Time, evidenced as it slips

An extension of time is won or lost on records made at the time. QScope holds the notice, the event and the programme impact together, so the claim is contemporaneous rather than reconstructed.

QScope Team · 21 January 2026 · 6 min read

An extension of time is a documentation contest. The party with contemporaneous records of what happened, when, and what it did to the programme, wins. The party reconstructing the story afterwards is arguing from memory against a paper trail. QScope is where those records live while the delay is happening, not after.

Notice, event, impact

Every entitlement to time rests on three things, and QScope keeps them linked rather than scattered across emails and diaries.

The notice. When the delay was notified, to whom, in what form, against the contractual notice requirement.
The cause. The relevant event or compensation event relied on, identified against the contract, not described loosely.
The impact. What the event did to the programme, assessed against a baseline, with the critical path effect shown.

A claim that says the job was delayed proves nothing. A claim that says this event, notified on this date, moved this activity on the critical path, proves entitlement.

JCT relevant events, NEC4 compensation events

Under JCT the contractor gives notice of delay, identifies the relevant event, and the contract administrator assesses a fair and reasonable extension. Under NEC4 the same delay is handled through the compensation event procedure, where time and money are assessed together and the programme is a live contract document. QScope holds the records each mechanism demands, so a JCT delay notice and an NEC4 compensation event are both supported by the same disciplined evidence trail.

Notified in time

Both contracts care about prompt notice. NEC4 in particular ties consequences to notification within a defined period. QScope timestamps the notice against the contractual deadline, so a late notification is visible as a risk before it becomes a defence for the other side. Recording the notice date the day it is given is worth more than any narrative written months later.

Where entitlement is lost. Not because the delay was not real, but because it was never notified in the form the contract required, or because the programme impact was never assessed until the claim was built at the end. By then the records that would have proved it have gone cold.

Time and money kept together

A delay that entitles the contractor to time often carries a claim for loss and expense or, under NEC4, cost within the compensation event. QScope links the time record to the cost assessment, so prolongation is evidenced against the same event that justified the extension, rather than being argued as a separate exercise with a different story.

Contemporaneous by design

The value of QScope on an extension of time claim is not clever assessment logic. It is that the records exist, dated, linked and available, because they were made as the job ran. A claim built on contemporaneous records is a claim the other side settles. One built on reconstruction is a claim they fight.

QScope does this part for you

QScope logs the delay notice, the relevant event and the programme impact against each cause, so an extension of time claim rests on records made when the delay happened.

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