Certify a pay application

The schedule of values, the continuation sheet, retainage held and released, stored materials, and the certification that closes a period.

A pay application is the contractor's request for the period. This page holds the schedule of values it is billed against, the continuation sheet for the current application, and the totals due.

With no application selected the page shows the schedule of values, which is the list of work and what each item is worth. Selecting an application opens its continuation sheet.

The continuation sheet

Two columns on the sheet are typed and the rest are derived. You enter the work completed this period and the materials presently stored. Previous, scheduled value and the totals come from the sheet itself and from the applications before it.

Stored materials are billed and not yet installed, so they are carried in their own column and counted in the total due. Retainage is held back from what would otherwise be payable, and the sheet shows the held amount rather than folding it into a net figure nobody can check.

A voided application asked for nothing and was granted nothing, so it counts nowhere: not in the previous column, and not in what earlier applications are treated as having asked for. Voiding one never costs the next application a period of work.

The retainage rate in force

Retainage accrues per period, at the rate that period was billed under. A rate cut after a milestone does not go back and restate what was withheld in the spring, which is deliberate: what was held was held.

The consequence is that a period opened with no rate on it holds nothing, and no later application can go back and hold it. So a new application opens at the subcontract's own retainage rate, and failing that at the rate the last application ran at. You can type a different one. The "Due this application" panel names the rate in force, and says so plainly when there is none, rather than printing nothing where a rate would be.

Two contract sums, and when they disagree

The schedule of values is what applications bill against, and its total is the contract sum as the sheet knows it. The budget commits a different figure: the stated contract sum plus every executed change order, which is what the subcontract register and the committed column are built from.

The header shows both. When they differ it says so in a sentence, because the usual reason is a change order that has not reached the schedule yet, or a schedule nobody updated. Applications keep billing against the schedule either way, and nothing here changes a figure on your behalf.

Certifying

Certification closes the period. An application that has been certified is the record of what was claimed and agreed at that point, and later applications read their previous column from it.

Certifying asks for approve on money, and so does moving an application to approved or to paid. All three are somebody saying yes to a figure a contractor gets paid on, which is the same statement funding a draw makes, and each asks the approver's limit against the certified amount. Raising an application, entering progress on it, submitting it and voiding it are edit.

The limit applies to the figure on the application, not only to one typed into the box now: approving an application that was certified last week is still approving that amount.

A certificate also cannot grant more than the application asks for. The figure is checked against completed to date, less retainage held, plus retainage released, less what has already been certified, which is the number the "Due this application" panel prints. A certificate above it would be money granted against work nobody has billed, and every later application nets against it silently. The refusal names both figures.

What locks, and what can be deleted

An approved, paid or voided application is a record rather than a draft. Its progress figures cannot be edited: the sheet shows them and offers no box, and the write is refused even if a stale tab still has one. Correcting a period is the next application's job, which is what the paper form does too. The work stays completed, so it carries forward until it is paid for.

An approved or paid application is voided rather than deleted. Voiding keeps its number and its paperwork, which is what anybody asking about application #4 next year needs, and takes it out of every figure that follows. A draft or a submission that never went anywhere still deletes.

A schedule of values line that any application has billed against cannot be removed either. The billed history hangs off the line, and deleting it would take that history with it. Change the line's scheduled value, or raise a change order.

Releasing retainage

Retainage accrues per period and, without a release, a contract billed to the end is paid ninety percent of itself with the last tenth sitting in a column nothing can hand back. A release is how it comes back. It is not a smaller retainage rate typed into a later application, which would restate what earlier periods held. It is its own event on the application it is made on: an amount, the day it was made, the reason, and the approval of whoever said yes.

To make one, open the application the release is certified on and choose "Release retainage" in the "Due this application" panel. The form opens with the whole balance filled in, which is the ordinary case at completion; type a smaller figure for a contractual step-down. The panel states how much can be released: retainage held through this application, less what the contract's other live applications have already released. A figure above that is refused, and the refusal says what is left.

Releasing asks for approve on money and the approver's limit on the amount, the same two questions certifying asks, because it is the same statement about the same money. Withdrawing a release asks the same limit on the figure being taken back, and is its own button rather than an emptied box.

Once released, the application's due figure includes it: "less retainage" on the panel stays the held figure, and "plus released" is stated beside it, so the two can be footed separately. Every later application nets against the release the same way it nets against a certificate. A release on an application that is later voided goes with it, and the amount can be released again on the next one.

An approved, paid or voided application takes no release and no change to one: its certificate was bounded by that figure. Release the rest on the next application. The released amount is money, and at view_redacted it is a dash like every other figure here; the reason and the approver are withheld with it.

Releases reach the accounting file through the certified figure. A bill in the company file settles an application by matching the amount certified, which already includes the release, so nothing about a release is pushed separately and nothing that came from the books is pushed back.