The variation register is empty and the job is half built
What's been instructed, what's been priced, what's been agreed: nobody can say.
Updated: . By Jack Butler-Kettle, Construction Claims Consultant.
What's happening?
Half the job is built and the variation register is empty, or it lives in one surveyor's head. Instructions are scattered across emails, meeting minutes and conversations. Some were confirmed the way the subcontract requires, most were not. Nobody can answer the three questions a variation account rests on: what was instructed, what was priced and what was agreed.
The cost comes every month, not just at the end. A change that is not on a list gets left out of an application, or assessed with no context. The longer the register stays empty, the more rebuilding it depends on other people's memories and goodwill. And a register is only an index of the evidence, not proof that any step happened.
The solution
Rebuild the register from the emails, minutes, drawings, site records and the subcontract. Give each change a reference, a date, a value, its evidence and a status: agreed, priced, applied, certified, paid, pending or unconfirmed. Then keep it alive by adding each change the day it is instructed and checking the register against every application.
Variation Claim does the sweep, confirms what can still be confirmed and presses the priced items that are going unpaid. Unpaid Variation Prevention sets up the routine that keeps the register current. Pending and unconfirmed items then stay in view, instead of quietly dropping out of the account.
Example
Illustrative example. The scenario and figures are invented.
The facts
A subcontractor is 9 months into an 18-month package. The surveyor who ran it has left, and the variation register has four entries. Everything is swept as it stands: the emails, the meeting minutes, the drawing issue sheets, the site diary and the subcontract's instruction forms.
What happens
- The sweep turns up sixty-three possible instructions. Twenty-two were confirmed on the subcontract's form and eighteen came as emails from the main contractor's project team. Fifteen appear only in meeting minutes, and eight are site conversations noted in the diary.
- Each one gets a reference, a date, a value where one can be put on it, its evidence and a status.
- The first pass shows £312,000 of change. £140,000 is agreed, £95,000 is priced but not agreed, £52,000 is instructed but not yet priced, and £25,000 sits across the eight unconfirmed items.
- The register then runs every period. The £95,000 goes into the next application with the pricing behind it, and £60,000 of it is agreed over the next two cycles.
- The £52,000 of instructed but unpriced change is priced within the month.
- The eight unconfirmed items go to the main contractor with the diary entries. Five are confirmed. Three are declined and stay on the register as declined, with their cost noted.
The first pass in figures
| Item | Amount |
|---|---|
| Agreed | £140,000 |
| Priced but not agreed | £95,000 |
| Instructed but not yet priced | £52,000 |
| Unconfirmed, eight items | £25,000 |
| Change identified | £312,000 |
The outcome
The team now works from one list with a status on every line: sixty-three items where there were four.