A claim is paid or returned on what came with it
A progress claim is a valuation: this is the work I have done to this date, this is what it is worth, this is what you have already paid, and this is what is now due. It is not a request. It is a measurement with a bill attached, and it will be handled on the strength of the measurement.
Which means the claim itself is the easy part. What gets it paid is everything filed behind it.
The sequence, and who is holding the ball
- You measure and value the work done in the period, against the schedule of values.
- You submit the claim to the principal agent or the engineer, by the date the contract sets.
- The agent certifies what is due. Under JBCC that is a payment certificate, issued in the defined period after your claim.
- The employer pays — under JBCC, within 14 calendar days of the date of issue of that certificate. Under the cidb’s contractor guidance the working expectation on statements is 30 days, and a good deal of South African subcontract work is written the same way.
Two things follow from that sequence. First, the clock that matters is not the clock you think it is: your claim is only as late as the certificate is. Second, if the claim sits un-certified, no payment period has even started — which is why the follow-up is on the certificate, not on the money.
The four reasons a claim comes back
- The wrong period. The claim covers days that were not in the measurement period, or misses days that were. The agent cannot certify a period that does not match the contract.
- No measurement behind it. A figure with no build-up gets queried and then sits. Site measurements, delivery notes, a photograph of the work — whatever proves the quantity.
- Work with no instruction. You have included a variation that was instructed on site verbally and never written down. That line is coming out of the certificate.
- Retention and previous payments not deducted. A claim that does not deduct the retention and the amounts already certified on this job reads as either an error or an attempt, and it invites a full re-measure.
The habit that makes the difference
Submit on the same day every month, with the same pack, in the same order. A claim that arrives predictably is certified predictably, because the person certifying it stops having to reconstruct anything. The pack that does that work:
- the valuation, against the schedule of values
- the measurement behind each line
- retention and previous certificates deducted
- a schedule of every variation included, with its status
- anything the agent still has to answer, listed at the front
One more thing worth doing: know your own numbers before the certificate arrives. If you expect R400,000 and the certificate says R310,000, you want to know that on the day it is issued, while there is still time in the payment period — not a month later when the money does not arrive.
What this looks like in the system
The Billing register carries the schedule of values, and each claim is built from it — item, cost code, description, scheduled value, period, gross and retention on one line, so the claim and its build-up are the same record.
Add SoV Line adds a priced item to the schedule of values. New Claim builds the progress claim from it, with retention held back. Stats & Variance shows what was certified against what you claimed, so the gap is visible while the period is still open.