A lien waiver is the document the GC asks you to sign at the moment money moves — and almost every dispute a subcontractor has with a pay-app wire can be traced back to which waiver they signed at which step. There are four flavors in regular use on a commercial project, and they pair off on two axes. The first axis is conditional versus unconditional: a conditional waiver becomes effective only when the wire clears the bank — the funds actually land — while an unconditional waiver is effective as soon as you sign it, regardless of whether the money has shown up. The second axis is progress versus final: a progress waiver closes out a single pay-app draw while the project is still running, and a final waiver closes the entire retention-and-punchlist tail at substantial completion. Mix those two axes and you get the four working forms — conditional progress, unconditional progress, conditional final, and unconditional final — each one meant to close a different window in the pay-app lifecycle. The way the four pair to the pay-app cycle is the part most subcontractors skip. On a standard monthly draw, the GC asks for the conditional waiver at pay-app sign-off — your line says you'll release the lien claim for that draw once the corresponding wire clears — and the unconditional waiver kicks in only after the wire has landed and the bank has confirmed it. That sequencing exists for a reason: the conditional waiver is the protection that lets the GC process the draw against your signed PO, and the unconditional waiver is the receipt that releases the lien claim once the money is actually in your account. Sign the unconditional waiver too early — before the wire clears, or against a pay-app line you have not actually seen funded — and you have signed away the only piece of leverage you carried through the pay-app window. The mistake that drives most GC-portal disputes a subcontractor chases for two cycles: a partial-payment wire signed off as if it were the full draw, with an unconditional waiver already in the GC's file for the full SOV line. The final-waiver pair is its own perimeter and it sits behind the retainage release, the punchlist, and the substantial-completion date — not on the monthly draw cycle. On a commercially reasonable job, the GC issues a conditional final waiver at the moment they intend to release retainage, and your counter-signature of the unconditional final completes the lien release against the property. Mismatch the pair — unconditional final before retainage is actually funded, conditional final with a punchlist still open and a back-charge already sequenced into the retainage line — and you have handed over the only claim that could have survived a back-charge. The trade-contractor pattern that holds through this window: keep the conditional final paired to retainage release, keep the unconditional final paired to the cleared wire of the full retainage amount plus any post-punchlist back-charges, and never let either waiver outrun the corresponding dollar movement on the bank statement. State law controls the final-waiver form and the exact sequence — the per-state read on what final waivers require and on the statutory calendar behind the whole waiver cycle is in the FAQ on mechanic's-lien and preliminary-notice deadlines . Drumtap's reconciliation surfaces the waiver-versus-wire mismatch the GC portal does not show you, on the same pay-app line where the dollar gap lives. Every QuickBooks row is paired against the corresponding portal CSV row for the same draw, and the conditional/unconditional waiver status sits on the portal's side of the reconciliation — sequenced against the change-order trail and the SOV delta the GC posted back to the schedule of values. The discrepancy list sums into the dollar amount of the dispute, but the waiver pairing is what tells you whether the gap is recoverable: a mismatched waiver on a partial-payment line is the specific signature of money the GC already considers closed and your AR team is still chasing. For the structural framing of the same QB-vs-portal problem and the per-cycle timing that drives the partial-payment and change-order sequencing underneath every waiver pair, start with portal reconciliation: the core problem Drumtap solves and how to read a GC payment application before it's too late . The /pricing page describes Drumtap's planned tiers for information only. Billing and checkout are disabled pending legal review. If this workflow fits your team, request early access through /signup for timing and final terms before access opens.