Autodesk to expand AEC digital transformation with Payapps acquisition

AEC-specific accounting platform for subcontractors getting paid faster. Terms not disclosed.

Autodesk announced that it will be acquiring Payapps, a company that makes electronic payment software for the construction industry. The acquisition will extend Autodesk’s expansion into the digital transformation of the AEC industry, building upon the AEC design and BIM products for which it is best known, like AutoCAD and Revit, and extending the company’s reach into business workflows.

Autodesk began to get into business workflows with its Construction Cloud. Whereas Autodesk Construction Cloud integrated with a construction firm’s accounting system, Payapps replaces it.

All work and no pay makes contractors and subs flock to construction-specific payment platforms such as Payapps. Stock image.

Payapps addresses the problems of late payments encountered by those doing work in the construction industry, in particular the subcontractors, who are typically last in line to get paid. It can take as much as 83 days for a subcontractor to get paid after they have completed their work, according to 2018 PWC study cited by the Autodesk announcement.

Construction projects, worth trillions of dollars in the U.S. alone, need more than what consumer-grade payment systems (like Venmo) can handle. Contractors and subcontractors rely on general-purpose accounting programs such as QuickBooks to manage invoicing and record payments. Payapps is similar to QuickBooks but is purpose-built for the construction industry. It is well suited for making partial payments for work done as a project progresses and keeping track of invoices, payments, due dates and progress on a construction job. Payapps claims an advantage over ad hoc systems composed of spreadsheets and QuickBooks and with its built-in communications, provides superiority over email for recording progress in projects and issues with payments.

The relationship between Autodesk and Payapps started in September 2022, when Autodesk announced a strategic partnership with Payapps, an investment in Toric and collaboration with Shepherd (an insurance provider).

Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

In the most recent Autodesk AEC-related acquisitions, only two (The Wild for virtual reality and Spacemaker for space planning) have to do with the design and graphics of AEC. The rest involved acquiring technology to manage the data that swirls around big construction.

• March 2023—UNIFI, for organizing, accessing and managing content in Revit
• March 2022—The Wild
• December 2021—ProEst, construction estimating
• February 2021—Innovyze, $1 billion, GIS for water, sewer
• November 2020—Spacemaker
• August 2020—Pype, automation of submittals and project closeouts
• July 2020—Bridgit, construction work force and resource planning
• April 2020—Aurigo Software, for planning, designing, building and operating construction assets
• December 2018—BuildingConnected, bid management
• November 2018—PlanGrid, $875 million, construction productivity

Construction, by its nature, varies greatly from one country to the next. Users of AEC software have shown little appetite for foreign products and greatly favor homegrown software. For example, U.S. architects adopted Revit quickly while virtually ignoring ArchiCAD, which is made by Graphisoft in Hungary. German architects prefer ALLPLAN by Nemetschek over ArchiCAD and Revit. Belgium’s Bricscad had to be content with niche markets. To avoid the outsider taint, Payapps set up shop in Richmond, Va, as GCPay. There is no mention of the software being part of Payapps or its Australian heritage on the entire GCPay website until it is outed by the Autodesk announcement.

When AEC firms, contractors and subcontractors are not using QuickBooks, spreadsheets and emails, what are they using for project management and billing? A shallow dive and a short list:

• Procore, perhaps the leader in dedicated construction project management, was spun off LevelSet, a platform for billing and invoicing for contractors and subcontractors and claims 250,000 users.
• Contractor Foreman is less expensive than Procore and has features for project management including invoicing.
• JobNimbus handles all aspects of construction, but its emphasis is on roofing.
• Sage, which boasts of having 50 years of accounting software and 50,000 users for the construction industry, may be the entrenched leader in the field of construction-specific accounting programs.
• Deltek, also old-school accounting software, is specialized for several industries, caters to the construction industry with its ComputerEase program, and boasts 6,000 users (from website).
• ServiceMax, acquired by PTC, is mostly for service and maintenance.
• IFS, for digitization of processes, is intended for service industries.

Other applications include e-Builder, BIM Track, Fieldwire and eSUB, which offers construction management software that integrates with QuickBooks.

With so many options crowding the field—from entrenched leaders to the well-funded, U.S.-based start-ups eager to “disrupt” the market, one might wonder what Autodesk could possibly gain from its late entry into an increasingly crowded market. As is the case for the other design software companies with their off-core acquisitions, Autodesk is banking on its reputation of having successfully converted companies from manual design methods to computerized methods. With its reputation secured with architects using AutoCAD and Revit, Autodesk’s other ventures address business functions outside of the design market. For businesses that still rely on general-purpose software like spreadsheets, email and accounting, Autodesk comes in with construction-specific software. For big firms paying top dollar for last-century’s enterprise accounting software purpose, Autodesk can modernize them with the next-generation, cloud-based, purpose-built application.

Payapps is headquartered in Melbourne, Victoria. The company claims customers by the thousands in Australia and has expanded into New Zealand, the UK and the U.S. The company was founded in 2011 and has 53 employees, according to PitchBook, but 28 employees, according to Growjo.com. The company’s annual revenue is estimated to be $5.7 million, according to Growjo.

The company received ₤10.5 million (AUD$20.3, or UDS$6.76 million) of debt financing in October 2023 to acquire UK-based WebContractor, which accounts for its UK expansion.