QScope

Materials

Materials on site and off site

Materials are a component of the valuation, not a payment on the side. Get that wrong and the same money is certified twice.

QScope Team·4 min read

Materials on site

  1. Open Advance payments and add the materials with their value and the date they arrived.
  2. They are added to the gross valuation from that date.
  3. Set the date they are built into the works. From that valuation they drop out of materials, because their value is now in the measured work.
They must come out again. If materials stay in the materials line after the work containing them has been measured, the same value is certified twice. QScope drops them out on the date you set, which is why that date matters more than the one they arrived on.

Off site is a different question

Materials on site are included as a matter of course, provided they are properly delivered and adequately protected. Materials in somebody else’s yard are a credit risk dressed as a valuation line.

  1. Mark the entry as off site.
  2. Tick each of the five conditions as it is satisfied.
  3. Until all five are ticked, QScope will not bring the value into the valuation, and shows you which ones are outstanding.
The five are: listed in the contract, property vested, set apart and marked, insured, and bonded where the contract requires it. Each exists because of a specific way this goes wrong at insolvency.

Why the conditions are enforced rather than suggested

If the contractor becomes insolvent and property never passed, you have paid for goods a supplier still owns and will collect. If the goods were never marked or segregated, nobody can identify which ones were yours.

Someone should physically see them. A schedule and an invoice is not verification, it is trust, and the conditions exist precisely because trust is the wrong basis for the decision.

How FIDIC handles materials and advances

The UK approach on this page, materials valued inside the interim valuation and the five conditions before anything off site is paid, is not how FIDIC frames it. Under FIDIC, payment for Plant and Materials intended for the Works is certified under Sub-Clause 14.5 once the conditions set out in the Contract Data are satisfied, whether the goods are on the Site or delivered to it.

A true advance payment is separate again. It is an interest-free loan under Sub-Clause 14.2, paid against an advance payment guarantee and repaid by deductions from later payment certificates, rather than recovered against the bill line the materials sit on.

  1. Set the project to the FIDIC contract form.
  2. For Plant and Materials for the Works, certify under 14.5 once the Contract conditions are met.
  3. For a mobilisation advance, record it under 14.2 against the advance payment guarantee, and let QScope deduct it from later certificates.
FIDIC counts its certificate and payment dates in calendar days from the Statement, and the amounts and dates QScope shows are published starting points to verify against the Particular Conditions. The five UK off-site conditions do not apply to a FIDIC contract; Sub-Clause 14.5 and the Contract Data govern instead.

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Advance payments Materials on site drop out the month they are built in, so nothing is certified twice. FIDIC covers Plant and Materials under 14.5 and advances under 14.2. Read this next Bonds, policies and warranties Recording project security, UK bonds or the FIDIC Performance Security and advance payment guarantee, tracking expiry, and what is in place versus requested. Read this next Entering the priced works How to put your bill of quantities into QScope: sections, provisional sums, omissions, measurement standard and currency, so certificates value against it. Read this next