Payment Application Assembly & Issuance
Risk mitigationOngoingFor Subcontractors & Main ContractorsMoney in
I assemble and issue your payment application every cycle, built from the records and priced to be certified, with the materials claimed properly and every fixed sum invoiced and tracked until it lands. One thin or late application moves real money a month to the right; a clean one is the cheapest credit control there is.
The problem
On most small contractors' jobs the application is written at the last minute by whoever has an evening free: last month's spreadsheet rolled forward, progress estimated from memory, the variations left off because pricing them takes too long. The payer's surveyor reads it in twenty minutes, cuts what has no evidence behind it, and the certificate that comes back sets the argument for the rest of the account. One thin or late application moves real money a month to the right.
The solution
I map your cycle once: the application date, the contractual form and route, the basis of measurement, the references the payer needs to pay. Then I build each application from the records, work measured against the pricing document, variations and dayworks to date, materials tied to their tickets, evidence attached. You correct what the records cannot show me, then it is submitted by the contractual route, logged, the response dates diarised. When a certificate, notice or agreement fixes a sum, the matching invoice goes out reconciled line for line and a register chases it to its final date for payment.
What you receive
Your application goes in every cycle on the date, in the form, with the evidence, and the certificate starts from a number that is hard to cut rather than easy to guess. Money tied up in materials comes back in the next application instead of at the end of the job, and every sum fixed is billed the same day and chased on a rhythm if it slips. The account builds one reconciled story month on month, so at the final account the position is already proven rather than about to be argued. And the person who used to lose an evening a month to the spreadsheet gets it back.
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 about the job and its cycle
One call on the project, the contract and where the payment cycle hurts today. The first conversation is free and commits you to nothing.
You send me the contract and the account so far
The list below lets the first application be built on the contract's actual terms and the account's actual history.
- A
Payment clauses and amendments
EssentialWithout it: There is no cycle to build: no dates, no form and no route can be fixed for a single application.
Where to find it: The job's commercial folder or the order email normally holds the signed copy.
Why I need it: Every date in the cycle comes from here
- B
Measure or valuation of work done
EssentialWithout it: There is nothing to value this cycle, so the application itself cannot be built.
Where to find it: Your surveyor's valuation working papers and the site's marked-up drawings or measure sheets.
Why I need it: What is being applied for
- C
Variation register
ImportantWithout it: No variation is applied for this cycle at all, even where instructed work has been done, until the register arrives.
Where to find it: The variation register or instruction file, or whatever email trail records what has been instructed and its status.
Why I need it: The largest variable in most applications
- D
Materials on site records
ImportantWithout it: Materials on site earn nothing in this application, because none of them can meet the contract's conditions without a delivery note and a storage record behind them.
Where to find it: Delivery notes from site, and any vesting certificate or insurance schedule your supplier issues for stored materials.
Why I need it: Value earned but not built in
- E
The programme
OptionalWithout it: The application goes ahead without the programme to lean on for context; nothing else changes.
Where to find it: The current programme, from the planner or the last progress report, if you hold one.
Why I need it: What supports the measure
- F
Every previous application and certificate
EssentialWithout it: There is no running position to reconcile against, so this application cannot be checked against what was applied for or certified last time.
Where to find it: The job's payment folder and whatever register or email trail holds the variations.
Why I need it: The running position and last cycle's dispute
- G
The application form the contract requires
EssentialWithout it: The application may be assembled correctly and still fail, because it goes out in the wrong form.
Where to find it: Check the contract's schedules or appendices: if it prescribes a form, that is where it will be. Many subcontracts do not prescribe one, and if yours does not, say so and I use a standard layout.
Why I need it: A valid application in the wrong form is not valid
- H
The dated records behind the measure
ImportantWithout it: Any section with no dated record behind it is left out of the measure this cycle altogether, whatever work was actually done.
Where to find it: The site team's phones and folders, the site office day book and the supplier invoices file.
Why I need it: The review values what was built, and a section valued without a dated record behind it is the first thing a payer abates. Site measures, signed records, photographs, delivery notes and marked-up drawings are what turn a measure into a defensible one
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 the cycle before the first application
Dates, form, route, the payer's own notice obligations and the route each fixed sum takes to cash, on one page. You hold it too, so both of us know what is due and when.
I build each application from the records
Work measured against the pricing document, variations and dayworks to date, and materials claimed against their tickets and vesting where the contract allows, each line with its evidence attached.
You confirm the month's position before it goes
A short review each cycle: you correct anything the records cannot show me, and nothing is claimed that you have not seen.
I submit it and diarise what must come back
Sent by the contractual route, logged with proof of sending, and the payer's response dates entered in the diary the same day.
I invoice each fixed sum and track it to the bank
The day a certificate, notice or agreement fixes a sum, the invoice goes out matched to it line for line, and the register watches it to its final date for payment, with the chaser drafted for you to send the day it slips.
I keep the account's story reconciled month on 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.
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The natural other half of this service is Payment & Pay Less Notice Checking & Response: one assembles and issues what goes out, the other reads and answers what comes back. The releases Retention Tracking wins arrive here as sums to invoice. Both assume the cycle is still working; when a certified sum has gone unpaid or a notice has landed out of time, that is a dispute rather than a cycle, and the claims side of this practice deals with those.