Schedule of Values (SOV) Explained for Subcontractors

How to break your contract into line items that make your monthly pay application easy instead of a spreadsheet nightmare.

Last updated 2026-08-17

What an SOV is

A Schedule of Values is your contract sum broken into line items, each with its own dollar value. It's usually the first document a GC asks for after you sign - before the job even starts - because every monthly pay application is billed against it. Get the SOV wrong or too coarse, and every period after it is harder than it needs to be.

How to break down your scope

The general rule: enough line items that you can show real, believable progress each month, not so many that you're maintaining a spreadsheet with fifty rows for a small job. A reasonable starting point for most subcontract scopes:

Mobilization / submittals (a small line, billed early)
Materials or equipment procurement, if there's meaningful lead time
Labor broken out by phase, floor, or area - whatever matches how the GC's schedule tracks progress
Closeout / punch list (a small line held back for the very end)

If your scope is genuinely simple - say, a single-phase installation - three or four lines is completely reasonable. Don't invent granularity you don't need.

The number one rule: it has to add up

Your SOV line items must sum to exactly your contract sum. GCs check this before approving a pay application, and a mismatch - even a small rounding error - is one of the most common reasons a submission gets bounced back. When a change order is approved, update the SOV total at the same time you update the contract sum; they should never drift apart.

Matching the SOV to the G703

Your SOV becomes the left-hand columns of the G703 continuation sheet every period - same line items, same order, same scheduled values. Once you've submitted period one, don't renumber or reorder lines; it breaks the "previous period" comparison for the GC reviewing your billing history.

Common mistakes

Too few lines. One giant "labor and materials" line makes 60% complete impossible to justify or verify.
Too many lines. Splitting every material type into its own row turns a 10-minute monthly task into an hour of bookkeeping.
Forgetting overhead and profit. If your contract includes markup, either fold it into each line proportionally or give it its own line - just be consistent.
Not updating the SOV when scope changes. A change order that isn't reflected in the SOV shows up as a mismatch the next time totals are checked.

Building it without spreadsheet drift

This tool checks your SOV total against your contract sum as you build it, so a typo doesn't silently carry through every period after.

Create your first pay application →

This is a free tool, currently in development. Numbers should be accurate, but don't rely on it for anything legally binding yet. Privacy & Terms.