Guides
The practice, written down.
The things our clients have to get right whether or not they use software: what retention is and when it comes back, why a claim comes back unpaid, what a time bar does to a variation, and how a school's fee ledger actually reconciles.
Why these exist
Useful on their own. That is the point.
Each guide answers a question a contractor or a bursar has actually asked us, in the order the work happens. Every rule in them is sourced at the foot of the page, because the payment periods and the notice periods are contract law rather than our opinion — and a reader has to be able to check us.
Construction
Retention: what you are owed, and when you can claim it
Retention is money you have already earned and the employer is holding as security. Half usually comes back at practical completion and the balance at the end of the defects period — and the second half is the one nobody claims.
How to submit a progress claim that gets paid
A progress claim is paid or sent back on what came with it. The sequence, the payment periods under JBCC and the CIDB guidance, and the four reasons a claim comes back.
Variations: getting paid for work done without a written instruction
The variation you were told to do on site is the one you will argue about later. What a variation is, why time bars end claims, and what to capture the day it happens.
How to bid for a tender you can actually win
A tender is won or lost on three things: what the documents actually ask for, what the preliminaries really cost, and what the payment terms do to your cash. A short guide to pricing the job rather than the price.
The most useful of these is the one closest to your problem. If a guide raises a question it does not answer, tell us — the questions people ask are how this list grows, and the answer usually takes us ten minutes to write.
Guides
Want the record, not just the reading?
The guides describe the discipline. The system holds it: the same claim, the same retention and the same variation register, on one record instead of a folder.