Records & Monthly Check
Risk mitigationOngoingFor Subcontractors & Main Contractors
I check your project's records every month against what a claim on it would actually need, and close the gaps while they can still be closed.
The problem
Claims are rarely lost because the work wasn't done or the delay wasn't real. They are lost because nobody can prove it: the instruction lives in a phone call, the diary says delayed by others without saying who or how long, the notice never went out, and none of it can be reconstructed eight months later. The side holding records made at the time usually wins. The check runs monthly because a gap found in the month it arose can usually be closed: the people remember, the emails are still in inboxes. The same gap found at final account is permanent.
The solution
It starts from the contract: what counts as an instruction, which notices are conditions of payment, where the time bars sit and the record each turns on, agreed with you as the list the records are measured against. The check runs monthly: I sample the diaries, registers and notices, kept or lapsing, in time or late, and whether anything on site should have triggered a notice nobody sent. What is missing is named while it can still be filled: closable gaps are closed while memories are warm, every reconstruction labelled as one, and the gaps that cannot close are reported with what each would cost.
What you receive
Your project builds its evidence as it goes. Every direction, delay and change is captured in a form the contract recognises, the notices go out while they still can, and the monthly check keeps the discipline alive long after the first fortnight's enthusiasm. Each check lands as a short written report: what is being kept, what is drifting, and what needs to go out this month, so a claim is built from records made at the time rather than from memory.
The Handover Pack accompanies the work with its dates and sources, likely outcomes and responses, scope boundaries and ready-to-send correspondence where needed.
Turnaround: five working days per cycle.
The working days start when the agreed scope and required inputs are available. Optional items do not hold the start unless the agreed scope says otherwise.
How it works
You tell me how records are kept today
One call on the job, the contract and what your site and commercial people already write down. The first conversation is free and commits you to nothing.
You send me the paperwork
The list below lets the system be built from what the contract demands and what your teams already produce.
- A
Access to the project record itself, not a summary
EssentialWithout it: There is nothing to check the record against, so the check cannot start
Where to find it: Wherever the project record actually lives: the document management system, the shared drive, or the folder on site
Why I need it: The check has to be against the real record
- B
Site diaries for the period
ImportantWithout it: The month's events are pieced together from correspondence and photographs alone, with nothing to confirm the day to day picture
Where to find it: The site manager's diary, the day sheets in the site office, the photo folders on the team's phones and the planner's programme files
Why I need it: The primary record of what happened
- C
Photographs for the period, with dates
ImportantWithout it: There is no dated record of site conditions, so events for the period rest on diaries and correspondence alone
Where to find it: The site manager's diary, the day sheets in the site office, the photo folders on the team's phones and the planner's programme files
Why I need it: Evidence that needs no explanation later
- D
Correspondence for the period
ImportantWithout it: Notices cannot be checked against what was actually served, and instructions are checked against the diary alone
Where to find it: A few weeks of the project inbox, forwarded as it stands, is enough
Why I need it: Where instructions and admissions hide
- E
The registers as they stand: variations, notices, RFIs, delays
ImportantWithout it: The check cannot say whether your registers have drifted from the real position
Where to find it: Wherever your team already keeps them: the commercial register file, a spreadsheet on the shared drive, or your QS's own working file, sent as it stands
Why I need it: What is being maintained against what should be
- F
The contract and every amendment
EssentialWithout it: There is nothing to check the records against, so the check cannot run at all
Where to find it: The job's commercial folder or the order email normally holds the signed copy
Why I need it: What the contract itself requires to be recorded
- G
The rates the work is bought at: the priced subcontract or order for each trade on site, the payroll rate for the period where the labour is your own, and any daywork or schedule of rates in the contract
ImportantWithout it: A permanent gap can be described but not valued, so the report says what is missing and cannot say what it puts at risk
Where to find it: The commercial folder holding the trade packages, the payment file where those rates were applied, or the payroll run for the period
Why I need it: The review values a permanent gap as a quantity multiplied by a rate, and the rate has to come off a document held on the project rather than out of your own knowledge of the market
Copies are fine. Send what you have and I'll tell you what's missing. Download the client request PDF or editable Word version to pass to whoever holds the files.
- A
I map what the contract turns on
I condense the records and notices that win or lose money under your contract, time bars and conditions precedent included, to one page your team can pin up.
Record list agreed with you.
The records the contract makes valuable are set down with you and agreed in writing before any monthly check is measured against them.
You keep the records against the agreed list
Your people keep the records, in your name, on your systems, and once a month I check what exists against the list we agreed.
I check the records every month
I sample the diaries, registers and notices monthly: kept or lapsing, in time or late, with anything drifting flagged while it can still be put right.
I raise the claims nobody has noticed
Each check reads the month's events against the contract: the direction nobody confirmed, the delay nobody notified, raised while notice can still be given rather than found at the final account.
I close the gaps that can still be closed
What is missing is named while it can still be filled: closable gaps are closed while the people involved still remember, every reconstruction labelled with the date it was made and its sources, and the gaps that cannot close are reported with what each would cost. Then the routine is corrected so the same gap does not appear next month.
Reconstructions always labelled.
Any record rebuilt after the event carries the date it was made and its sources on its face, so the file never passes hindsight off as a contemporaneous note.
I keep the file claim-ready month after month
Between projects the service pauses rather than cancels: nothing is re-onboarded, the file and the diary stay warm, and it resumes the day the next project starts.
Free Service Pack
A step-by-step Handbook, with the templates and working documents you need to carry out the work it covers yourself. You supply your own project information and records.
Follow the Handbook's scope and stopping points, and obtain independent advice where required. The pack is not project-specific advice or independent sign-off.
My products used
Tips that raise your odds of success
Questions I get asked often
The registers and trackers the setup draws on are free to download on the records templates page; this service is me checking every month that they are being kept against what your contract makes valuable, and closing the gaps while they still can be. Your payment cycle has its own version of this discipline: Payment Process Setup & Support.