ezNetPay is changing the way construction payments work

Engineer John Trickel was looking to simplify his work clearing lien at his business VGI Design. He ended up creating a patented software for the instantaneous exchange of payments that gave birth to the company ezNetPay. The company launched in 2011 as ezPay, with Trickel and his colleagues working to develop the software. Trickel initially…

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ezNetPay founder John Trickel. Photo courtesy of ezNetPay.

Engineer John Trickel was looking to simplify his work clearing lien at his business VGI Design. He ended up creating a patented software for the instantaneous exchange of payments that gave birth to the company ezNetPay.

The company launched in 2011 as ezPay, with Trickel and his colleagues working to develop the software. Trickel initially used his own money, along with support from friends and family to fund ezPay, but in 2014 the company raised additional funds from investors in seed money to help expand the business.

ezNetPay is now approaching a billion dollar threshold in the value of projects that have been processed in its system.

How ezNetPay works

Des Moines-based ezNetPay is used for multi-million dollar construction projects, like when a school district or university is looking to construct new buildings. If an ezNetPay client wants to make a payment to a construction company, subcontractor or contracting firm, they can use the company’s software to do it.

In construction, it’s not as simple as wiring money. Lien releases must be obtained after the payment is made from the project owner to the subcontractor. Lien releases give the project owner assurance that they have clear title to their completed building.

Through ezNetPay’s escrow system, owners and subcontractors see payments and lien releases at the same time. Keeping documents like lien releases and spreadsheets in the system, streamlines the process, and makes sure nothing gets lost in the mail or that a subcontractor isn’t working from an older version of the paperwork.

“If you’re a contractor putting a payment application (invoice) into the system, you know precisely when it’s been received and you have visuals of approvals than can be seen by everybody,” said CEO Drew Grant. “Everyone can see the process as it goes along. One of the worst things that can happen in business is someone submits an invoice, mails it and it gets rejected. Vendors can get stuck for weeks wondering, ‘Where is my payment?’ With our system, if the invoice gets rejected, everyone gets notified.

“Having it all in the cloud, centrally stored in the system, makes it a single version of the truth. That’s a very powerful thing.”

ezNetPay can also be used for companies to pay vendors more quickly. If there’s a business that does maintenance for a building, the building’s owners can use ezNetPay to pay the subcontractor electronically, getting the money to the vendors in 5-10 days in exchange for a prompt pay discount from the subcontractor or vendor. The short turnaround means vendors don’t have to rely on credit lines to make payroll.

The company is approaching 1,500 users in the system, including school districts, universities and commercial accounts.

Adjusting the way clients think

Once you go paperless, it’s hard to imagine going back to the clutter of dead trees. But Grant said sometimes it takes a bit before potential clients realize what going electronic can do for them.

“We had a meeting with an organization that printed out 3,000 checks every two weeks,” Grant said. “They would put the checks into a safe, then seek board approval for payment, then stuff 3,000 checks into 3,000 envelopes and adhere 3,000 stamps. So there were not only paper costs, but manual labor costs, the cost of stamps and the time to take them to the post office. And that was happening every two weeks. It’s a terribly inefficient way of doing business.

“That’s the challenge we face: getting people to realize there’s a better way to do things. This is behavior modification; we’re changing the way people have done things.”

Expanding across the Midwest

ezNetPay recently expanded into Nebraska, helping Omaha’s Westside School District handle an $80 million bond referendum. Grant expects the project to span multiple years. In addition to Iowa and Nebraska, ezNetPay is also handling projects in Wisconsin. Grant estimates ezNetPay has provided the Beloit, Wis., school district $750,000 of savings in prompt pay discounts over four years.

Beyond that, the company is helping Iowa State University handle a number of large renovation and construction projects.

Big construction means big data

Grant says ezNetPay doesn’t plan to open up for the general public to send money, since companies like PayPal, Apple Pay, Dwolla and others are already making that market very competitive. ezNetPay plans to stay B2B, but the software could have further applications as more companies use it.

“When you start to accumulate a large number of customers and projects in the system, you start to accumulate data for predictive analytics work,” Grant said. “If a school district in Indiana is thinking of doing a bond referendum and wants estimates on what it costs to build a district, we have a substantial database and can look at trends in construction technology and costs per square foot.

“That data can become a mechanism that lets ezNetPay support school districts in ways other than just making a payment.”

Joe Lawler is a freelance reporter based in Des Moines.

This story is part of the AIM Archive

This story is part of the AIM Institute Archive on Silicon Prairie News. AIM gifted SPN to the Nebraska Journalism Trust in January 2023. Learn more about SPN’s origin »

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