Built for civil, environmental & survey firms
The lot, the hour, and the fee — on one invoice.
Pertally is project accounting for firms that price work per unit — per lot, per plat, per sample, per inspection — mixed freely with hourly and fixed-fee on the same project. Crew hours feed cost. Units feed revenue. Nothing lives in a side spreadsheet.
14 days of Professional, free · no card required · your firm at yourfirm.pertally.com
Invoice 2041
Fox Run — Phase 2
Meridian Land Co.
- Boundary staking14 lots × $850
- per-unit$11,900.00
- Construction site visits6.5 hrs × $180
- hourly$1,170.00
- ERP permit packageLump sum
- fixed-fee$4,200.00
Survey
Engineering
Permitting
Field memo
Tue · 4:12 PM
“Staked lots 12–25, Fox Run Ph 2 — 14 lots complete.”
9.5 crew hrs logged → job cost. The invoice sees 14 lots, never the hours.
The problem
Three ways to price the same subdivision. One system that can bill all of them.
per_unitPer unit
Boundary staking priced per lot. Platting per plat. Groundwater monitoring per sample. Most software makes you fake it as a fixed fee or an expense line — here it has its own rate card and quantities.
hourlyHourly (T&M)
Construction observation and extra services billed by the hour — with write-ups, write-downs, and bill rates by classification, snapshotted the day the time was logged.
fixed_feeFixed fee
The permit package at a lump sum, earned on percent complete, retainage held where the contract says so. Progress shows against contract on every worksheet.
The rule that holds it together: hours logged on per-unit work feed cost and profitability — and never appear on the client’s invoice. Pertally enforces that at the core. Spreadsheets just hope.
How it works
From field memo to funds in the bank
The people who did the work describe it once. The PM turns that into the bill. The client pays without mailing a check.
The crew logs time, with memos
Time on a per-unit phase requires a memo — “Staked lots 12–25, Fox Run Ph 2” — because that’s what the bill gets built from. Every entry snapshots cost and bill rates, so profitability is right from day one.
The PM builds the bill from the memos
The billing worksheet lays every phase out: uninvoiced field memos beside per-unit quantities, approved hours for T&M, percent complete for fixed fee. AI can draft the whole worksheet from the notes — the PM decides what goes out.
The client pays online
One invoice, lines grouped by discipline, retainage withheld to its own receivable. Clients see invoices and statements in a portal and pay by card or ACH through your own Stripe account — funds settle straight to your firm.
Beyond the invoice
The whole back office, not just the billing
Billing is the front door. Behind it: a firm’s books, forecasts, payroll, and the connections that keep your accountant happy.
Retainage, retainers & AIA
G702/G703 progress billing computed from your schedule of values, retainage on its own receivable, retainers applied against open AR.
Change orders that move the contract
An approved CO adjusts the fee, the unit contract, or the NTE — with its ASC 606 treatment recorded, not scribbled in a memo field.
A real double-entry ledger
Every invoice, payment, bill, and payroll run posts a balanced entry. Trial balance, income statement, balance sheet, AP, 1099 tracking, bank reconciliation with live feeds.
Revenue recognition, ASC 606
Earned vs. billed by method — as worked, as units complete, cost-to-cost — with WIP posted to unbilled AR and deferred revenue each period.
Budgets & EAC forecasting
Phase budgets, earned value, CPI, estimate-at-completion. See the overrun while there’s still fee left to protect, not at closeout.
Payroll, PTO & resourcing
Approved hours flow into payroll with weekly overtime handled correctly, PTO balances tracked, and a capacity grid for next month’s staffing.
Client portal & online payment
Clients see issued invoices and statements and pay by card or ACH — through your own Stripe account, under your name. Finance charges assess themselves.
AI that drafts, never sends
Draft the billing worksheet from field memos, scan projects for margin risk, write the collections note. Every suggestion waits for a human.
Plays well with the tools you keep
QuickBooks Online
Invoices & payments sync out
Gusto
Approved hours flow to payroll
Plaid
Bank feeds into reconciliation
Stripe
Card & ACH, in your own account
Plus SAML SSO, a public API with webhooks, project templates, receipt OCR, custom fields, and a custom report builder.
Pricing
Priced the way a firm is actually staffed
Full seats for the people who bill, manage, and run the books. Field seats — a fraction of the price — for the crew who only log time and expenses.
Essentials
The billing loop for small firms.
+ $9 / field seat / mo · billed annually
- Per-unit, hourly & fixed-fee billing on one mixed invoice
- Time & expense capture, approvals, client portal
- Invoices (PDF + email), payments, AR aging, retainers
- Core reports
Professional
Full project accounting for growing firms.
+ $15 / field seat / mo · billed annually
- Everything in Essentials, plus:
- Full double-entry GL + financial statements
- Accounts payable + 1099 tracking
- Revenue recognition / WIP, budgets, EAC forecasting
- AIA G702/G703, rate cards & overrides, change orders
- Statements & finance charges, custom report builder
- All AI assistance
Firm
For larger firms — scale, control, and support.
+ $19 / field seat / mo · billed annually
- Everything in Professional, plus:
- Priority support + dedicated onboarding
- SSO / SAML + API access
- Volume discounts
Full seats bill and manage; field seats log time and expenses. Every firm starts with 14 days of Professional, free — no card required.
FAQ
Questions firms ask us
Pricing work by the thing delivered — per lot staked, per plat recorded, per sample collected, per inspection completed — instead of by the hour. In Pertally it’s a first-class billing method with its own rate cards and quantities, not a fixed-fee or expense workaround, and it mixes freely with hourly and fixed-fee phases on the same project and the same invoice.
No. Field seats are for crew who only log time and expenses — they start at $9 per seat per month on the Essentials annual plan. Full seats are for anyone who bills, manages projects, or runs the books.
Yes. Run Pertally as the billing layer: projects, worksheets, and invoicing live here, and invoices and payments sync out to QuickBooks Online so your accountant’s workflow doesn’t change. Or make Pertally’s own double-entry ledger your system of record — both tiers run on the same data.
Every new firm gets 14 days of the full Professional plan — the complete ledger, revenue recognition, AIA billing, AI assistance, all of it. No credit card required to start; pick a plan when you’re ready.
Directly to your firm. Online payments run through your own Stripe account — card or ACH — so funds settle to your bank under your name. Pertally never holds or routes your money.
Yes. Every firm runs on its own subdomain, tenant isolation is enforced in the application and again at the database with row-level security, and data is encrypted in transit and at rest. SAML SSO is available on the Firm plan.
Something else? hello@pertally.com
Bill the way you price the work.
Set up your firm, load a project, and issue a mixed invoice this week. 14 days of Professional — no card required.