The seven things subcontractors ask before signing up.

Drumtap never signs, files, or transmits a lien waiver. We have no lien-waiver workflow and no authority to waive rights on your behalf. Whether and when you waive stays between you and your counsel — Drumtap does not assume legal standing in that decision.

What Drumtap actually does is sit between your QuickBooks ledger and the GC portal. We read each row's Status and Notes on every upload compare, and the moment a GC dispute shows up against an AR row we label it a disputed discrepancy. The agent then drafts the dispute package the discrepancy type requires — signed PO, change order, daily logs, and photos for rejected rows, pulled from your existing storage. Drumtap tells you which evidence each discrepancy type needs and why.

Drumtap only bills the recovery fee on money that has cleared your bank. We keep our hands off the legal exposure and focus on the AR reconciliation.

What Drumtap does: Drumtap flags a GC-disputed portal row as a disputed discrepancy the moment it appears in compare — and never auto-files a lien waiver on your behalf.

Payment deadlines differ across the fifty states — California, Texas, Florida, and the rest each apply different statutory timelines — and GC-specific portals layer their own submission windows on top. Drumtap does not run a scheduled job against any of those calendars, does not currently ingest email for portal-notice reminders, and does not push a reminder before your state prompt-pay deadline. We are not a deadline tool.

For the preliminary-notice and mechanic’s-lien windows specific to Texas, California, Florida, New York, and Illinois, talk to a construction attorney about your specific job — reach out →

What Drumtap does is detect missing, short, and rejected invoices on each upload compare. Every AR and portal pair that does not match is flagged on the next reconcile. The safest way to use Drumtap is to upload promptly so the next reconcile catches late or rejected rows before the GC clock does.

No ghost-written deadlines, no submission reminders, no lien-notice opinion. Drumtap does not currently mark cleared payments or send automated status emails — clearing happens in your books and the AP email goes out under your name.

What Drumtap does: Drumtap surfaces missing, short, or rejected portal uploads on the next reconcile — pair it with a quick upload so we catch late rows before the GC clock does, no matter which state’s deadline applies.

When the GC pays less than invoiced, Drumtap reads the portal’s paid-amount column against your AR and labels the row a partial-payment discrepancy. The gap — the dollar difference between invoiced and paid — is the dollar amount of the dispute. Drumtap drafts the partial-payment package this row requires: signed PO, change order, and daily logs. Photos are not part of a partial-payment package; they only attach when the row was rejected. Today you send the package; Drumtap sends nothing automatically.

Drumtap also surfaces aging exposure across four buckets — 0–30 days, 31–60 days, 61–90 days, and 90+ days — so you can see the cumulative gap sitting past each increment. Every partial-payment row that crosses a threshold is currently flagged as a discrepancy and surfaced on the next reconcile.

Drumtap does not chase every unpaid row today, and does not currently send the AP email itself on any tier. The partial-payment package is a drafted document the customer emails under their own letterhead, and the recovery fee only lands on money Drumtap actually collects once a separate written fee schedule is published.

What Drumtap does: Drumtap labels every under-paid portal row as a partial-payment discrepancy and tells you — by discrepancy type — which evidence to attach; aging exposure lines up across 0–30, 31–60, 61–90, and 90+ days.

Retainage is the percentage the GC holds back from each pay app — the percentage, the release conditions, and any milestone triggers are all set by your subcontract with that specific GC, not by a fixed industry default. Drumtap reads whatever the GC portal shows for retainage withheld on each pay app and pairs it against your QuickBooks AR row for the same invoice. If the portal’s net-paid figure is lower than your billed figure by exactly the retainage amount, the gap gets labelled, not flagged.

Release conditions live in your subcontract — punch list complete, lien waivers signed, project closeout documents filed. Drumtap does not track those milestones. What Drumtap does flag is the moment the GC's portal shows retainage that's been released but hasn't been remitted: that lands on the next reconcile as a held-over discrepancy. Drumtap does not currently auto-mark released retainage as paid — that is your ledger work.

Retainage tracking is bookkeeping, not legal standing. Whether to negotiate, discount, or release is your call and your counsel's. Drumtap keeps the AR side honest and labels held dollars as held, not as money you're missing. Do not assume a specific retainage percentage applies to your subcontract — your subcontract controls.

What Drumtap does: Drumtap labels retainage-held portal rows distinctly from disputed or partial rows — and flags a released-but-unpaid retainage line on the next reconcile so it surfaces before it ages.

Mechanic’s-lien windows are state-specific and firm. Texas, California, Florida, New York, and Illinois each set their own preliminary-notice + lien-claim deadlines — and missing one is usually fatal to the lien right. Drumtap is not a calendar tool, does not currently monitor state-by-state deadlines, and does not file notice on your behalf; the statutory calendar stays with you and your counsel.

For the per-state statute reference a Drumtap-style reconciliation could be paired against, your construction attorney is the source — reach out →

Drumtap’s reconciliation focuses on the AR side — what was billed and what the portal paid. Drumtap does not publish a per-state statutory reference today; that reference work belongs to your local counsel. The product does not pretend to give legal advice across states.

The lien calendar is your risk to track. Drumtap is the bookkeeping that lines up AR with the GC portal; legal standing decisions are separate.

What Drumtap does: Drumtap pairs AR reconciliation with a per-state deadline reference for the states a customer’s counsel controls — Drumtap does not currently publish a cross-state statutory reference of its own.

Each GC runs a pay-app cycle with its own submission window — the cutoff date and the cycle it feeds are set by the individual GC’s contract and pay-cycle calendar, not by a fixed industry default. Any pay app submitted after the window parks in the next cycle, which means another 30+ days of aging before it clears.

Drumtap reads the portal export you uploaded on every reconcile and pairs it against your QuickBooks invoice date. A portal timestamp that lands inside the GC’s stated window confirms the upload was on-time; a portal timestamp that parks in the following cycle is labelled late and flagged. Drumtap does not currently connect to a portal — every portal row comes from the CSV you uploaded.

A row missing from the portal that exists in your AR is the worst case — it’s never been submitted at all. Drumtap flags every AR row that has no portal counterpart in the current cycle as a missing discrepancy, distinct from a late one.

Starter — Read-only — Drumtap builds the evidence package; you send it yourself. Pro — Coming next — Drumtap drafts upload-based dispute emails for your review before they go out. Auto — Coming next — Drumtap sends dispute emails within the rules you approve and prepares upload-based refile packets; nothing leaves Drumtap on Auto today. What Drumtap catches on every tier today is late and missing rows before they age past 30 days; live portal log ingestion is planned and not active.

What Drumtap does: Drumtap labels every reconciled row by submission timing so a row that never made it into the GC’s pay cycle surfaces before it ages past 30 days. Starter — Read-only — Drumtap builds the evidence package; you send it yourself. Pro — Coming next — Drumtap drafts upload-based dispute emails for your review before they go out. Auto — Coming next — Drumtap sends dispute emails within the rules you approve and prepares upload-based refile packets; nothing leaves Drumtap on Auto today.

The dollar gap is the difference between your QuickBooks invoice total and the GC portal’s paid-amount on the same pay app. Drumtap labels that exact gap as the partial-payment amount at issue — never inflated, never corrected down by the agent. The label is the number a counsel writes into a dispute letter.

A Drumtap partial-payment package bundles signed PO, change order, and daily logs from your existing storage for the matching job. It does NOT include photos — photo evidence is reserved for rejected rows. The package is the seam between Drumtap’s reconciliation and your counsel’s dispute filing. Drumtap does not currently send the disputed email — it drafts, you send.

Every reconcile loops through the same read: portal paid-amount paired against AR invoice total; the difference carries a discrepancy label; the agent drafts the matching package. A row that was a partial last cycle and is now paid in full closes on the next reconcile; a row that keeps under-paying across cycles ages into the 0-30 / 31-60 / 61-90 / 90+ buckets automatically.

Drumtap does not collect on partial payments in the lawyer-letter sense. The package goes out under your name, to the GC, on your letterhead. Drumtap does not automatically mark payments cleared today; clearing sits in your books, and no recovery fee is charged under any band until a separate written fee schedule is published.

What Drumtap does: Drumtap labels the dollar gap as a partial-payment discrepancy, drafts a PO + change order + daily logs package per row, and earns its fee only on dollars that have cleared your bank — once a separate fee schedule is published.