Risk and contingency

A contingency you can defend line by line

Every QS carries a contingency. Very few can show how it was arrived at when the client asks, which is exactly when it gets cut.

Each risk carries a cost, a probability and an owner
Allowance calculated as probability times cost, per risk and in total
Status moves from open to closed as risks fall away

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Risk Register

Commercial risk and allowance

RiskProb.Allowance

Ground conditions below slab30 %£2,400

Late structural steel delivery45 %£1,350

Client changes to M&E layout20 %£1,450

Asbestos in the annexe10 %Closed

Total allowance carried£5,200

Record each risk with what it would cost if it happened and how likely it is. The allowance is the expected value, and it changes as the job de-risks.

Probability times cost, not a round number

A five per cent contingency is a guess dressed as a policy.

It survives right up until a client asks what it is for, and then it becomes a negotiation you cannot win. Record each risk with what it would cost if it happened and how likely it is. The allowance is the expected value, and it changes as the job de-risks.

Cost Report

The register is the conversation, not the paperwork

A risk register kept for the file is a cost.

Prints on your letterhead alongside the cost report
Hidden from client guest links by default
Closed risks stay on the record, so the reduction is visible

Cost Report

Anticipated final cost

Budget

£230,000

Anticipated

£224,800

Variance

+£5,200

Contingency from risk register£5,200.00

Contingency drawn down to date(£1,800.00)

Remaining allowance£3,400.00

Print it for the client, or keep it internal. It never appears on a client guest link unless you decide it should.

Cost and value

The allowance becomes the provision in a CVR

A contractor reporting internally has to carry provisions against what might still go wrong.

Total allowance carried into the CVR as a provision
One cut-off date governs value and cost together
Movement in the provision explained period by period

Cost and value

Period to 30 Nov 26

Value

£93,300

Cost

£86,100

Margin

7.7%

Margin before provisions£7,200

Provision from risk register(£5,200)

Provision drawn down to date+£1,800

Margin after provisions£3,800

The total allowance from the register drops straight into the CVR as the provision, so the margin you report is protected by a number with a basis rather than a round guess pencilled in at month end.

See it running before you sign up

Reports

It prints as a report, or stays off the client link

A risk register is only worth keeping if it produces a document.

Risk register printed on your letterhead alongside the cost report
Hidden from client guest links by default
Closed risks shown, so the reduction is visible

Reports

What prints

Cost report, anticipated final costClient

Retention noticeClient

Payment scheduleClient

Risk registerInternal

QScope keeps the register off client guest links by default, because a client who can read your contingency will always want to negotiate it. You print it for them deliberately, when the conversation calls for it.

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.

It follows the same idea: identify the risk, quantify the cost, assess the likelihood, and carry the expected value as an allowance. It is a commercial register aimed at cost, not a health and safety or programme risk register.

Only if you choose. Guest links hide the risk register and the cost report by default, because a client who can read your contingency will always want to negotiate it. You can print it for them deliberately when that is the right conversation.

Close it. The allowance drops, the anticipated final cost improves, and the record shows the client that the number came down because the risk went away rather than because you were asked to cut it.

Every plan. Plans differ by how many surveyors you have, never by which features you can use.

Yes. Probability times cost is the same arithmetic in any currency, and the allowance carries into the cost report and the CVR whether the job runs in sterling, euros, dirhams or anything else. A contingency on a FIDIC job abroad is built and defended exactly as it is on a UK one.

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