You build it, and there is no QS on the job
QScope answers both questions from your own contract: which date you are on, and what has to go out to hold it.
30 days free, no card.
Statutory payment dates · this application
Counted from the due date under the contract, not guessed. The deadline panel and the cash flow read the same dates.
The dates run whether or not anyone is watching them.
On a job this size there is usually no quantity surveyor, so the applications, the variations and the chasing are yours on top of building the thing. The money going out to subcontractors runs on a different cycle to the money coming in, and both of them have dates that do not move because you were busy.
Payment dates
A late notice loses the argument before it starts, so you confirm the four periods once and QScope counts the rest from them.
Final date for payment · one due date, four contract forms
Same application, same due date of 15 Aug 2026. The pay-less deadline moves too: 24 Aug 2026 under JCT, 22 Aug 2026 under NEC, 25 Aug 2026 under the Scheme. The same engine runs inside the app and behind the free public calculator.
Variations
Instructed work that never becomes a valued variation is money you have spent and will not recover.
Instructions · cost effect outstanding
Three instructions have a cost effect and no variation against them. That is the number to close out before the account is agreed.
Subcontractors
Each package carries its own retention rate and its own payment cycle, so the gap between paying them and being paid never hides.
Package account · groundworks
You see what you have paid the package against what you have recovered for it, so the margin is visible while there is still time to act on it.
Cash flow
Projects do not fail because they were unprofitable, they fail because the money went out before it came in and nobody modelled the gap.
Cash flow · funding peak
Retention and an unagreed final account keep the position negative long after practical completion, so a forecast that goes positive at handover is wrong by exactly that amount.
Before you start
It is for
It is not for
From the blog
Three of the questions this page raises, answered at length and without a sales pitch at the end.
There is a statutory right to stop work when the notified sum is not paid, and it needs seven days notice in writing. What it covers, what you can recover, and why it does not exist on a job for someone living in the house.
Read nowSilence 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.
Read nowNo 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 nowThree things worth checking about anybody who asks for your job and your client’s name.
What it costs
This is not a comparison with a quantity surveyor, because on a job this size there usually is not one and the work still has to be done.
What it costs · one year
Sources: Reed salary tool, average advertised QS salary £62,956 across 1,084 listings, read 8 August 2026. Freelance day rates £300 to £550 a day: UK Trade Jobs, 2026. The salary source does not state its method or period, so every figure here is indicative.
Who it is for
You are applying
You put the figure in, and it comes back cutYou value what was built, submit it, and defend the variations that came back priced at nothing. The difference between the two figures is yours to argue for.
Applying for paymentYou are certifying
You take the figure out, and you answer for itYou value the same work from the other chair, issue the certificate, and account for every line you removed. The figure has to hold when somebody asks how you got there.
Certifying paymentYou are doing both
There is no quantity surveyor, so it is youYou measure it, you apply for it and you chase it, between site visits, with nobody to hand it to. The dates run whether or not anyone is watching them.
You are hereYou are reporting
You report on a job to the lender funding itSomebody has to say how much of the facility should be released this month, and stand behind the figure when the money moves. The reader of that document 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 four that come up most often when there is nobody on the job whose job this is.
No. It is the cash flow of one contract: money in from client certificates against money out to subcontractors. Your own labour, plant and overheads sit in your accounts, not here.
Yes. Payment dates are computed for JCT, NEC and the Scheme.
It shows the last date for a pay-less notice on every certificate and warns when a deduction needs a notice you have not issued. Issuing it is still your call.
Yes. Each package carries its own retention rate and cycle, and the cash position tracks what you pay down the chain against what you recover up it.
Keep reading
Put one live job in: your contract form, your dates, your subcontract packages. The application, the notices and the funding peak come out of the same record, and nothing needs retyping.
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.