The final account is every cycle, reconciled at last

The final account is where the job settles. Every interim payment claim was on account, a running estimate corrected the following month. The final account is the point where the estimating stops and the true value of the work is fixed. Done well it is an assembly of numbers already agreed. Done badly it is a second contract negotiated in hindsight.

What goes into it

The final account brings together the contract sum, the variations valued through the job, any remeasurement of provisional or approximate quantities, and the release of retention. On an RIAI form or a Public Works Contract the machinery differs in detail, but the substance is the same: one document that reconciles what was priced against what was built.

• The contract sum. The starting figure, adjusted for what actually happened.
• Variations. Every instructed change, valued against the contract rates and already carried through the claims.
• Remeasurement. Provisional and approximate quantities replaced with measured actuals.
• Retention. The held balance released as completion and the defects period fall away.

The records decide it

A final account is only as strong as the paper behind it. Variations valued from contemporaneous records, remeasurement backed by the measured model, retention tracked cycle by cycle, all of it settles because it can be checked. The same account built from memory at the end turns every line into an argument. The surveyor who kept the record as the job ran is the one who agrees the account quickly.

It still runs through the Act

The final payment is a payment like any other. It is claimed, it turns on a payment claim date, and the payer answers within the response window or the claimed sum stands. The Construction Contracts Act 2013 does not switch off at completion. A final account left unclaimed is a final account left unpaid, and if it is disputed the same statutory right to adjudication is there to break the deadlock.

The discipline

Keep the account current as the job runs rather than starting it at the end. Reconcile variations and remeasurement into the running figure each cycle, track retention to its release dates, and when the works complete the final account is mostly written. Serve it as a payment claim, date it, and let the Act carry it to payment.