Brewer, Ingram & Fuller: BIF's 1st Invoice To the City Includes Billing for Work Performed over Five Months Prior To Its Selection as Architect

In the last post, it was noted that there were several reasons that someone or several people might back date the City-BIF contract for architectural services.

One reason might be to allow BIF to bill for work performed prior to approval of a contract.

Although the below invoice from BIF to the City says it is Invoice #4 from BIF, the City and BIF claim that this is actually BIF's first invoice to the City on the Millennium project.

Note that the work being billed to the City covers services from February 1, 2010- July 31, 2010!
[BIF was not selected as project architect until July 20, 2010, and a contract with BIF was not approved until August 10, 2010.]

Even if one accepts that BIF is allowed to bill the City for services performed from the very date of its selection on July 20, 2010 up to and through July 31, 2010, this Invoice shows that BIF completed and "earned" 87.5% ($52,500) of total basic project compensation in only 9 business days or 11 days if you count Saturdays.      

Note that the Invoice bills for services on a percentage of completion basis.
[BIF's contract called for billings for initial basic services to be on an hourly basis not to exceed 6% of construction costs. BIF shows no hourly documentation in this billing for basic services.

Instead BIF notes "Basic Compensation Amount per Agreement --- $60,000" and then  calculates what percentage (100%, 100%, 75%) of that $60,000 of basic compensation is complete]

Finally, BIF deducts $17,253.00 from the total earned and this $17,253.00 is termed "Less Previous Billings." Various explanations have been given for this deduction, including that this was "free" preliminary work performed by BIF.

Here is the section of BIF's contract that states that compensation for basic services shall be on an hourly basis not to exceed 6% of construction costs. There is a maximum percentage of construction costs that can be billed for basic services but the billings themselves should be shown on an hourly basis. This was not done on any of BIF's first invoices for basic services.