Dayworks

Three percentages, not one

The contract states separate additions for labour, materials and plant. Applying an average to the lot is quick, and it is the reason the sheet comes back with a query instead of a signature.

Each sheet links to the instruction that authorised the work
Sheets with no instruction linked are flagged
Architect’s instruction, CVI and site instruction all recorded

Start free for 30 days See the interactive demo

30 days free, no card.

Instructions

Authority behind DW-014

TypeArchitect’s instruction

ReferenceAI-022

Date issued5 Aug 2026

Cost effectYes

Sheets against itDW-014

A daywork sheet with no instruction against it is flagged rather than quietly totalled, because unauthorised daywork is rarely recovered.

No instruction, no daywork

A daywork sheet with no instruction behind it is the hardest money on any job to recover.

The work was done, the hours are real, and without written authority it will be refused. The register exists so the authority is on file before the sheet is submitted. QScope links every sheet to the instruction that authorised the work, and flags any sheet that has none, in the same place the sheet is prepared.

Dayworks

Each addition applied to its own element

The percentages differ because they cover different things.

Separate additions for labour, materials and plant
Sheet total shown with the percentages that produced it
Submitted, agreed, disputed and rejected held as separate states

Dayworks

Sheet DW-014

Labour £2,000 + 130%£4,600

Materials £3,000 + 15%£3,450

Plant £500 + 20%£600

Sheet total£8,650

A single blended addition of 55 per cent on the same sheet gives £8,525. Close enough to look right, far enough apart to be argued about.

Dayworks

Agreed is not the same as submitted

Only sheets marked as agreed are carried into the final account.

Agreed total and submitted total shown separately
One click carries the agreed total to the dayworks line of the final account
Daywork Sheets print with the additions stated

Dayworks

Position

Agreed

£18,420

Submitted

£6,900

Sheets

Carried to final account£18,420

Awaiting agreement£6,900

Sheets without an instruction2

Daywork carried out without a written instruction is the hardest money on any job to recover, so those sheets are flagged rather than quietly totalled.

See it running before you sign up

Every other function on the Dayworks screen

2 functions the sections above do not cover, each as it works in the program.

Function 1

01A client-side guest can read the daywork sheets, and a guest with edit rights can add to them.

Function 2

02Daywork sheets decided is one of the measures on the project health card, so sheets left waiting show up there.

Who it is for

One change, four people it touches

You are applying

You price the change and defend it

You price the instruction, submit the variation and defend it when it comes back cut. Instructed work with no variation against it is money you have already spent.

Applying for payment

the same measurement

You are certifying

You value the change and answer for it

You value the variation from the other chair and account for what you cut. The register you keep is the one the final account will be argued from.

Certifying payment

You are doing both

You build the change, paid or not

You absorb the small changes as they come, and the ones nobody wrote down are the ones you end up building for free.

Doing both yourself

You are reporting

You fund the change, priced or blind

You check that scope changes are priced and approved before money moves, because an unpriced variation is risk the facility is carrying blind.

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.

Only where the work cannot properly be valued by measurement at contract rates. Where a rate exists, the rate applies. Daywork is not a choice between two ways of valuing the same work.

Your contract particulars. Enter them once per project and every sheet uses them.

Where the contract adopts the RICS definition of prime cost of daywork, that document decides. A percentage applied to the wrong base is wrong however carefully it is applied.

Yes, in the files area against the project. Contemporaneous signed records are what make daywork recoverable.

From the blog

The part nobody teaches you, written down

Three pieces from the same corner of a contract as this page, answered at length and without a sales pitch at the end.

Engineer on a radio watching a crane over concrete frames under construction

Variations10/08/2026

How do you price extra work so the client actually pays for it?

Instruction first, then the valuation ladder your contract sets: contract rates, adjusted rates, a fair price or dayworks. Where each rung applies, and why the smallest variations are the ones that never get paid.

Read now

Worker in a hi-vis vest fitting a new window into a blockwork wall

Variations15/07/2026

Small extras keep eating the job. How do I stop doing them for free?

No single extra under two hundred pounds feels worth the awkward conversation, and thirty of them are a month’s wages. The three-sentence habit that captures small changes without souring the job, and the quote clause that makes the habit expected.

Read now

Hands pointing at drawings with a pen, white hard hat behind

Variations11/06/2026

Loss and expense is not the same as an extension of time

Time and money are separate entitlements with separate tests. Why an extension of time does not carry money with it, what has to be ascertained, and where these claims usually fail.

Read now

All 174 pieces

Keep reading

The three parts this page leans on

Instructions Every instruction in the order it was given, architect, CA or FIDIC Engineer, flagged when it changes cost with no variation against it. See how it works Final account From the adjusted contract sum to the final balance under JCT, or the FIDIC Final Statement and Final Payment Certificate, every adjustment on its own line. See how it works Getting dayworks agreed Dayworks pay recorded hours, plant and materials plus your contract percentages, and they only work when the sheets are signed as the work happens. When to insist on them, and when measured rates serve you better. See how it works