QScope

Setup

Project and contract setup

Ten minutes here decides how the rest of the job behaves. Most of what goes wrong later traces back to one field on this screen.

QScope Team·6 min read

Acting as: your side of the contract

This is not cosmetic. It changes the names of the documents you issue and hides the sections that do not apply to you.

  1. Main contractor applies up the chain to a client and certifies down to subcontractors.
  2. Client-side or PQS issues interim certificates and does not see the subcontractor side at all.
  3. Subcontractor applies up to a main contractor.
Under a JCT with a contract administrator, the contractor applies and the CA certifies. That is why the default document for a contractor is an application, not a certificate.

Contract form

Drives the statutory payment timetable and suggests a default retention rate. Get it wrong and every date on every certificate after it is wrong too.

  1. JCT SBC/DB and JCT IC/MW: final date 14 days, pay-less 5 days before it.
  2. NEC3/4 ECC: final date 14 days, pay-less 7 days before it.
  3. Scheme: final date 17 days, pay-less 7 days before it.
  4. FIDIC: the Engineer certifies within 28 days of the Statement and the Employer pays within 56 days, counted in calendar days, with no UK-style pay-less notice.
Check your contract particulars. Amended forms are common. If yours sets a different payment period, enter it in the payment days field and QScope uses your figure instead of the standard one. On FIDIC the 28 and 56 day defaults are editable for the Particular Conditions.

Jurisdiction and currency

Set the jurisdiction the job runs under and the currency it prints in. This points the statutory timetable at the right regime and shows figures in the right currency, so an international job reads correctly rather than defaulting to a UK shape in sterling.

  1. Set the jurisdiction, the UK or one of the supported international regimes.
  2. Set the currency the certificates and reports print in.
Verify statutory dates locally. QScope shows a banner because the published statutory periods and tax rates are starting points, not legal advice. Confirm them against the law and the contract particulars for that jurisdiction before you rely on them.

Document issued

QScope picks a name automatically from your role and contract form, and shows underneath exactly what will print. Override it when your contract calls the document something else.

  1. Interim Certificate for JCT with a contract administrator.
  2. Interim Payment Notice for JCT Design and Build, where there is no certifier.
  3. Payment Certificate for NEC, issued by the project manager.
  4. Interim Application for Payment when you are applying up the chain.
JCT SBC and Design and Build share the same day counts, so QScope cannot tell them apart on its own. That is exactly why this field can be set by hand.

Retention

Enter the rate from your contract particulars. QScope suggests a default from the contract form: 3 per cent for JCT Standard and Design and Build, 5 per cent for Intermediate and Minor Works.

  1. Set the retention rate.
  2. Enter the practical completion date when it is certified. From that valuation onwards the rate halves automatically.
  3. Enter the rectification period, usually six or twelve months. QScope counts the release date from it and warns you on the project list before it passes.

Valuation cycle

Tells QScope when your valuations fall, so it can lay out the schedule and prompt you.

  1. Set the period, normally monthly.
  2. Set the day of the month you value.
  3. Set the number of valuations if the job has a fixed count.

Your firm and the people on the job

These print on every document you issue, so they are worth doing once and properly.

  1. Your firm is your practice name, printed alongside your logo on certificates and reports.
  2. QS or Prepared by is the name on the signature block.
  3. Client reference or PO number prints on certificates so their accounts team can match it without emailing you.
Upload your logo once in Account and it appears on every document on every project. Without it, documents print with your firm name in text only.

If the job has no subcontractors

Turn the subcontractor side off in settings. The whole section disappears from the sidebar, the dashboard and the final account, so you are not looking past empty panels on every screen.

Keep reading

Related

The audit trail What QScope records automatically, who can see it, how long it is kept, and why it matters if a valuation is ever questioned. Read this next Printing reports and documents Which document to send to whom, putting your logo on them, and why every report is generated from the same set of certificates. Read this next