Retention Tracking
Risk mitigationOngoingFor Subcontractors, Main Contractors & ClientsBoth directions
I keep a live register of the retention held on you and held by you under every contract, and act on each release the day its trigger lands. Retention is the money projects forget, and forgetting is the only reason most of it stays unpaid.
The problem
Retention is deducted from the first valuation onwards, a little each month, on every job you run. Half falls due when the works reach practical completion, the other half only after defects are made good, often a year or more later, when the site team has scattered, the file is archived and the person who knew the account has left. No one refuses to pay it, it simply stops being asked for, and multiply a modest retention across every live and recent job and the total is usually a startling number to see written down.
The solution
First the register: every contract you carry, its retention rate, the sum held, each release trigger and its forecast date, reconciled against the certificates, with the retention you hold on subcontractors in too. Then it runs with the cycle: each deduction checked against the contract, catching over-deduction early; and when a trigger lands, practical completion certified or defects made good, the release application goes out that day, chased until paid. Where you are the payer, the same flag lands before a release you owe falls due. Tracking runs from the first deduction to the end of the rectification period.
What you receive
Retention stops being a write-off line and becomes a schedule of receivables with dates on it. Releases are applied for on the day they fall due, chased until paid, and the register always shows what is out, where it sits and when it is expected, on every job including the ones that finished two years ago. Most clients find the first sweep alone pays for the habit: money already theirs, waiting only to be asked for properly.
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: two 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 where money is still held
One call to list the jobs, live and finished, that still carry retention. The first conversation is free and commits you to nothing.
You send me the contracts and the account history
The list below lets the register be reconciled from certificates rather than memory; forgotten jobs are exactly the ones worth digging out.
- A
Contracts showing retention percentage, release triggers and the full payment clause
EssentialWithout it: There is no percentage, no trigger to register against, no application date to count an alert back from and no payment dates to diarise once a release is applied for: nothing about retention can be tracked at all
Where to find it: The commercial folder for live jobs; the archive for the ones everyone has stopped thinking about.
Why I need it: The percentage, what releases it, the payment cycle every release has to be applied for in, and the due date, payment notice period and final date for payment that run from an application
- B
Practical completion dates and certificates
ImportantWithout it: The first release date on that contract is only ever an estimate, not one you can rely on to actually claim the money back
Where to find it: The contract administrator's letters, usually filed with the job's formal correspondence.
Why I need it: The first release trigger on most contracts
- C
Defects periods, and any certificate ending them
ImportantWithout it: The second release date on that contract stays provisional, taken from the printed form rather than confirmed against what you actually signed
Where to find it: The contract administrator's letters, usually filed with the job's formal correspondence.
Why I need it: The second
- D
Every certificate issued on each contract
EssentialWithout it: There is nothing to prove what has actually been deducted, so an over-deduction running quietly for years never gets caught
Where to find it: The payment folders, job by job.
Why I need it: What proves the trigger has been met, and what proves the deduction
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 build the retention register
Every sum held on you and by you, its rate, its release triggers and its forecast dates, reconciled to the certificates and reported with the cycle.
Reconciled From Certificates
What is held is reconciled certificate by certificate against what each contract permits, so over-deduction is found from paperwork, not from memory.
I check each month's deduction as it happens
New deductions verified against the contract rate and the cap where there is one, so over-deduction is challenged in the month it occurs.
I apply for each release the day it falls due
When a trigger lands, the release application goes out in the contract's form, with the certificate that opened the window attached.
Trigger Evidenced First
No release application goes out until the certificate the contract names is on file and the sum is checked against the retention actually held.
You sign what goes out and bank what comes back
Applications and chasers go in your name; the register shows you each release moving from due to applied for to paid.
I chase each release until it lands
Follow-ups on a fixed rhythm, escalating in firmness, through to the final release after making good, however long after handover that falls. Each cycle closes with a short written position report, so the file shows the month rather than remembers it.
I keep every release applied for on its day
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.
Tips that raise your odds of success
Questions I get asked often
Where you hold retention downstream, the deductions and releases sit inside Subcontractor Account Administration; this register gives them their dates. The making good that unlocks the final release is tracked on the closeout side by Snagging & Closeout Tracking.