Building an Early Pay Program: What to Own, When to Partner
Launching an early pay program and building one that delivers are two different things. This session covers what it takes to get from one to the other.
Chai Nakka, VP & Treasurer at Turner Construction, shares lessons from more than a decade of running an early pay program, first in-house and now with a partner. Dan Juliano and Robbie Reynolds of Billd Predictable Pay join host Lydia Adams to talk through where programs stall, how to fund them, and what to own versus when to partner.
New to the series? Watch Part 1: Turn Your Payments into a Profit Center.
In this session you will learn:
- Why every early pay program starts with a clear goal.
- Where in-house programs stall, and what it takes to keep them growing.
- How to fund a program so it can keep up with adoption.
- Straight answers on owners, DBE subcontractors, and whether subcontractors mark up their bids.
Key takeaways
Start with the goal
Before you decide whether to run a program yourself, decide what the program is for. The goal shapes everything that follows.
- Decide what you are building. A program for the few subcontractors who call asking for early pay looks very different from one meant to reach your whole subcontractor base.
- The bigger the goal, the more of your organization it touches, from capital and pricing to technology and who talks to subcontractors.
- Design is only half the work. A great program nobody uses is a program on paper. Plan for how it gets into subcontractors’ hands from day one.
- It is not just for struggling subcontractors. Growing subcontractors, including large national ones, use early pay to plan around predictable cash.
Why in-house programs stall
A GC’s core job is delivering the project. Running a financing program for hundreds of subcontractors takes a different set of skills, people, and tools.
- Outreach is a numbers game. Reaching hundreds or thousands of subcontractors takes dedicated people, and the conversation has to happen with the subcontractor’s controller or CFO, not just the project team.
- Subcontractors talk to a GC about the work and to a financing partner about their finances. That difference shapes how open they are.
- Manual processes work until they don’t. Scaling past a handful of requests takes a platform that is easy for subcontractors to use.
- One price does not fit every subcontractor. Flexible, time-based pricing and the option to use it invoice by invoice drive more adoption than take-it-or-leave-it terms.
- It never stops. Subcontractors rotate from job to job and office to office, so engagement is ongoing, not a one-time launch.
Fund it to scale
- Plan for success. A program that works can grow well beyond a few million dollars, and capping it once subcontractors rely on it undermines the whole program.
- Your own cash, third-party capital, or a mix are all options. The right answer depends on how your company allocates capital over the long term.
- Think in years, not quarters. Your cash needs will change with the market, so build in the flexibility to adjust the mix.
Commonly asked questions
Will the owner want a share of the margin?
In Turner’s experience over roughly ten years, owners rarely ask. The GC carries the timing risk, the program sits outside the subcontract, and the GC decides which projects and subcontractors are eligible.
Is the fee a discount on the subcontract?
No. The subcontractor pays for faster access to cash, not a reduction in contract value. A subcontractor who doesn’t want acceleration is paid the full invoice amount on the normal schedule.
How does early pay work with DBE subcontractors?
They receive the same offer as every other subcontractor. Offering early pay at bid time, rather than after contracts are signed, tends to broaden the bidder pool and lift participation.
Won’t subcontractors just build the cost into their bids?
Subcontractors already price in their cost of capital and slow payment. Turner has not seen subcontractors simply mark up their bids, and some subcontractors use early pay to pay their own suppliers sooner and lower their costs.
Why use a partner instead of running it in-house?
A partner brings the outreach, technology, and day-to-day operation. A warm introduction from the GC still matters, so the strongest programs work as a true partnership.
Where early pay is headed
The panel agreed the biggest gap today is awareness. Early pay is still less understood in construction than similar programs in other industries, and some subcontractors still see it as a sign of trouble. As more GCs offer it, subcontractors gain more options for funding their growth, and more predictable cash on every project. The panelists expect early pay to become standard among major general contractors. As Robbie put it, “It’s not if, it’s just when.”
Meet the presenters
Chai Nakka
VP & Treasurer, Turner Construction
Oversees banking relationships, liquidity management, capital planning, cash forecasting, investments, and financial risk management for one of the world's largest construction services companies.
Dan Juliano
VP & General Manager, Billd Predictable Pay
Brings decades of experience in fintech and supply-chain finance, including working-capital and payment-program design at PrimeRevenue, now focused entirely on construction.
Robbie Reynolds
VP of Business Development, Billd
Works with general contractors as they evaluate, launch, and grow early pay programs, and brings years of conversations with subcontractors about how they manage working capital.
Lydia Adams
VP of Marketing, Billd (Moderator)
Leads marketing at Billd and hosts the Early Pay Series, bringing GC and finance leaders together to talk through how early pay works in practice.
Build a program that delivers
Whether you are starting from scratch or your current program has stalled, Billd Predictable Pay can help you launch, fund, and grow it.
Billd Predictable Pay
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