Payments
How money moves — milestones, change orders, and where your money sits.
- How construction payments workFunds are held in your Beams Account and you release them to your builder as each milestone is approved. You're never paying for work that hasn't been done.
- How materials payments workYou pay material suppliers directly for the items you specify and order. There's no Beams markup on materials — you pay what the supplier charges, with a trade discount where it applies. Construction-related materials your builder buys are inside the construction fee.
- How to approve a milestoneWhen your builder marks a milestone complete, you'll get a notification. From that moment, you have a seven-day window to approve, ask a question, or decline. Once you approve, the milestone payment is released to your builder.
- How to change something on your spec mid-projectYou can change things during the build — that's normal. Renovation customers commonly substitute a finish, add an extra item into scope, or rethink a small element after seeing it take shape. The platform makes this manageable; the change-order process keeps it predictable.
- What is a change orderA change order is how any change to scope, cost, or timeline gets agreed and paid for during the build. Submit through the platform, customer pre-pays, builder starts the new work.
- What is a target break-ground dateThe target break-ground date is the date you and your builder are working towards for the project to start. It's indicative — it can move if site readiness or the contract aren't yet in place — but it's the date everything before break ground sequences against.
- Where your money sits at each stageYour build deposit, construction fund, change-order funds, materials payments, and design fees each sit in different places. Here's a plain map of where each pound sits, and when it moves.