Cash flow

The number you actually need is the peak

Projects do not fail because they were unprofitable. They fail because the money went out before it came in, and nobody had modelled the gap.

Payment behaviour from on time to thirty days late
Monthly view with cumulative position and a visual bar
Prints for a funder or a board pack

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Cash flow

Monthly position

Receipts, Nov£96,200

Payments to subcontractors, Nov(£111,300)

Net for the month(£15,100)

Cumulative(£186,400)

This is the cash flow of the contract. Your own labour, plant and overheads are not in it, because the program does not hold them, and pretending otherwise would be worse than saying so.

On time is a best case, not an expectation

Late payment is common enough that a forecast built on contractual dates is optimistic by default.

QScope lets you model the behaviour you actually see, so the peak reflects the world rather than the contract. The tail matters as much as the peak. Retention and an unagreed final account keep the position negative long after practical completion, and a forecast that goes positive at handover is wrong by exactly that amount.

Cash flow

Built from the dates that already exist

Every certificate already carries a valuation date, a due date and a final date for payment.

Receipts from client certificates on the contractual payment dates
Payments to subcontractors on their own cycle
Remaining valuations projected on an S-curve or evenly

Cash flow

Forecast

Peak funding

£186,400

Occurs

Nov 26

Cycles left

The peak is the deepest point of the cumulative line. It is the sum that has to be funded, and it is usually still ahead of you.

Remaining cycles are projected from the valuation schedule, with the uncertified balance spread on an S-curve, because that is how construction actually runs: slow, fast, slow. An even spread flatters the early months and hides the peak.

Client Valuations

Receipts are your own certificates, not an estimate

The money coming in is not a guess.

Receipts taken from the net due on each issued certificate
Retention withheld on the certificate flows straight into the forecast
Remaining cycles projected from the same valuation schedule

Client Valuations

Certificate feeding the forecast

This period, exc VAT£24,180.00

Less retention at 5%(£1,209.00)

Due this certificate, exc VAT£14,031.00

Lands on final date for payment29 Aug 2026

The receipt in the forecast is the net figure after retention, on the date the money actually arrives, not the day the valuation was signed.

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Statutory payment dates

Money lands on the final date for payment, not the valuation date

A forecast that pays on the valuation date is weeks early and wrong in your favour.

Final date for payment counted from the due date per contract form
Weekends and England and Wales bank holidays excluded from the count
Late payment behaviour applied on top where you expect it

Statutory payment dates

Dates behind the receipt

Due date15 Aug 2026

Last date for payment notice20 Aug 2026

Last date for a pay-less notice24 Aug 2026

Final date for payment29 Aug 2026

The receipt for this certificate falls in the forecast on 29 Aug 2026, fourteen days after the due date, not on the valuation date two weeks earlier.

Cash flow

The payment cycle that drives the peak is not the same everywhere

The gap between doing the work and being paid for it is what the peak measures, and that gap is set by the contract form and the jurisdiction.

FIDIC certificate within 28 days, Employer payment within 56 days of the Statement
Calendar days, with no UK-style payment notice or pay-less notice under FIDIC
Currency set for the market, printed on your own letterhead

Cash flow

FIDIC receipt, calendar days

Statement received by the Engineer03 Aug 2026

Interim Payment Certificate, within 28 days31 Aug 2026

Employer pays, within 56 days28 Sep 2026

Receipt lands in the forecast£512,000

The 56 day period runs from the Statement in calendar days, so the receipt sits nearly two months out. On a UK contract the same certificate would land a fortnight after the due date. The defaults are editable for the Particular Conditions, and the figures are a starting point to verify locally.

Reports

The forecast prints for a funder or a board

The peak funding requirement is only useful once it leaves the screen.

Peak funding and the month it occurs stated as figures
Cumulative position printed month by month
On your practice letterhead, never QScope branding

Reports

Cash flow for the board

Peak funding

£186,400

Occurs

Nov 26

Cycles left

Sep 26 · actual(£142,900)

Oct 26 · actual(£171,300)

Nov 26 · forecast(£186,400)

Dec 26 · forecast(£164,100)

QScope prints the forecast alongside the reports a QS already sends, so the cash position sits next to the cost report and the payment schedule rather than in a spreadsheet nobody else can open.

Who it is for

One record, four reports that must agree

You are applying

You report cost against money secured

You report cost against the sum you have actually secured, and the difference between the two is the conversation with your own board.

Applying for payment

the same measurement

You are certifying

You report on figures you certified

You report to the client on a job you certify, and the report has to reconcile with the certificates you signed.

Certifying payment

You are doing both

Your record is the only report there is

You are the report: what you have applied for, what has been certified and what is still to fund, pulled from your own record.

Doing both yourself

You are reporting

You turn the record into a drawdown

You turn the project record into a drawdown recommendation, and the figures have to reconcile before the lender releases a pound.

Recommending a drawdown

The 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.

FAQs

The questions this page raises most often, answered without a sales pitch at the end.

No, and it does not claim to be. It is the cash flow of one contract: money in from client certificates against money out to subcontractors. Own labour, plant and overheads sit in your accounts, not here.

From the valuation schedule in project settings, with the uncertified balance spread across the remaining cycles. You choose an S-curve or an even spread.

Yes. Retention is withheld on the forecast certificates at the correct rate, and released on the dates the certificates and the rectification period produce.

It prints as a document. Whether it suits a funder depends on what they need, and most will want your own cost base alongside it.

Yes. It places receipts on the FIDIC payment period, 56 calendar days from the Statement on the 1999 default, and carries the currency for the market. The 28 and 56 day periods are editable for the Particular Conditions, and country figures are starting points to verify locally.

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All 174 pieces

Keep reading

The three parts this page leans on

Statutory payment dates Enter a due date and QScope returns the pay-less and final date deadlines for JCT, NEC or the Scheme, or FIDIC IPC and payment dates in calendar days. See how it works Retention Full rate during the works, half rate after practical completion in the UK, or FIDIC release at Taking-Over and the end of the Defects Notification Period. See how it works Forecasting cash on a project Take the valuation schedule, shift every receipt to the date the money actually lands, put the outgoings on the dates they actually leave, and read the lowest point. That number is how much of your own money the job needs, and it is knowable before you sign. See how it works