Everett, WA · Serving Snohomish County and nearby areas

Licensed, bonded & insured · WA #VISIOFL937R6

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Guide + payment plan workbook + policy templates

Contractor Payments & In-House Financing

Customers who can pay over time say yes to bigger jobs. Contractors who offer it carelessly finance strangers. How to take every kind of payment, set deposits and progress payments, handle card fees within the card rules, choose a financing partner, and run your own payment plans with an approval policy, a fraud playbook and a workbook that does the math.

$97

  • Instant download after payment, also emailed to you
  • 3 files: PDF + Excel + ZIP
  • Secure card payment by Stripe; sales tax added where it applies

Read the free sample pages first

Cover of the Contractor Payments and In-House Financing guide

What’s inside

  • Every way customers pay in 2026, what each one costs you and what can go wrong: check, bank transfer, Zelle, cards, payment links
  • Deposits and progress payments tied to the work, and the states that cap home-improvement deposits
  • Card fees: surcharge, cash discount or neither, and the card network rules you must follow if you pass the fee on
  • Chargebacks: how they happen, the evidence that wins them, and the habits that prevent them
  • Financing partners: how they work, what they cost you, the questions to ask, and how to advertise financing within the rules
  • In-house payment plans: when they make sense, the plan types, and where federal and state lending rules start
  • An approval policy, a fraud and abuse playbook with 18 loopholes and their fixes, and a checklist for your attorney
  • Running plans: reminders, missed payments step by step, lien deadlines and chargebacks
  • Workbook: payment plan calculator, plan register, card fee calculator, payment schedule and a 13-week cash forecast
  • Editable Word templates: approval policy, customer messages, missed-payment letters and the attorney checklist

You get 3 files

  • The Payments & Financing Guide (PDF)PDF, 53 pages
  • Payment Plan Workbook (Excel and Google Sheets)Excel, 7 tabs
  • Policy and Message Templates (editable Word files)ZIP, 293 KB

When you’re done, you’ll be able to

  • Collect deposits and progress payments that keep you ahead of the work, never behind it
  • Take cards without letting fees and chargebacks eat your margin
  • Offer payment options that close bigger jobs, with rules that keep the risk small
  • Know which questions to bring to your attorney before your first payment plan

A look inside

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Figure it out yourself, or start with 20 years of answers

Everything in these guides can be found somewhere: in search results, videos, forums, courses and long AI chats. The question is what finding it, checking it and putting it in order costs you.

Piece it together yourself

  • Hundreds of hours of searching, watching and asking AI, most of it written by people who have never run a crew or chased a payment
  • Hundreds of dollars in courses, subscriptions and AI usage before anything works
  • Answers that sound right but were never tested on a real job, so you find the gaps with real customers and real money
  • No order to any of it: you still have to work out what comes first

Start with this guide

  • More than 20 years of running a contracting business, written down: what we use today and what we stopped doing
  • In the order to do it, with worksheets, templates and copy-paste AI prompts
  • Plain English, with the official sources listed so you can check anything yourself
  • One payment, instant download, yours to keep

Not having this is already costing you

  • One customer who stops paying on a $10,000 job costs more than this guide a hundred times over.
  • One lost chargeback takes the payment, a fee and your time, and the evidence that wins it has to be collected before the job ends.
  • Every customer who says “we can’t do it all at once” and walks away is a job you priced, visited and lost.

Made for

  • Contractors losing jobs to “we can’t afford it all at once”
  • Owners who want to take cards or offer financing and do it right
  • Anyone who has been hit by a chargeback, a bounced check or a customer who stopped paying

Not the right fit for

  • Legal, tax or accounting advice for your state: the guide tells you exactly what to ask, and your attorney and accountant answer
  • Lenders and banks
Alex Babko, owner of Vision Flooring

Who wrote it

Vision Flooring, Everett, Washington

Written by Alex Babko, owner of Vision Flooring LLC: 20+ years of running a contracting business in Washington, since 2006, and 3,800+ clients. These are the systems we run our own company on today, written for other contractors: what we use, what we tried and dropped, and what we would do first if we started again.

About Vision Flooring · Washington contractor #VISIOFL937R6

Questions

Can I legally offer my own payment plans?

Often yes, but it depends on how the plan is built and on your state. A short plan with no interest and no fees is very different from a 24-month plan with interest. The guide explains where the federal Truth in Lending rules start, the state laws to ask about, and gives you the attorney checklist we use.

Is it legal to charge customers the card fee?

In most states you can add a surcharge to credit card payments if you follow the card network rules (limits, notice, disclosure, never on debit cards), and a few states restrict it. The guide walks through the rules and the alternatives.

We’re not in Washington. Does it still work?

Yes. It is written for contractors anywhere in the US. Washington rules (lien deadlines, for example) are used as examples, with notes on what to check in your state.

How do I get my files?

Right after payment you land on your download page, and the same link is emailed to you. The link doesn’t expire, so you can download again on another device later.

Can I print it?

Yes. The guides are letter-size PDFs made to read on a screen or print at home, and the worksheets are designed to be printed and written on.

Can I get a refund?

Sales are final, because the files are delivered instantly. If a file won’t open or download, contact us and we’ll fix it.

Can I share it?

It’s licensed for your own home or business. Please send friends here instead of forwarding the files. Details in the terms of sale.

Contractor Payments & In-House Financing

Get paid faster and offer financing without getting burned: deposits, card payments and fees, chargebacks, financing partners and in-house payment plans, with a fraud playbook.

Also part of The Contractor Growth Library: all five contractor guides for $247.

$97

  • Instant download after payment, also emailed to you
  • 3 files: PDF + Excel + ZIP
  • Secure card payment by Stripe; sales tax added where it applies

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