Case study
Secure Construction Escrow & Settlement Infrastructure
Digitized the construction project lifecycle from quote to settlement, transforming handshake deals into auditable, secure financial workflows.
Overview
The trust gap in construction leads to delayed payments and legal disputes, with homeowners fearing overpayment and contractors facing cash-flow risks.
The Challenge
Handshake deals and manual invoicing left both sides exposed: homeowners had no guarantee work matched what they paid for, and contractors had no guarantee they'd get paid once the work was done.
The business impact:
- Contractors faced real cash-flow risk waiting on payments with no enforced release trigger.
- Homeowners had no structured way to withhold payment for incomplete or substandard work.
- Disputes had no evidence trail to resolve them, so they escalated instead of resolving quickly.
Approach
How do you make sure funds only release when work is actually done?
Manual invoicing gave neither side a guarantee. We architected a high-security marketplace infrastructure using Stripe Connect for milestone-based escrow orchestration, releasing funds programmatically only upon milestone completion.
How do you resolve a dispute without it turning into a standoff?
Without evidence, disputes came down to whoever argued louder. We developed an operational transparency engine with an immutable activity ledger and an evidence-backed dispute resolution layer, using cryptographic uploads of site media to settle disagreements on facts.
How do you make sure a retry never charges someone twice?
Network failures during payment processing led straight to duplicate charges and ambiguous payment states — real revenue quietly leaking with no way to trace it. We implemented idempotent processing with idempotency keys and a deterministic payment state machine (DRAFT → SUBMITTED → APPROVED → PROCESSING → PAID → FAILED), so a retried request can never create a duplicate transaction and every payment's status is unambiguous at every step.
Tech Stack
Outcome
Start a conversation
Let's build yours.
Book a 20-minute discovery call — we'll tell you honestly whether AI is the right tool for what you're trying to solve.