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The period is printed at the top. Your daily reports are in a separate stack. You tap the printed period start and end dates twice with the end of your pen, then reach for the top daily report in the stack. You know the discrepancy between these two sets of dates is the most common reason a pay application gets kicked back for revisions before it even reaches the project owner’s desk. A single mismatched day can delay your entire team’s pay by two weeks or more, so you carve out 10 minutes to work through the check before you attach any supporting materials.
How This Pay Period Document Maps Eligible Work Windows
This document acts as your formal reference for all date-related rules tied to the current draw request, so every billing decision you make during this review ties back to the start and end dates printed at its top. The dates are set as part of the pre-negotiated draw schedule all stakeholders signed off on before ground broke, so they do not shift to accommodate last-minute schedule changes, extended workweeks, or delayed material deliveries. Every billable hour, material cost, and completed work line item you include on this draw has to fall between those two printed dates to qualify for processing in this cycle. If work for a line item spans both this period and the next, you split the total cost of that item proportionally across both draw requests to avoid overbilling for work that is not yet complete as of the period end date.
Match Individual Site Entries to the Stated Period Bounds
You work through each daily report one by one to eliminate mismatches before you tally your total billed hours, following this clear sequence to avoid missing details:
- Pull the first daily report from your stack and cross-reference the date written at its top with the start and end dates printed on this pay period document.
- Highlight every entry where crew members logged hours, delivered materials, or completed billable work that falls fully within the stated period bounds.
- Set aside any daily reports dated before the period start or after the period end, and move them to the folder for your next draw request.
- Cross-check each crew member’s listed hours against their signed time sheets for the same days to eliminate double entries or accidental miscalculations.
- Add a small checkmark in the margin of this pay period document next to each date that has corresponding, verified daily report entries to track your progress.
You take your time with this step, because a single missed mismatch can lead to a revision request that takes days to resolve, pushing your entire draw’s processing timeline back by weeks. You don’t rush through the cross-check, even if you have a dozen other pay packets to get through before the end of the day, because fixing a mistake after submission takes far longer than catching it before you send the application in. If you find a day that falls partially inside the period, you flag it for adjustment in the next step.
Calculate Adjustments for Partial Days and Approved Overtime
When a workday starts before the period begins or ends after it closes, you only bill for the portion of hours that fall inside the stated period bounds. Illustrative example: If the period starts on October 16 and a crew worked 10 hours on October 15, 3 of which were for prep work that counts toward this period’s completed scope, you only bill those 3 hours on the current request, and allocate the remaining 7 to the prior period’s final reconciliation. Approved overtime hours follow the same rule: only overtime worked inside the period counts for this draw, even if the overtime was approved weeks before the period started. You make sure every adjustment has a clear paper trail, so if a reviewer asks why you billed a partial day for a specific crew member, you can pull the corresponding daily report and time sheet to show exactly how you arrived at that number. You do not round hours up or down by more than 15 minute increments, per the project’s billing rules, so all calculations stay consistent with the terms you agreed to at the start of the job. You note every adjustment in the comments section of this pay period document so the reviewer can see exactly how you arrived at the total billed hours, no guesswork required.
Flag Excluded Days That Fall Outside the Current Request
Excluded days are never written off entirely, they just are not eligible for billing in this specific cycle. Common excluded entries include warranty work completed for a prior phase of the project, material deliveries that were scheduled for the next period but arrived a few days early, and punch list work that was completed after the period end date for a phase that closed earlier in the month. You can log these excluded entries in your digital draw tracker, if you use Draw Jacket, to avoid misplacing the supporting documentation before the next cycle. You also add a sticky note to each excluded daily report with the period it belongs to, so you don’t have to re-sort your entire stack when you start work on the next draw. You add a short note next to each excluded day on your daily report stack so you don’t accidentally try to bill for them again on the current request, and you add a reminder to your calendar to include them on the appropriate future draw.
Wrap This Review Before Moving to the Next Pay Packet
You finish your cross-check, add up the total verified billable hours, and type that number into the corresponding field on your pay application. You double check your total billed hours against the sum of the highlighted entries one last time to make sure you didn’t miss a day or add an extra hour by mistake. You sign and date the bottom of this pay period document to confirm you completed the full cross-check, then clip all supporting daily reports and time sheets to the back of the packet. You set the entire packet in your “ready for submission” tray. This review is fully complete, and you do not need to revisit these entries unless the processing team sends a specific question about an adjustment or flagged entry. You can move on to the next task on your to-do list, or take a quick break to grab a drink of water before you start on the next pay request.
Pull This Page When You Sit Down to Process Next Month’s Draw
When you sit down to work on your next pay request 30 days from now, you pull this same page up first to remind yourself of the step-by-step check you use to match site days to period dates. You cross-reference the new period’s printed dates with the stack of excluded daily reports you set aside during this review, and run through the same matching and calculation steps to catch any mismatches before you submit the next application. You update any notes on this page if the project’s draw schedule shifts, or if you run into a new edge case during the next review, so the process stays aligned with the most current project terms. You can also add new notes to this page as you encounter unusual scenarios, like partial days that span three periods or approved change order work that falls across two pay cycles, to make each subsequent review faster and more accurate. Over time, this page becomes your personalized reference for all date-related billing rules for this specific project, so each subsequent review takes less time and has fewer errors that could lead to processing delays.
