Key Takeaways
- Built for building-material dealers, lumberyards, hardware distributors, and construction-supply operations.
- Handles the core dealer AR motion: high-volume daily contractor invoicing, consolidated monthly statements, and surcharging where legally permitted.
- Integrates with Epicor Eagle, Epicor Prophet 21, Sage 100, and NetSuite via Clarity Connect.
- Supports contractor account self-service, credit limits, and consolidated statement payment.
- Deployment in 48 hours.
Building materials payment processing on Clarity Payment Hub gives building-material dealers, lumberyards, and hardware distributors a self-service B2B portal where contractor and builder accounts view invoices, pay consolidated monthly statements, and save a card or ACH account for next time. Every payment posts back to your distribution ERP automatically through Clarity Connect, so counter staff stop keying card numbers by hand and the monthly statement reconciles against invoices that are already applied. Where state law permits, compliant surcharging passes the card-acceptance cost to the contractor who chose the card, which protects margin on tight-margin product categories.
Payment Hub for Building Materials, Lumber & Hardware: Overview
Clarity Payment Hub is a B2B self-service payment portal built for building-materials dealers, lumberyards, and hardware distributors. It gives contractor customers, builder accounts, and commercial buyers a branded online portal to view invoices, pay consolidated monthly statements, and manage saved payment methods, with every payment posting back automatically to your distribution ERP through Clarity Connect.
Building materials and hardware distribution sits at the intersection of wholesale distribution and contractor services. Contractors run tabs across dozens of invoices a month, pay consolidated on the 10th or 15th, and expect counter and online parity. Payment Hub handles all of it: high-frequency daily invoicing, consolidated monthly pay, compliant surcharging where state law allows, and automatic cash application.
Counter staff, AR managers, branch managers, and owners use Payment Hub on the team side. Contractors, builder accounts, and commercial customers use the portal to manage their account through the chaos of a busy build cycle.
The AR Problem in Building Materials, Lumber & Hardware
Building material and lumber distribution is a volume-heavy, contractor-driven business. A single builder might have 60 invoices open across a month from daily deliveries, then settle the entire month consolidated. Counter staff often takes card payments over the phone, and AR teams apply consolidated payments against long lists of invoices by hand. Card interchange on contractor volume without Level II and Level III data is a quiet margin killer.
Dealers that modernize their AR experience typically win more wallet share from contractors, shorten collection cycles, and protect margin on card-paid volume. Those running manually usually pay more in interchange than necessary and lose AR hours to manual keying every day.
Five problems show up again and again across building-materials dealers:
Daily delivery invoicing creates dozens of open invoices per contractor per month, and every one has to be tracked, aged, and eventually settled.
Contractors settle monthly with a single payment against many invoices, and applying that payment by hand is slow and error-prone.
Counter staff taking cards by phone is labor-heavy and exposes PCI scope that a portal would remove.
Contractor card payments erode margin on tight-margin product categories when the gateway is not optimized for B2B.
Contractors have no clean online place to see their account or pay at consolidation, so they call the counter or mail a check.
The cost of inaction is concrete. For a building-materials dealer at 50 million dollars in revenue with 5 days of avoidable DSO, that is around 685,000 dollars of working capital locked up. Add Level II and Level III data or compliant surcharging on contractor card volume and reclaimed AR labor, and the cost of a manual AR process is real margin every month.
How Clarity Payment Hub Solves It
Payment Hub gives your contractor and builder accounts a branded portal where they see every open invoice from Epicor Eagle, Epicor Prophet 21, Sage 100, or NetSuite. They pay individual invoices or consolidated monthly statements, and every payment posts back automatically as applied cash against the right invoices. Where state law permits, compliant credit-card surcharging on contractor card volume preserves margin. Level II and Level III data applies where surcharging does not, and ACH is promoted for large consolidated payments.
Contractors pay the full monthly statement in one transaction, and cash splits correctly across every invoice.
Payments post to Eagle, Prophet 21, Sage 100, or NetSuite as applied cash, with no manual keying and no spreadsheet.
Where legally permitted, surcharging is configurable by state and card brand, with proper disclosure, so the dealer protects margin without breaking card-brand rules.
On non-surcharged volume, enhanced data passing unlocks the lowest B2B interchange on contractor card payments.
Saved cards and ACH accounts are tokenized at the processor, so raw card numbers are never stored on Payment Hub servers and repeat payment is two clicks.
Payment Hub is gateway-flexible and ERP-flexible. It integrates with Epicor Eagle, Epicor Prophet 21, Sage 100, and NetSuite through Clarity Connect. Compliant surcharging applies where state law permits, and Level II and Level III data is passed on the remaining card volume. Keep your processor or negotiate contractor-appropriate rates.
Common Building Materials, Lumber & Hardware Scenarios
Here are a few representative situations across building materials and hardware dealers and how Clarity Payment Hub addresses each.
Regional lumberyard on Epicor Eagle
Building materials distributor on Epicor Prophet 21
Hardware distributor on Sage 100
Benefits for Building Materials, Lumber & Hardware Companies
Payment Hub turns a high-volume, contractor-driven, counter-bound AR process into a self-service flow that protects margin and frees the counter.
Self-service consolidated pay speeds up monthly settlement cycles.
Where permitted, surcharging preserves card margin on tight-product categories.
Level II/III and surcharging together keep effective card cost low.
Monthly consolidated payments apply against dozens of invoices automatically.
Contractors pay in the portal instead of calling the counter.
Modern self-service account view and pay flow that contractors expect.
Counter staff, AR managers, and branch managers reclaim hours every week. Owners and CFOs see contractor DSO tighten and card margin preserved. And the contractors and builder accounts you serve, the real customers, get a fast, modern, self-service way to manage and pay their account.
ERPs We Integrate With for Building Materials, Lumber & Hardware
Building-materials, lumber, and hardware distribution runs on a concentrated set of dealer-oriented ERPs. Payment Hub integrates with the dominant platforms through Clarity Connect.
- Epicor Eagle: the go-to ERP for hardware, lumber, and building-material dealers. Payment Hub plugs into Eagle AR quickly.
- Epicor Prophet 21: common at building-materials distributors at scale. Payment Hub adds consolidated contractor pay.
- Sage 100: for smaller and mid-sized distributors. Payment Hub fits in naturally.
- NetSuite: for larger multi-location distribution on Oracle NetSuite.
Integration pattern: building-materials and lumber distributors typically run one core ERP (Eagle, Prophet 21, Sage 100, or NetSuite) with a gateway relationship. Clarity Connect bridges the ERP and gateway, and the portal handles consolidated monthly pay, compliant surcharging, and automatic cash application.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can contractors pay a consolidated monthly statement online?
Yes. Consolidated statement pay is a core workflow. Contractors pay the full monthly statement in one transaction, and cash splits correctly against every invoice.
Can we surcharge contractor card payments?
Yes, in states where surcharging is legally permitted and following card-brand rules. Payment Hub applies compliant surcharging with proper disclosure and defaults to no surcharge where not permitted.
Which ERPs does Payment Hub integrate with?
Epicor Eagle, Epicor Prophet 21, Sage 100, and NetSuite are all supported directly through Clarity Connect, each with a battlecard available.
Will counter phone-card intake drop?
Typically dramatically. Once contractors are on the portal, most card payment volume shifts there and phone-card intake falls sharply.
How long does deployment take?
Most building-materials deployments go live in 48 hours of ERP sandbox access.
Can we prioritize ACH over card?
Yes. You control which payment methods are offered and can default to ACH for large consolidated payments.
Related Industries
See Clarity Payment Hub running inside your ERP, or spin up a free trial environment and click around on your own. Either way, you will see exactly how it handles your invoice mix, your gateway, and your Level II and Level III savings before you commit to anything.