Now I just keep a running doc with notes and receipts attached. Not fancy, but it works... most days.
- Same here—simple is best.
- I do add a column for payment status (pending/paid/issue) so nothing slips through the cracks.
- Tried spreadsheets with formulas, but honestly, too much upkeep for day-to-day.
- One thing: I always back up docs to cloud storage. Lost a hard drive once...never again.
Honestly, I tried all those fancy apps and budgeting tools, but ended up right back at a simple doc too. The only thing I do differently is I keep a photo of every receipt—learned the hard way when a contractor “misplaced” an invoice. Cloud backup’s a must, though. Lost a month’s worth of records once and nearly lost my mind...
Title: Keeping Track of Your Construction Loan Payments Without Losing Your Mind
Cloud backup’s a must, though. Lost a month’s worth of records once and nearly lost my mind...
Been there. Lost a whole folder of scanned invoices once when my external drive decided to just... die. Never again.
Here’s my current system—probably overkill, but it keeps me sane:
- Spreadsheet in Google Sheets for every payment, draw, and change order. Color-coded by stage (framing, electrical, etc). I like seeing the big picture at a glance.
- Every receipt and invoice gets scanned with my phone (Genius Scan app—super basic, but it works). I save them as PDFs and drop them into a cloud folder named by date and vendor.
- Backup the whole folder to two places: Google Drive and an old-school USB stick that lives in my safe. Paranoid? Maybe. But after losing $2k in “missing” receipts, I’m not taking chances.
- For contractors who “misplace” things, I keep a running log in the sheet—date sent, method (email/text), and confirmation if they replied. It’s saved me from more than one “I never got that” conversation.
Honestly, I tried the fancy apps too. They look slick but half the time they don’t play nice with custom projects or weird payment schedules. Sometimes simple is just... less stressful.
One thing I do differently: I snap photos of progress on site whenever I’m there. Not just receipts—actual work done. Came in handy when a sub tried to bill for work that wasn’t finished (“See this photo from last Tuesday? Still missing the tile in the master bath…”).
It’s a bit of a pain to keep up with all this, but when you’re writing checks with that many zeroes, you want receipts for everything. And yeah, cloud backup is non-negotiable at this point. Learned that lesson the hard way too.
Anyone else have horror stories about lost invoices or contractors trying to double-dip?
Losing $2k in receipts... that stings. Been there on a smaller scale, and it’s enough to make you want to go full detective mode on every piece of paper. I’m with you on the photo evidence—had a painter once swear up and down he finished a room, but my pics (with the date in the corner, thank you very much) told a different story. Kinda wild how much you have to document just to keep everyone honest.
Curious if anyone’s actually had luck getting contractors to use shared folders or apps for receipts? I tried to get my last GC on board with Google Drive, but he was totally old-school and just kept handing me crumpled invoices from his truck. Felt like herding cats. Wondering if it’s even worth pushing for that or if it’s just easier to do all the scanning myself...
I’ve tried to get a couple contractors to use Dropbox or even just text me photos of receipts, but honestly, it’s a losing battle most of the time. Old habits die hard, I guess. The last guy I worked with acted like scanning was rocket science. I just ended up taking a quick pic of every receipt he handed over—super basic, but it worked. At least then I had a backup if something went missing. It takes a bit more effort on my end, but chasing them for digital copies was way more frustrating. Maybe if you find someone younger, they’ll be more into the shared folder thing, but I wouldn’t count on it.
