Create/Edit Subcontract Claim

Overview:

This screen is used to create new Subcontract Claims or edit existing ones from the perspective of the subcontract administrator. This screen is accessed from the Subcontract Claims Tab tab inside of an existing SubcontractSubcontract Users can submit claims using Portal Claims.

There are two methods of subcontract claim approvals that can be changed in Control Parameters:

  • Standard approval method is a simple approval authority set in the User's profile settings. Using this method is the most straightforward, but provides little customisation. This is the method used in the example below.

  • Workflow approval gives you much more customisation of conditional/multiple review and approval, but requires more setup. See Workflow for more information.

Screen Guide:

Work Orders Tab:

Tip:

Due to the nature of this screen, there is a substantial amount of data to display. If fields are being cut off or not displaying properly, you can Zoom Out (external link) to about 80% and refresh this screen. For text fields, hover your mouse over them to reveal the rest of the text.

At the top, there are buttons to Expand All and Collapse All, changing the display of the Type and WO details, as well as a button to create a + New WO as a shortcut in case you find yourself needing to add variation works. There is a Filter to narrow down the list of displayed lines, which is useful for larger subcontracts.

The Date field is important for each of the WOs because if it is a later date than the Claim Date (Main Tab), the WO will not be claimable. If you need to change a WO, you can use the blue ellipsis button to Maintain the Work Order.

Status indicates if the line can be claimed in this Subcontract Claim or not:
Tip: you can use the filters to only display claimable lines.

  • Claimable - only status where the line is available for claiming and is an editable line

  • Completed - the line has been marked as Complete so the line is not claimable

  • Post Dated - the WO is post/future dated so the line is not claimable

  • Unapproved - the WO is unapproved so the line is not claimable

  • Finalised Job - the Job is marked Finalised so the line is not claimable

  • Open Claim - the WO line is the subject of an earlier claim so the line is not claimable

  • Future Claimed - the WO line is the subject of an later approved claim so the line not claimable

The Commitment section shows how much you have committed to spending via Work Orders.

Claim to Date is how much the Subcontractor is claiming, either via their Portal Claims or manually entered by yourself. It is important to enter exactly what they are claiming, not what you intend to approve.

Certified to Date is the section that you as the Client are certifying to be paid. This can be exactly the same as the Claimed amount or reduced for a number of reasons. Depending on the act or law this claim sits under, you may be required to add a Not Certified Reason for any Not Certified amounts. By entering a quantity first, the value will automatically be calculated, but not in reverse - you will need to manually calculate the quantity if the value is entered directly.

To assist with the certification process, each line is presented with three radio buttons:

  • The check mark column, when ticked, matches the Certified Value to the Claimed Value, signifying that you agree with the claimed amount.

  • The question mark column represents that the line is still to be certified.

  • The X column means that all or some of the Claimed Value is being rejected. In the example above, the subcontractor claimed 100% of the variation, but only 75% is being certified, with the Not Certified Reason of "Not Completed". This leaves the remaining amount available to be claimed in future claims.

Line Completed will be automatically ticked when the absolute Certified To Date Value is greater than the absolute Commitment Value. User can untick if desired.

Comments can be added on each line by the Subcontractor if your company allows them to make claims in Workbench. If not, you can use this field to make comments on each line.

Be sure to Save any changes you make to this tab.

Main Tab:

The Main tab summarises claim data from the Work Orders tab and contains approval information.

  • Claim Reference by default is the Subcontract Number with the claim number attached to the end, meaning this field must be unique in the system. You can change this to subcontractor's invoice number once it is received, or leave this as a Recipient/Buyer Created Tax Invoice.

  • Claim Details is an optional field allowing for any necessary additional details about the claim.

  • Securities Act is for reference only and does not affect other data, to be used to coordinate certification times inside your company. New items can be added here via Lookups under the "ClaimSecuritiesAct" type.

  • Final Claim should only be ticked if this is the last claim for this subcontract including variations.

  • Process Date is based on the selected Process Date As option in Subcontract Dates.

  • Claim Date is the date that this claim was created. This can be changed by you but not by Subcontract Users.

  • Received Date is another date field for tracking when the claim was actually received by you. This is useful in the case of backdated claims.

  • Claim to is the ending of the period being claimed for, which may or may not be the same as the Claim Date.

  • Certification Due is based on the Subcontract Dates setting for Claims Certification Days.

  • Payment Due is based on the Subcontract Dates setting for Payment Basis. This field can be manually overridden, and can also be Reset in case you want to restore it to the default based on the Claim Date. It takes into account weekends, as well as holidays listed in Statutory Holidays.

  • Approved and Payment are filled out automatically once the claim is approved and paid.

  • Retention amounts are automatically calculated based on the type given in Subcontract Settings after clicking Save. Or the amount can be manually modified to create a Retention Release as an alternative to the standard method of managing Retention Releases from Subcontract Retention Management screen.

  • GST is also automatically calculated based on the Subcontractor Company settings.

Some field display and behaviour is based on the configured claim approval method and may not be visible. The approval method is configured from the Control Parameter 'Subcontract Approval Process'.

Standard Approval

Workflow Approval

Standard Approval

Workflow Approval

  • Status can be changed between New and Entered to allow for flexibility with Subcontract Users entering claims (starting as a New claim and moving to Entered when submitted for certification).

    • New is only used with Subcontract Users; if there are no users listed under the subcontractor, this status will not be available.

    • Entered is the status for when a claim has been submitted by a subcontractor or entered manually by a Workbench user. It may or may not have been assigned to be approved.

    • Approved is shown when the assigned approver clicks the Approve button, clearing the claim for payment. Depending on the approval process set in the Control Parameters, the claim may automatically become Batched when approved.

    • Batched means that the claim has been included in a batch, ready to be exported to the financial system. The claim can still be unapproved and modified in this status.

    • Updated indicates that the claim has been exported to the financial system and is no longer editable in Workbench.

  • Assigned Approver when using Standard approvals (not Workflow approvals) the default approver is controlled by a Control ParameterDefault Assigned Approver with [Default | None] as options.

    • Default will set the Assigned Approver to the subcontract administrator (if any) else job manager, else no default. The person must be in the approval list, hence have an approval limit and be active.

    • None will leave Assigned Approver as blank.

          This applies to the Subcontract Claims and Subcontract Claim Attachments popup.

          The approver can be reassigned to anyone with appropriate authority. If the person you are looking for does not appear, contact the system administrator so that they can update the user's Settings for "Subcontract Claim Approvers Limit".

  • Approved By must be filled out before clicking Approve, even if the approver is yourself, otherwise the system will produce an error.

  • Status can be changed between New and Entered to allow for flexibility with Subcontract Users entering claims (starting as a New claim and moving to Entered when submitted for certification).

    • New is only used with Subcontract Users; if there are no users listed under the subcontractor, this status will not be available.

    • Entered is the status for when a claim has been submitted by a subcontractor or entered manually by a Workbench user. It may or may not have been assigned to be approved.

    • Approved is not applicable.

    • Batched means that the claim has been included in a batch, ready to be exported to the financial system. The claim can still be unapproved and modified in this status.

    • Updated indicates that the claim has been exported to the financial system and is no longer editable in Workbench.

  • Workflow Status displays the current status of the claim with the full audit trail available from the [WFlow|Msg] button.

  • Workflow Type specifies the manual input to resolve the appropriate workflow to use, if applicable.

Once the claim is approved, all fields are locked for editing and the buttons "Unapprove" and "Batch" become available if you have the "Batch Subcontract Claims" permission. Up to this point, the claim sits in a default holding batch (determined by the Control Parameter "Def Subcontract Claim Batch", usually set to 210000). To transfer the claim from the default batch into an exportable one, you can click the Batch button or use the Subcontract Claims Batch Entry screen. Once batched, an "Unbatch" button will appear enabling the transfer of the claim back to the default batch, but once the claim has been exported to your financial system, this will not be available.

File Attachments Tab:

You can quickly add files by clicking and dragging files into the space next to Select File, then clicking Upload. You can also use the Choose File button to use the explorer to find a file. Subcontractor users can also attach files such as supporting documents for their claim.

As an alternative to a file, you can also attach a URL/website address using File URL. This is useful for documents hosted on a cloud server, and also ensures that the file is the latest version if it is edited.

File Group is an optional way to categorise attachments for easier global searches using File Attachments. You can add additional groups by using File Groups.

Details is another optional field to add free text to describe the document. This is useful if the file name is not descriptive enough, or if you have several similarly named files.

To view the attached document or navigate to the URL, click the File Name field. To edit the attachment, click Edit, or you can Delete the file altogether.

Next Steps:

Once the claim is approved, accounts will need to Subcontract Claims Batch Entry in preparation for sending it as an invoice to the financial system.



FAQs:

Q: Why won't it allow me to enter details for my new claim?
A: Workbench prevents new claims when there are existing open claims (previous claims that have not yet been finalised). Ensure that all previous claims have been completed before creating a new one.

Process Flow: