QScope

Written for the people who value the work

Payment, valuation, variations, retention and the final account. 174 pieces, no sign-up, and no piece that ends in a sales pitch.

Latest

Construction Act11/06/2026
How payment changes the moment a contract is terminated

Termination for default stops further sums becoming due until the account is drawn. Insolvency suspends the duty to pay or release retention from the insolvency event itself. The ordinary payment cycle no longer applies.

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Construction Act10/06/2026
The client never replied to my application. What do I send?

Silence after a payment application has a legal meaning. When your application already does the work, when to serve a payee notice under section 110B, and what silence means on a job for someone living in the house.

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Variations08/06/2026
When the Employer's Requirements and the Contractor's Proposals disagree, who pays?

Under Design and Build a divergence between the ER and the CP is where money quietly disappears. Whether resolving it is a paid variation or the contractor's own risk depends on the contract, and on where the divergence sits.

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Valuations04/06/2026
Choosing a valuation cycle, and why moving it costs more than it saves

Monthly valuations, stage payments and milestones compared. How the date interacts with your own workload, and what happens to the statutory dates when the cycle slips.

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Subcontractors04/06/2026
Back-to-back is not a magic phrase

A subcontract described as back-to-back with the main contract usually is not, in the ways that matter. The gaps show up in payment dates, notices and delay.

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Final account04/06/2026
The account after termination is not the final account

When an employer terminates for contractor default, the reckoning that follows weighs cost of completion and damages against what the contractor would have been due. It is a different exercise from a final account.

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Time & completion03/06/2026
Before they can charge you for being late, what has to happen first?

On many standard forms a deduction for lateness has a formal sequence in front of it: a certificate recording non-completion, notice of the intention to deduct, and on Act jobs a pay less notice with the sum and basis. A deduction that skipped a step fails on paper.

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Security02/06/2026
Security other than bonds

Escrow, vesting certificates, staged payment and simply paying for less. Several cost nothing and are used far less often than bonds.

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Reports01/06/2026
Accruals, and why jobs report well until they do not

Nine months at eight per cent margin, then two per cent in month ten. Nothing changed on site; the invoices simply caught up.

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