Part of our Finance & Accounting agents

AI workforce for Construction Finance

AI agents for finance teams in construction

Actionist is an AI automation tool whose agents operate the apps your construction finance team uses, from chasing sub invoices by hand to an agent raising the progress bill the day a milestone signs off.

Construction finance teams get back the hours lost to billing, chasing, and reconciling.

Your AI workforce
26 hrssaved on avg per person / month
$1,092avg saved per person / month
26avg scheduled jobs a week
Operates your stackActionist App Store
How it works

AI Employees for Construction Finance in 4 simple steps

  1. Manual Time

    We'll go over where you currently waste your time doing manual tasks.

  2. Actionist Automations

    We'll show you exactly how Actionist can automate these manual tasks.

  3. Your Benefits

    How much time and money you'll save by onboarding AI agents.

  4. Easy to use

    We'll show you how easy it is to enable AI across your business.

01

Where you spend your time

Why Construction Finance teams switch

We know how your week actually goes

What matters to you
  • Progress billing sent on milestone
    The pay application goes out the day a stage signs off, with retention deducted correctly, not days later.
  • Overdue payments chased, not forgotten
    Every progress invoice is watched against its terms, and the chase starts the day it goes overdue.
  • Sub invoices checked before they're paid
    Every sub invoice is matched to the agreed scope and rate, and the lien waiver is chased before release.
  • Retention tracked to its release date
    What's held against every sub and every job is tracked, and release is chased the day it's earned.
  • The cost plan stays current, job by job
    Committed and actual costs update as POs and invoices land, so a drifting job gets flagged early.
  • Built around your finance stack
    These are examples of what a construction finance agent can do. Build a custom agent for your own process.

And hundreds of other tasks you do manually..

An agent can take a lot off your team's plate. Take a look below to see the time and cost you could save by adding AI agents to your Construction Finance team's day.

The problem

Where the hours go

  • The progress invoice sits half-finished for days after a milestone signs off, because calculating the correct retention deduction and formatting the pay application is admin nobody schedules time for on a busy week.

    An agent raises the progress invoice the day a stage is signed off, applies the correct retention deduction automatically, and queues it for your approval so the bill goes out the same week the milestone actually completes.

  • A sub invoice sits waiting for payment because nobody has checked whether the lien waiver actually came back, and by the time someone notices, the payment run has already slipped a week.

    An agent checks every sub invoice against the agreed scope and rate, confirms the lien waiver is on file, and flags anything missing so a payment run never stalls on paperwork nobody chased.

  • Retention held against a dozen subs across three jobs is tracked in someone's memory, so a sub who earned their release two months ago is still waiting because nobody's job is to remember and check.

    An agent tracks retention held against every sub and every job, checks it against the release condition on a schedule, and flags the moment a sub has actually earned their release.

  • The cost plan is built from a spreadsheet nobody trusts, because updating committed and actual costs as purchase orders and invoices land across five active jobs is a task that always falls a week behind.

    An agent updates committed and actual costs as purchase orders and invoices arrive, and flags any job whose cost-to-complete has drifted from budget before the drift becomes a real problem.

02

Actionist Will Automate

Anatomy of an automation

What one automation looks like

Trigger·The moment a project milestone is signed off as complete
Trigger
Step 1
Actionist
The project record shows a milestone marked complete
Confirmation
Step 5
Human
You review the drafted invoice, confirm the amount, and approve it to send
Saved per run
30 min
Runs / week
~1×
Progress billing goes out the same week a milestone completes, not whenever someone finds time
A week in the life

A week with your Construction Finance agents

26Scheduled jobs
6Agents at work
24/7Always on
Agents
Wed–Fri
Wed
Thu
Fri
7a
8a
9a
10a
11a
12p
1p
2p
3p
4p
5p
6p
Apps

Some of the apps for your Construction Finance team

Some of the construction finance apps your agent operates for you. Hundreds more are in the Actionist App Store.

Triggers

Your Agent wakes up Automatically whenever something happens

Your agents watch the apps you already use and act the moment something happens, usually within about a minute, handle it based on your instructions, 24/7.

WhenA project milestone is marked complete in the project recordfires within about a minute
The agent automatically

When a milestone is confirmed complete, the agent pulls the contract value and retention rate within about a minute, drafts the progress invoice with the deduction applied, and queues it for your review before it sends.

Receives this trigger from
03

Your benefits

Manual vs agent

Where the time goes back

Without Actionist

What you do manually today

With Actionist

What your agent runs for you

  • Finance
    90 min / week
    Raising the progress invoice after a milestone

    Someone calculates the retention deduction by hand and formats the pay application days after the milestone actually signed off, because it always loses out to whatever's more urgent that week.

    Finance Agent
    0 min
    Agent drafts the invoice the day the milestone completes

    An agent checks for completed milestones each morning, applies the correct retention deduction, and drafts the progress invoice the same day, queued for your approval before it sends.

  • Finance
    100 min / week
    Chasing overdue client payments

    Someone scans the AR ageing, decides who needs a nudge, and writes an individual follow-up for each overdue account, usually well after the invoice has already gone stale.

    Finance Agent
    0 min
    Agent chases the day an invoice goes overdue

    An agent checks the AR ageing every morning, drafts a graded follow-up the day an invoice crosses its terms, and logs every chase so nothing is forgotten or repeated.

  • Finance
    70 min / week
    Chasing lien waivers before a payment run

    Nobody checks whether a sub's signed waiver has come back until the payment batch is being assembled, and then the whole run waits on paperwork that could have been requested days earlier.

    Finance Agent
    0 min
    Agent chases waivers days ahead of the run

    An agent checks every invoice queued for the payment run daily, requests any missing waiver as soon as it's noticed, and holds the payment out until the document is on file.

  • Finance
    60 min / week
    Tracking when retention is owed for release

    What's held against each sub across several jobs lives in someone's memory, so a sub who earned their release months ago is still waiting because nobody's job is to check.

    Finance Agent
    0 min
    Agent flags a release the day it's earned

    An agent tracks retention held against every sub and job, checks the release condition on a schedule, and flags the moment a sub has genuinely earned their release.

  • Finance
    120 min / week
    Keeping the cost plan current across active jobs

    Committed and actual costs get updated in a spreadsheet nobody fully trusts, rebuilt from scratch once a month instead of reflecting what's actually happened on each job.

    Finance Agent
    0 min
    Agent updates the cost plan as invoices land

    An agent updates committed and actual costs as purchase orders and invoices arrive, and flags any job whose cost-to-complete has drifted from budget before it becomes a real problem.

+ 100s of other automations
Average monthly
24 hrs / person / month
ROI

What that's worth

Calculator

Calculate what your team saves

Team size
2 people
Hourly rate
$42 / hr
Hours saved / week
12
Hours saved / year
600
Annual ROI
$25,200

Based on typical team usage: the visible tasks plus a few other automations the agent runs: ~6 hrs / person / week of admin work automated.

04

How easy it is to use

Automatic onboarding

We'll do all the heavy lifting for you.

From entering your website address to having a working AI team, no effort from you.

  1. Step 1

    Enter your website

    • We'll research your business
    • Automatically configure everything for you
    Try the demo
  2. Step 2

    Actionist Auto

    Optional
    • Watches you work
    • Creates your agents, workflows and schedules
    Get the extension
  3. Step 3

    Marketplace

    • Hundreds of apps, plus agents and workflows
    • Pre-configured by other users
    Browse the App Store
  4. Step 4

    Invite your team

    • We'll automatically onboard them too
    • Focus on the things that matter
    Open Actionist

Enter your website URL for a personalised demo

See exactly what Actionist would automate for your business.

Trust & control

You stay in control

An agent touching your billing, your subs' payments, and your cash position only earns trust if you stay in control. Actionist is built so you see everything it touched, approve anything that reaches a client or a bank, and own every record it creates.

Client invoices always wait for your approval

A progress invoice, a payment chase, or a client-facing dispute response is drafted first and queued for your sign-off. Nothing goes to a client on its own unless you widen that autonomy yourself.

Payments never release without your sign-off

A sub or supplier payment batch is compiled and checked, but the actual release stays a step you or your accounts lead confirms. The agent prepares the run, it does not push money.

Full audit trail of every invoice tracked

Every invoice drafted, every retention deduction applied, and every reconciled transaction is logged in a timestamped record, so you can always see exactly what changed, when, and why.

Your financial and client data stays yours

Contract values, client details, and bank data are encrypted and never used to train any model. Self-host on a VPS if everything needs to stay on your own infrastructure.

Construction

More Construction teams

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

Does my construction finance team need to be technical to use Actionist?
No. Actionist is built for accounts teams and bookkeepers, not developers. You describe how progress billing, sub payments, and retention work for your business in plain language, connect the apps you already use, and the agent handles the rest. There is no code to write and nothing to configure through an API for most of your tools.
How do I get started with a finance agent for our jobs?
Book a free demo and an Actionist team member will walk through your biggest finance pain point, whether that is progress billing, chasing payments, or tracking retention, and set up a working example against a real job. Most teams have their first finance agent running within a day of the demo.
How do I make customised AI agents for how our accounts actually run?
You define the agent's role, the accounting apps it touches, and the approval rules for each action type. For billing, you set the retention rate and invoice format; for AP, you give it the payment terms and who has to sign off before a run releases. Those rules apply on every invoice, and you can adjust them whenever your process changes.
How quickly can I set a construction finance agent up?
A basic agent, one that checks AR ageing and drafts a chase for an overdue invoice, can be running within hours of your demo. Workflows spanning several tools, like drafting a progress invoice with retention applied, typically take one to three days of iteration, tested against real job data before it touches your live accounts.
Where does our billing, client, and bank data live, and is it used to train AI models?
Your contract values, client details, and bank data stay yours. Everything the agent reads and writes is encrypted, and none of it is used to train any AI model. Every action it takes, from drafting an invoice to reconciling a transaction, is logged in a full audit trail. If you need everything on your own infrastructure, you can self-host Actionist on a VPS.
How does an agent work with our accounting software if it doesn't have a full API?
It uses computer use on the desktop: the agent opens QuickBooks, Xero, or your job costing spreadsheet the way you do, reads what's on the screen, and clicks through the update the same way a person would. That means it can draft an invoice or reconcile a transaction even where no supported integration exists, because it is operating the actual interface, not calling an API that may not be there.
Will it send an invoice or a payment without me seeing it first?
By default, anything that reaches a client or moves money, a progress invoice, a payment chase, a sub payment run, waits for your approval. The agent drafts and prepares it, queues it in Slack or your inbox, and only sends or releases once you confirm. You can widen that autonomy for steps you trust, but client sends and payment releases always ask first.
Can it keep the cost plan and cashflow forecast accurate when three jobs are running at once?
Yes. The scheduled checks that update the cost plan and reconcile the bank feed run on the same cadence across every active job, so a third project running at once means more figures flowing through the checks, not the checks running less carefully. Nothing gets deprioritised because things got busy.
How does an agent handle lien waivers and retention rules that vary by state or contract?
You give it the retention rate, release conditions, and waiver requirements set out in each contract, and the agent applies them consistently on every invoice and every payment run for that job. It does not decide the legal terms, it applies the ones you've already agreed to, so nothing gets billed or released outside what the contract says.
Get started

See an agent draft your next progress invoice and chase an overdue payment

Book a free demo and watch an Actionist agent draft a progress invoice with retention applied, chase an overdue client payment, and check a sub invoice against scope, end to end.