Retention, from first deduction to final release

Set the rate once

1. Open Settings for the project.
2. Enter the retention rate from your contract particulars. QScope suggests a default from the contract form, but the contract wins.
3. Enter the rectification period, usually six or twelve months.

What happens at practical completion

Under JCT the rate halves at practical completion. Everyone knows this. What goes wrong is remembering to do it in the month it happens.

1. Enter the practical completion date in settings the day it is certified, not at the next valuation.
2. From that valuation onwards QScope deducts at the halved rate automatically.
3. Half of what was held is released.

The release nobody chases

The end of the rectification period is silent. It falls twelve months later, on a job that closed long ago, with a contractor who may have stopped asking.

On a contract of around two hundred thousand pounds with 5 per cent retention, the balance sitting there after practical completion is roughly five and a half thousand. That is not a rounding error.

1. QScope counts the release date from practical completion plus the rectification period.
2. The projects list flags it before it passes.
3. Chase the certificate of making good rather than waiting to be asked. The release is triggered by the certificate, not merely by the calendar.

FIDIC releases against Taking-Over, not practical completion

On a FIDIC job there is no practical completion and no rectification period. Retention is deducted at the percentage in the Contract Data, up to the stated limit under Sub-Clause 14.3, and it comes back in two halves.

1. Set the project to the FIDIC form and its jurisdiction.
2. The first half is released when the Taking-Over Certificate is issued, not at a UK practical completion.
3. The second half is released at the end of the Defects Notification Period under Sub-Clause 14.9, counted in calendar days.

Why your figure might differ from what you expected

Retention is a deduction from a payment. Until a payment has been certified there is nothing to retain from, however many variations have been approved in the meantime.

QScope therefore counts retention against certificates actually issued. If your previous system counted it against approved variations too, its figure was higher than the retention notice your client actually received.

What the client sees

The retention notice prints on your letterhead, showing what is held, what was released at practical completion, and when the balance is due. The breakdown under the figure on your dashboard shows the same composition, so the two can never drift apart.