Jack Butler-Kettle

Tips for Final Accounts, Quantity Surveying

Explore all tips for Final Accounts in Quantity Surveying, with every available item in one place.

Tips

Start the closeout before the site empties

The closeout documents are cheap to collect while the subcontractors still answer the phone and expensive to chase once they have moved on.

List the documents you will need on the day you win the job

Collect the paperwork trade by trade as each one finishes

Tie the release certificates to dates, not to hopes

Keep one closeout register per job, visible to the whole team

Build the account as the job runs, not after it ends

A final account is an excavation when the records were left to pile up and a compilation when the registers were kept current all along.

Close each measured section the month it is finished

Keep the variation register current, priced and evidenced

Position claims and contra-charges honestly while the evidence exists

Reconcile the account to the payment history every month

Get from submission to signatures without stalling

An account is agreed by clearing the easy ninety per cent quickly and keeping the momentum, not by holding everything hostage to the hardest line.

Submit in a form the other side can check quickly

Agree the uncontentious ninety per cent first

Keep the meetings moving with an agreed running schedule

Write the settlement down and get it signed while it is fresh