Advance Payments
AP-01 Structural steel on site
Relates to2.02 Structural steel frame
Date issued12 Jun 2026
StatusPaid
Advance value, excl VAT£12,500.00
VAT at 20%£2,500.00
Total paid£15,000.00
Materials on site
Materials delivered but not yet built in still have to be paid for, then recovered as the work is certified. Doing that from memory is how a contractor ends up paid twice for the same brick.
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Once linked, QScope knows that when that line is certified, part of the money has already been paid.
An advance floating loose in a spreadsheet is a number waiting to be forgotten.
Linking it to the bill line it relates to is what makes recovery automatic instead of manual. Once linked, QScope knows that when that line is certified, part of the money has already been paid.
Client Valuations
You do not track it.
You do not track it. As the linked line is valued in following certificates, the advance is drawn back automatically, and the certificate shows what is happening rather than hiding it inside a total.
Bonds and warranties
Where a contract requires it, an advance is paid against an advance payment bond, and the bond only needs to cover what has not yet been recovered.
The bond covers the advance still to be recovered. As the structural steel line is certified the outstanding balance falls and the cover required falls with it.
Payment
An advance payment notice is a payment like any other, and it sits on the same statutory timetable as an interim certificate.
The advance payment notice runs on the same Construction Act timetable as the interim certificates, counted from the same due date.
Advance Payments
The two ideas on this page map onto two different FIDIC clauses.
Under FIDIC the advance is a loan against a guarantee, repaid by deductions from later Interim Payment Certificates, not recovered against one bill line. Payment for Plant and Materials for the Works is certified separately under 14.5. Figures are published starting points to verify against the Particular Conditions.
Who it is for
You are applying
You value it, and the certificate cuts itYou value the work line by line and submit the application. When the certificate lands short, the difference is argued line by line too, and your valuation is the evidence.
Applying for paymentYou are certifying
You cut it, and you sign your nameYou value the same lines from the other chair and issue the certificate. Every percentage you cut has to survive the question of why, a month or a year later.
Certifying paymentYou are doing both
You value your own work, aloneYou price it, you value it and you apply for it yourself, between site visits. The certificate still has to add up as if a surveyor had built it.
Doing both yourselfYou are reporting
You certify value the lender pays onYou certify value in place so the lender can release the next tranche. The valuation is the same arithmetic; the reader was never on site.
Recommending a drawdownThe client, the architect and the tenderer are not on this list. They are the people you let in on a link: they see the one document you sent them, answer it, and that answer is written into the record. No account, no licence, no charge, on every plan.
The questions this page raises most often, answered without a sales pitch at the end.
No. A variation changes the works. An advance pays early for works already in the contract, because the materials are on site and the contractor has bought them. It does not change the contract sum.
It follows your contract. Many contracts do not retain against materials on site, since retention secures workmanship rather than delivery. Set it to suit the terms you are working under.
The advance stays outstanding and carries into the final account, where it is settled with everything else. Nothing disappears quietly.
Yes. It prints on your letterhead with the description, the quantity and rate breakdown, the VAT and the total, ready to issue.
FIDIC splits it. A true advance payment is an interest-free loan under Sub-Clause 14.2, paid against an advance payment guarantee and repaid by deductions from later certificates, not tied to one bill line the way a UK materials-on-site advance is. Payment for Plant and Materials intended for the Works is certified separately under 14.5 once the Contract conditions are met. QScope runs both on the FIDIC calendar-day timetable, as published starting points to verify locally.
From the blog
Three pieces from the same corner of a contract as this page, answered at length and without a sales pitch at the end.
Since the domestic reverse charge, most VAT-registered construction supplies inside CIS swap who accounts for the tax: the customer does, not the supplier. Why the invoice looks wrong and is right, the end user exception, and the cash flow effect nobody warns you about.
Read nowThe honest answer is that either beats a two-page quote, and the choice mostly follows who the client is: RIBA’s domestic forms are written for homeowners, JCT Minor Works for jobs run by a professional. And Minor Works is not a small version of the big forms.
Read nowFor construction the tax point is usually the earlier of invoice or payment. Retention is different: its tax point waits until the retention is received or invoiced.
Read nowKeep reading
Materials delivered but not yet built in still have to be paid for, then recovered as the work is certified. Doing that from memory is how a contractor ends up paid twice for the same brick.
30 days free, no card.
Rather ask first? Write to help@qscope.co.uk and you will get a reply within one working day, Monday to Friday.