Short answer: both QuickBooks Enterprise Contractor and QuickBooks Online can bill a job in stages from an estimate, and neither prints the AIA G702/G703 forms by itself. Enterprise Contractor is the closer fit for a general contractor who bills monthly pay applications, because it has a change-order feature, job reports built around estimates, and a longer record of retainage workarounds. QuickBooks Online is enough for a subcontractor who bills a percentage of a fixed price and holds little or no retainage. The rest of this page goes line by line through a pay application and shows where each one gets each number.
The American Institute of Architects publishes the two documents most US general contractors bill on. The G702, Application and Certificate for Payment, is the one-page summary: the original contract sum, the net change from approved change orders, work completed and materials stored to date, retainage, what was certified on earlier applications, and the payment due now. The G703, Continuation Sheet, is the detail behind it: the contract broken into lines according to the schedule of values, with work completed in previous periods, work this period, stored materials, percent complete, balance to finish and retainage for each line. The contractor fills in the G703 first, carries the totals to the G702, signs it and sends both to the architect, who certifies the payment.
These forms are AIA’s licensed documents, so this page describes the fields rather than reproducing them. The point for software is simple: every number on a pay application has to come from somewhere, and the question when you leave Foundation is which of those numbers QuickBooks keeps for you and which you keep in a spreadsheet.
| Pay-application field | QuickBooks Enterprise Contractor | QuickBooks Online (Simple Start to Advanced) |
|---|---|---|
| Schedule of values (the contract lines) | The job estimate: one line per SOV item | The estimate: one line per SOV item; the estimate must be marked Accepted before you can bill it |
| Work completed this period | Progress invoice from the estimate, by percentage of the whole estimate or by amount or percentage per line | Progress invoice from the estimate: entire estimate, a percentage, or by line item |
| Completed from previous applications | Tracked against the estimate; Job Progress Invoices vs. Estimates report | Estimate summary on each progress invoice; Estimates & Progress Invoicing Summary by Customer report |
| Net change by change orders | Change orders are part of the Contractor edition | No change-order transaction in QuickBooks Online plans; you edit the estimate or add a second one (Intuit Enterprise Suite does have change orders) |
| Materials presently stored | No separate column; a line item or your own worksheet | No separate column; a line item or your own worksheet |
| Retainage held | Other Charge item posting to an Other Current Asset (retainage receivable), entered as a negative line | Same idea: a retainage receivable balance-sheet account and a negative-amount product/service line; no retainage module |
| Billing past 100% | Warns you, then lets you continue | Stops at the remaining balance of the estimate |
| The G702/G703 documents themselves | Not printed natively; an add-on or a spreadsheet built from QuickBooks reports | Not printed natively; an add-on or a spreadsheet |
Everything in the table comes from Intuit’s own help pages read on the day this was written: the Desktop progress-invoicing article (updated 5 August 2026), the QuickBooks Online progress-invoicing article (updated 24 August 2026, listing Simple Start, Essentials, Plus and Advanced), the Enterprise job-costing page, and the Intuit Enterprise Suite change-order article (updated 5 August 2026). Retainage is the method Intuit staff give in the QuickBooks Community, not a feature page: neither product has a retainage module.
Progress invoicing is a company preference. An admin switches the file to single-user mode, opens Preferences, goes to Jobs & Estimates, and answers Yes to both “Do you create estimates?” and “Do you do progress invoicing?”. From then on you open the job’s estimate and choose Create Invoice, and QuickBooks asks whether to bill a percentage of the whole estimate or selected items by amount or percentage. The estimate itself is left unchanged.
For a pay application, the per-line option is the one that matters: the architect checks each SOV line against the site, so you bill line 4 at 60% and line 9 at 15%, not the whole job at 32%. The Job Progress Invoices vs. Estimates report then gives you the “previous applications” column for the next month. The Contractor edition’s change orders keep the contract sum honest, and its work-in-progress and committed-costs reports sit alongside the billing, which is the part of Foundation most controllers miss first.
Retainage takes the most discipline. Set up a retainage receivable account (Other Current Asset) and an Other Charge item that posts to it, then add it to every progress invoice as a negative line at the contract’s percentage. What the customer still owes sits in that account by job. When retainage is released, you bill it on its own invoice. Retainage you hold back from subcontractors is the mirror image: a liability account and an item on the bill.
In QuickBooks Online the switch is under Settings, Account and settings, Sales, Progress Invoicing: turn on “Create multiple partial invoices from a single estimate”. Mark the estimate Accepted, then convert it to an invoice for the entire amount, a percentage, or by line. Each progress invoice carries an estimate summary and links back to the estimate, and when the estimate is fully billed its status changes to Converted.
Two differences from Desktop matter on a construction job. First, QuickBooks Online will not let you bill beyond 100% of the estimate; you can only add what is left. That is safe until an approved change order arrives, and then, with no change-order transaction in the regular QuickBooks Online plans, you either revise the estimate or open a second estimate for the change. Second, retainage is the same negative-line method as Desktop, with no report built for it beyond the balance of the account, so a retainage-by-job schedule is a filtered report you build and save.
Intuit Enterprise Suite does have change orders on projects: once the customer accepts one, the project’s estimated income and cost update and the change is logged.
Stay on Foundation if you bill many AIA applications a month across many jobs, carry retainage on both sides as a large balance, and your architects expect Foundation’s printed output. That is a real advantage, and the Foundation renewal worksheet is the way to price it against a move rather than guessing.
Move to QuickBooks Enterprise Contractor if you are a general contractor or a large subcontractor who bills per SOV line, sees regular change orders and needs WIP reporting, and you are willing to own a spreadsheet or add-on for the G702/G703 layout.
QuickBooks Online is enough if you bill a handful of fixed-price jobs by percentage complete, change orders are rare, and retainage is either absent or small enough to track in one account. Its hard stop at 100% of the estimate is a feature on those jobs, not a limitation.
The billing history of a half-finished job is the part of a Foundation conversion that goes wrong if it is left to a generic import. The architect’s next certificate will compare your “previous applications” column to theirs, to the cent. For each open contract we carry over the schedule of values as the job estimate, the amount billed to date per line, approved change orders, and the retainage held as an opening balance in the retainage receivable account for that job at the cutover date. Before handover, the first QuickBooks pay application for each job is checked against the last one Foundation produced. The Foundation to QuickBooks conversion page has the scope and how it is priced; for crews on prevailing-wage jobs, construction payroll covers the payroll side.
Not natively in either QuickBooks Enterprise Contractor or QuickBooks Online. Intuit’s help pages describe progress invoicing from an estimate but do not mention the AIA forms. Contractors either use an add-on that builds the forms from QuickBooks data or keep a spreadsheet in the G702/G703 layout fed from QuickBooks reports.
Intuit’s article on progress invoices (updated 24 August 2026) lists Simple Start, Essentials, Plus and Advanced. You turn it on under Account and settings, Sales, Progress Invoicing, and the estimate has to be marked Accepted before you can invoice from it.
In both Desktop and Online, create a retainage receivable balance-sheet account and an item or product/service that posts to it, then add it to each progress invoice as a negative amount. Retainage you hold from subcontractors uses a liability account in the same way. Neither product has a retainage module.
Not in the regular QuickBooks Online plans; you revise the estimate or open a second one. Intuit Enterprise Suite has a change-order transaction on projects that updates estimated income and cost once the customer accepts it. QuickBooks Desktop has change orders in the Contractor edition.
In QuickBooks Desktop you get a warning when invoices pass 100% of the estimate and can continue. QuickBooks Online only lets you invoice the remaining balance of the estimate, so an approved change order has to be added to the estimate or entered as a new estimate first.
Coming from Foundation with open contracts mid-job? Start with the Foundation to QuickBooks conversion scoping call, and bring your last pay application for each open job.
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Founder of Numerawise Solutions, established MMXXIV in Atlanta. Intuit ProAdvisor Gold tier. Former Intuit Technical Support engineer. Has personally led two hundred accounting software conversions for US small businesses since founding the practice. Reachable directly at [email protected].