Builder back charges, tracked by status.

What a back charge is.

A back charge is an amount a builder deducts from a flooring contractor’s payment: for damage, rework, a missed date, cleanup, or a dispute over scope. It usually arrives as a line on the remittance, with the reason only in the builder’s portal notes, not in any export. If nobody reads the note and records it, the deduction looks like a short payment, and the job’s margin quietly drops.

Where it slips.

• A deduction taken but never matched to an order, so the invoice sits open.
• A back charge agreed but never recovered from the installer whose work caused it.
• A disputed back charge that was never disputed in time.
• The same charge deducted twice, or the installer deducted twice on payroll.
• Installer retainage released while that installer’s back charges are still open.

A checklist for every remittance.

1. Match each deduction to an order and its PO or EPO. Match POs as text, so leading zeros survive.
2. Read the reason in the portal notes and record it with the deduction.
3. Decide: dispute, concede, or recover from the installer.
4. If recovering, set the installer deduction once, and check payroll does not already hold it.
5. Check open back charges before you release any installer retainage.
6. Review every open back charge each week, by status and by age.

What Bearwall does.

Back-charge tracking is set up for you on your own system: each back charge by status (issued, open and claimed, conceded, recovered from the installer) on the morning board, where your controller sees what is open. Capturing back charges from builder portals is scoped in the diagnosis, portal by portal, with your sign-in. Every write it makes is checked before and read back after.

General information for flooring contractors, not legal advice. Your contracts and subcontracts set what can be charged and recovered.