10 Things I Hate About BuilderTrend Payments (And What You Should Consider Instead)

Introduction:

BuilderTrend is a powerful tool with solid features for project management and scheduling—but when it comes to payments, it’s a different story. As Jon Markee, your Builder CPA, shares in this candid review, there are some serious pain points with BuilderTrend Payments that every home builder should be aware of before relying on it to manage bill payments.

From missing remittance details to the lack of automation and security risks, here are the 10 things you need to know.

https://youtu.be/HkO5z9STCeU

1. No Remittance Details for Vendors

BuilderTrend Payments doesn’t automatically tell vendors what they were paid for. Without remittance reports, vendors often guess which bills the payments apply to—and they’re usually wrong. This leads to confusion, misapplied payments, and angry follow-ups weeks later.

Solution: At MyBuilderCPA, we manually send remittance reports for every payment—but it’s extra work that BuilderTrend should automate.

2. Printed Checks Look Unofficial

Vendors can print their checks at home, but the result often looks like a plain piece of paper. Banks are skeptical, which leads to home builders getting flooded with calls asking if checks are real.

3. Routing and Account Numbers Are Exposed

Each printed check includes the builder’s routing and account numbers—information that can be used for fraudulent transactions. This is a serious security risk.

Pro Tip: Implement Positive Pay through your bank or use tools that mask this data with spoof account numbers.

4. No Change Log on Bills

Unlike purchase orders, bills in BuilderTrend lack a detailed history log. You can’t tell who marked a bill as ready for payment or when. This lack of audit trail creates confusion and undermines accountability.

5. Limited Communication on Individual Bills

There’s no easy way to tag teammates, flag issues, or have a discussion directly on a bill. This leads to excessive emails and poor collaboration.

6. Manual, Time-Consuming Bill Entry

Entering bills into BuilderTrend is incredibly labor-intensive. There’s no bulk upload option—each bill must be entered one by one, taking an average of 7.5 minutes each.

Reality Check: Home builders may end up hiring a full-time staff member just to enter bills.

7. You Can’t View the PO and Bill Side-by-Side

There’s no split-screen option to compare a bill and its corresponding PO. This forces users to click back and forth, slowing down the process and increasing the chance of errors.

8. Payments Don’t Sync Automatically with QuickBooks

Even after a bill is paid in BuilderTrend, the payment doesn’t automatically show up in QuickBooks. If staff aren’t careful, this can result in double payments to vendors.

Fix: Payments need to be manually pushed to QuickBooks—after multiple clicks. This should be automated.

9. No Visibility Into the Size of Variance

BuilderTrend flags when a bill differs from its PO—but it doesn’t show how much. You can’t tell whether it’s a $5 issue or a $50,000 overage without digging in manually.

Recommendation: BuilderTrend needs to show dollar amounts next to variance codes to help builders prioritize reviews.

10. No AI or Automation for Payment Scheduling

There’s no option to schedule payments for a future date, and no sign of AI to assist with workflows. Everything is manual—missing a huge opportunity to improve speed, accuracy, and efficiency.

Alternative: Consider using Bill (formerly Bill.com). It syncs with QuickBooks, allows scheduled payments, provides vendor portals, and offers secure check printing.

Final Thoughts

Jon Markee’s relationship with BuilderTrend is a love-hate one. While it shines in scheduling and project management, BuilderTrend Payments still falls short in key areas like automation, audit trails, and security.

If you're considering BuilderTrend for payment processing, proceed with caution—and explore other tools that might offer a more efficient and secure experience.

For more insights like this, stay tuned with Jon Markee, your Builder CPA.