars and they do all this with a small team using level set and i harp on deadlines a lot because the absolute worst part of my job is telling customer that they're out of luck because they missed a deadline to file something but integrations imports also open up the possibility besides just tracking your deadlines all your projects of using some level sets other functionalities like job radar level set pair waiver control things we unfortunately have time to cover today but stay tuned for future webinars to talk about more of those so for automatic payment miners and escalation documents drive patrol central ohio which is restoration company has reduced dso from 90 to 17 days with an automated process for three documents they appeal in the project send a notice of intent when the project is overdue and then send in the lien earlier we talked about why you should prelim every project are legally obligated to and this is a good example of why that's the case preliminary notices put everyone on the same page literally to provide transparency on who's providing work and what they expect to get paid it's especially helpful for con helpful for contracts for work covered by a property insurer and avoids those situations where the insurer pays the homeowner but the homeowner doesn't pay you um putting information level set also helps you keep on tackling your deadlines to lean and foreclose should you need to if you aren't required to send in a pre-lean or primary notice and it begins the process for some of these automated functions to keep you rolling with consistent collections pressure in a serious professional and consistent manner and just to touch again on our legal guard service they say a good lawyer knows a law but a great lawyer knows the judge i just say that a reaction lawyer also needs to know you um as an example larry corona construction had tough case in california needed help they partnered with us for the leoguard service and they were extremely happy representation they received while their case works its way through port and what webinar would be complete if we didn't tutor our own horn a little bit check us out and trust pilot we very much value and appreciate customer feedback and build our service around the needs of the industry and anytime you talk to somebody from level set let them know what you think we're always we're always looking for new ideas and new ways to better support you okay so we've opened this up a bit for a few questions first one we have is what are the next steps i can take after i sent all the appropriate documents and still have not gotten paid so we touched a bit on some of those additional escalation documents that you can send in a note of intent to foreclose and then at that point it does become a legal battle in order to foreclose on a lien um that deadline really depends on what state you're in some of it says short is 90 days sometimes as long as a couple of years before you have to file suit um but we talked about legal guard service with that you can be matched up with an attorney who can advise you on that process and inform you what your best next steps will be and let's see we also have another question i don't want to integrate my software with you what are my options completely understandable we know a lot of people are worried about their data security options beyond an integration that work really well are custom spreadsheets so the way that works is if you have a software that we can't integrate with for example that can produce a spreadsheet of what your job information is and also give us information on what your expected accounts receivables are then we can take that integration and get that put into level set it's a bit of a process in that we first have to we have to set up at first immediately you know once you want to want to go this route um and make sure that all the information aligns from what we're getting to what needs to be put into the system but um once it's done it's really as simple as sending in that that fresh spreadsheet every month or week or whatever your pace is of how you get new jobs and what your ar agent looks like and um another option there would be what we call do form data entry which i find works really well for small contractors who may not have a lot of time send us a job sheet send us your invoices and we'll get that in the system for you it's really that simple see another question is a good ques idea to let you guys know as soon as the job is complete also when is the right time to let your team know of when customers pay us that's really good question um it is a good idea to let us know especially if you have any kind of automation in place or desire to do so because the automations will work along as without any notification that you know you've been paid now there are some controls in place those automations don't get sent out purely automatically where it can be something that sits in a queue and then you decide give it a go or no go right so consider queue for a given amount of time you can say okay i want to send out these and the rest we can forget about or it will send a queue and then go after a given period of time unless you pull it out of cue and so there's a few different ways we can set them up based on what your particular goals are but it is a good idea to let us know when a job is complete so when is it the right time to let your team know of when customers pay us as soon as possible ideally um if you're not looking to send anything beyond a lean then uh you'll still get notifications in the system if the job is marked as unpaid of what your lean deadline is and once you mark the job as paid in the system then you won't get those notifications anymore so it really it's a good idea to to keep track of that stuff because all of our deadline tracking functions around when you start when you get paid um let's see what as a current low set current customer was the cost to add legal that's a great question it is 2160 per year um and that is something that you know call us talk to us about that if you are looking at multiple states we do we do work on that as well uh so that is the um the idea of it is that even if you have an existing attorney that you use someone services offering legal guard you know if you take advantage of them on a monthly basis will ameliorate some of those costs of your legal uh of your overall dual services um let's see as a level set what's the last one where's the rule of thumb per state be able to send those letters is there a time frame legally that's a really good question that depends on the state and this is a really good reason as to why it's important to get all your projects in the level set if you don't intend to file any kind of documentation on them because if you're especially working across multiple states and you don't know what all the actual deadlines are per state levels that will track that for you and give you notifications within the platform as far as when is it time to say um you know when when is my deadline to send a primary notice when's my deadline is send in a monthly notice for an invoice where's my deadline to lean and uh the system does it automatically for you based on whatever the status requirements are on those individual states what does it mean when it says invoices not protected um odds are that was a that's going to depend on your project role so if you're in a state where a subcontractor has a pre-lien or primary notice requirement and that was never filed then any invoices that are put into the system from then on um levels have a flag as it has not been protected because no preliminary notice has been sent in for that project um just because you haven't filed a preliminary notice doesn't necessarily mean you're completely out of luck on your lane rights however and that's something that you can talk to your customer success manager or your account manager as a you know as far as how that how that pertains to your particular role on that job in that state what is the job retainage percentage can you explain um job retainage is a percentage that is withheld from invoices for uh for work on a project is kind of a common practice in the industry um a lot of times people use it as a tool to make sure contractors fulfill any end of project i guess you'll call them punch lists or any final final lists that need to be accomplished to the satisfaction of the owner [Music] as far as how that functions within level set retainage is tracked if you're tracking your ar in the system and you should also receive deadlines within the system as far as when you need to file an answer documentation protect that final retainage payment that you are owed now that's tricky because you know i know how it goes where you might not have been on a job site for years and retain isn't due until in most states until a year after completion of the total project so that's something that really does require a sound method and process to uh to make sure that it's all being tracked well within the system so we are tracking ar with our accountant just trying to understand yeah so what the integrations allow and imports allow is that you can track your accounts receivables on an invoice by invoice basis job by job and where this is really most helpful is especially in monthly notice dates speak where you have to send in a monthly notice to protect your lien rights on unpaid invoice and you have to send in a monthly notice you know like on the 15th of the month for every month that that invoice goes unpaid um having that kind of integration our data import with level set helps you make sure that you don't miss any deadlines because missing deadlines on monthly notices in some states can be a challenge to your lean rights for that amount of the unpaid invoice so that's really why it's valuable to track ar within level set is that you stay on top of all your deadlines as far as what how what and how much you were you were unpaid great are there any other questions okay well if not it's been a pleasure presenting to all of you um once again my name is dan brown i'm account manager here at level set and um yeah if you have any other information contact us levelset.com contact us and as always it is a pleasure to work with all of you hope you have a great day you