Contact Info
UK Contracting
Why would a UK contractor hire a contracting ERP consultant?
UK contractors and specialist subcontractors hire one to fix commercial administration that has outgrown spreadsheets: back-to-back subcontract terms, the notices you owe your own supply chain, contra charges, variations and compensation events passed down, retention held both ways and final accounts. I map that cycle with your QSs and accounts team, specify what the ERP must do, compare platforms without a sales interest and support delivery remotely.
Last reviewed by Vikas Saroj
On most UK jobs you are both the party waiting for a payment notice and the party who must issue one. The statutory payment framework that protects you against your client also binds you when your subcontractors apply. Many firms run the upstream side carefully and the downstream side from email and a spreadsheet, which is where missed notices and unrecoverable contra charges come from.
This page looks at that commercial administration layer: subcontract terms, notices to the supply chain, contras, variations, retention and final accounts. Project costing, CIS and reverse charge VAT are covered on my UK construction ERP page. I work remotely with UK contractors, with live sessions inside the UK working day.
What I Do
Most of the value sits in how subcontracts are assessed, notified and settled, so that is where the requirement work concentrates.
I trace each subcontract from order to final account with your QSs and accounts team: application dates, assessment, the notices you issue, deductions and payment, compared with what the subcontract actually says.
Requirements for holding subcontract terms beside the main contract terms they mirror, so differences in payment cycles, retention, notice periods and defects periods are visible instead of buried in signed documents.
A documented route for contras from site event to deduction: evidence, notification to the subcontractor, valuation of the charge and the notice that supports withholding, so deductions stand up if challenged.
Linking each client variation or NEC compensation event to the subcontract instructions it generates, with quoted, assessed and agreed values on both sides, so recovery from the client and liability to subcontractors stay aligned.
Vendors process one of your subcontracts through applications, a contra, a flowed-down variation and a retention release, producing notices on time. I score every demo against the same sheet.
Requirements and reports that keep each subcontract final account close to agreed throughout the job, rather than reconstructed at the end from correspondence and old assessments.
What to Measure
An ERP for contracting should make these numbers available without a spreadsheet. I design the data model and reports around them from the start.
Platform Fit
How I Work
Upstream and downstream terms compared
Main contract terms sampled
Subcontract orders reviewed
Notice timeline mapped
Contra and retention practice
Requirements and neutral shortlist
Commercial data model
Notice and deduction rules
Scripted vendor tests
Scored fit-gap
Build checks through first valuation
Design reviews
Open subcontract balances migrated
Notice generation tested
First valuation month reviewed
The Housing Grants, Construction and Regeneration Act, as amended, sets a payment framework for most construction contracts in the UK. Your clients are bound by it when paying you, and you are bound by it when paying your subcontractors. In practice each subcontract has its own due dates, a payment notice from you (or a default position if you stay silent), and a pay less notice if you intend to pay less than the notified sum. Detailed timings come from the subcontract, or from the statutory scheme where the subcontract is silent, and the legal reading belongs to your advisors.
Many contractors are disciplined upstream and loose downstream. A busy QS assesses a stack of applications in one week, a notice goes out late, and the subcontractor's application becomes the sum due. I design the ERP so each subcontract carries its own payment cycle, the system calculates notice deadlines from the application date, and the assessment, the notice and any pay less notice are generated from the same record with a dated audit trail. The requirements also define who may issue a notice and what happens when an assessment is not approved in time.
Commercial teams like back-to-back subcontracts because risk passes down on the same terms it arrives on. In reality the terms drift. The main contract might be a JCT form with client amendments, while the subcontract is a different JCT subcontract, an NEC subcontract or the contractor's own conditions. Payment cycles, retention, defects periods and notice provisions often differ between the two. The Act also restricts pay-when-paid clauses outside a narrow insolvency exception, so the timing of your own receipts is generally not a basis for delaying subcontractor payments.
I specify the contract record so main contract and subcontract terms sit side by side, with differences flagged. Every client instruction, variation or compensation event that affects a subcontract is linked to the subcontract instruction it generates. Each side then has its own status: notified, quoted, assessed, agreed or disputed. The commercial manager can see, job by job, where a subcontractor has been instructed on a change the client has not yet accepted, and where an agreed client variation has never been passed down. That single view explains many final account arguments before they start, and it is usually missing when variation logs are kept per QS.
Contra charges are where many UK contractors lose money quietly. A subcontractor damages finished work, leaves debris or misses a key date, and another trade puts it right. Unless the cost is captured, the subcontractor told and the deduction supported by a valid notice, the contra either never happens or is reversed on challenge. I define a contra record linked to the site event, the cost incurred, the correspondence and the notice that supports the deduction, so the evidence travels with the money.
Daywork follows a similar pattern. Signed daywork sheets need to reach the commercial team quickly, be priced against subcontract or client rates and be included in the right application. I specify daywork capture and approval as a document attached to the variation it belongs to.
Retention needs two ledgers, one for sums your clients keep back from you and one for sums you keep back from subcontractors, each with release triggers such as practical completion and the end of the rectification period. Releases often depend on documents and inspections rather than dates alone, so the ERP should hold the trigger and its evidence, not just a date. For job-level retention reporting and cost value reconciliation, see my UK construction ERP page.
Adjudication is a quick route to resolving payment disputes in UK construction, and quick processes reward whoever has the better records. If a subcontractor refers a dispute, you need its applications, your assessments, every notice with the date sent, the contras, the variation history and the payments made, in a form your advisors can use straight away. The same record makes final accounts easier to agree, because both parties can see how the figure was built.
Commercial records in many UK contractors are spread across an accounts package such as Sage or Xero, a document system and spreadsheets owned by individual QSs. Part of the work is deciding which system owns contract values, assessments and notices, and how documents link to them. As an independent consultant, I compare general ERPs and construction-specific packages with no reseller interest, through vendor selection and a gap analysis run on your own subcontracts. For the general model behind this page, read ERP for contracting; Making Tax Digital and UK GDPR questions belong to my ERP consultant page for the UK, and wider market notes to the UK hub. Every engagement is delivered remotely.
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FAQ
Many systems can generate a document from an assessment record, but the deadline logic and approval route are usually configuration or custom work. I define the notice rules from your subcontract terms and test that each shortlisted system calculates dates, produces the notice and records when it was issued.
The statutory framework generally makes them ineffective, with a narrow exception connected to upstream insolvency. Your legal advisors should confirm how that applies to your own subcontracts. In system terms, the practical consequence is that subcontractor payment dates follow the subcontract cycle, not your receipts from the client.
Yes, often more so. You receive notices and contras from the main contractor and issue them to your own suppliers and sub-subcontractors. I map both directions so you can challenge an incoming contra with evidence and apply your own deductions properly.
Remotely over video, inside UK working hours, with screen-shared maps of your subcontract cycle and anonymized sample documents. QSs who cannot attend live review recorded walkthroughs in their own time. A visit to site or head office can be agreed separately if it is genuinely needed.
Every business is different. Share where you are today and what you want to fix, and I’ll tell you honestly whether and how I can help.
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