Every pay app checked against the contract before it goes out.
Alterman is an employee-owned construction company, founded in San Antonio in 1923. Its crews do the electrical, low-voltage and controls work on hospitals, college campuses, arenas and water plants. Kos checks each month’s pay apps against the subcontract before they go to the general contractor.
- Industry
- Construction
- Product
- Billing review
- Founded
- San Antonio, 1923
- Ownership
- Employee-owned
- Offices
- San Antonio, Austin, Creedmoor, DFW, Las Cruces
- Self-performs
- Electrical, technologies, instrumentation and controls
The Situation
Self-performed work, billed job by job.
Alterman’s own crews install the power, the voice and data, the security and the controls, on jobs across Texas and New Mexico. Every month each job’s pay app goes to its general contractor, and every line has to tie to the subcontract’s schedule of values, executed change orders, the work in place, stored materials and retainage. A pay app that doesn’t is sent back, and the job waits to be paid.
- pay-app review, before it goes to the GC
- Same day
- jobs billed each month
- 80+
- of lines checked against the subcontract
- 100%
Alterman, 2026.
Before Kos
- Pay apps assembled job by job in spreadsheets
- Change orders billed before they were executed
- Stored materials sent without the backup
- Pay apps returned by the GC for corrections
With Kos
- Every line tied to the subcontract’s schedule of values
- Only executed change orders billed
- Backup and waivers attached before it goes
- Pay apps go out right the first time
How Kos Works It
Checked before the GC sees it.
The project manager forwards the pencil draft.
Like they would to a colleague. Kos reads the G702 and G703, the subcontract, the change-order log and the backup.
Kos reads every line against the subcontract.
Each line of the schedule of values, checked against the subcontract, last month’s pay app and the daily reports.
Not sure it’s in? Kos asks the foreman.
It texts the foreman on the job to confirm what’s installed before the percent complete is billed.
What doesn’t tie out comes back with the clause.
A change order not yet executed or stored materials without backup, each flagged with the line and the clause behind it.
The pay app goes to the GC complete.
With the backup and waivers attached, so it’s approved the first time and the job is paid on schedule.
“Our pay apps go out right the first time now, with the backup the GC asks for already attached.”
The Results
Billing as right as the work.
0
Pay apps returned by a GC
Every line ties to the subcontract before it’s sent.
$1.1M
Unexecuted change orders caught
Billed once they’re signed, so the rest of the pay app isn’t held up.
12 of 12
Months billed on schedule
Every job’s pay app out by the GC’s cutoff.
0
New project accountants
Project managers and foremen kept working the way they did.
Alterman, last 12 months.
- Closing Thoughts
- For a hundred years Alterman has built its name on installations completed safely and on time. Kos checks every pay app against the subcontract before it goes out, so the billing is as right as the work, and Alterman’s team makes the call.
- Industry
- Construction
- Product
- Billing review
- Works With Kos Over
- EmailText
- Kos Works In
- ExcelSharePoint
Put Kos on your next pay app.
No new software to learn. Email Kos the work and watch it run.