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Keep one folder per payment cycle

One folder per cycle holds the application as sent, every notice received, the receipts, the follow-up emails and a log of the dates. When a question comes up 2 years later, the answer is in one place.

Updated: . By Jack Butler-Kettle, Construction Claims Consultant.

Why it matters

A payment question 2 years on is answered by documents, not memory. The documents are spread across an email account, a shared drive, a portal and a phone. Usually someone who was not there has to find the application as sent and prove the date. They have to find the notice, or prove there was none, and find the receipts. If each of those is a search, the answer takes days and comes with gaps. If each cycle has one dated folder holding everything that went out and came in, the answer takes 10 minutes. It comes with a complete file an adjudicator can read.

How to do it

  1. Create a folder for each cycle at the start of the job, numbered and dated, before the first application goes.
  2. Save into it the application as sent, the sent email with its recipient list, the delivery and read receipts and the portal confirmation.
  3. Save every Payment Notice and Pay Less Notice as received, with the email it came in, the day it arrives.
  4. Keep a one page log at the top of the folder listing each document and the date it went out or came in.
  5. Add the follow-up emails, call notes and remittance advice as they arrive.
  6. Close the folder when the cycle is paid.

Example

Illustrative example. The scenario and figures are invented.

The facts

A subcontractor's job finished 18 months ago. Its commercial lead is asked whether the main contractor issued a Pay Less Notice on cycle nine. On that cycle £52,000 was applied for and £41,000 paid. The QS who ran the job has left. The company keeps one folder per cycle.

What happens

  1. The commercial lead opens the cycle nine folder and reads the log. It shows the application sent on the 25th, a Payment Notice for £41,000 received on the 2nd and no Pay Less Notice.
  2. The Payment Notice is in the folder with the email it arrived in, showing the date and sender.
  3. The delivery receipt for the application is beside it, showing the application reached the named recipient on the 25th.
  4. The commercial lead sends the four documents to the adviser the same morning.

The outcome

The question is answered in 10 minutes, with a complete file. Without the folder, the same answer would have meant a week searching a former employee's mailbox and the shared drive. Even then, nobody could be sure of finding the receipts.

To have this set up for you, see our Underpayment Prevention service.