Advance Payments
AP-01 Structural steel on site
Relates to2.02 Structural steel frame
Date issued12 Jun 2026
StatusPaid
Advance value, excl VAT£12,500.00
VAT at 20%£2,500.00
Total paid£15,000.00
Materials delivered but not yet built in still have to be paid for, then recovered as the work is certified. Doing that from memory is how a contractor ends up paid twice for the same brick.
An advance floating loose in a spreadsheet is a number waiting to be forgotten. Linking it to the bill line it relates to is what makes recovery automatic instead of manual.
Once linked, QScope knows that when that line is certified, part of the money has already been paid.
You do not track it. As the linked line is valued in following certificates, the advance is drawn back automatically, and the certificate shows what is happening rather than hiding it inside a total.
Where a contract requires it, an advance is paid against an advance payment bond, and the bond only needs to cover what has not yet been recovered. As the linked line is certified the exposure falls, and the security required falls with it.
QScope holds the bond on its expiry date alongside the recovery, so a bond that lapses while money is still outstanding is caught rather than discovered when it is called on.
An advance payment notice is a payment like any other, and it sits on the same statutory timetable as an interim certificate. The final date for payment and the pay-less deadline are counted from the due date on the contract form, and missing them costs the same as missing them on a valuation.
QScope counts the dates from the due date and prints them on the notice, so the advance is issued on the timetable rather than whenever the paperwork is remembered.
No. A variation changes the works. An advance pays early for works already in the contract, because the materials are on site and the contractor has bought them. It does not change the contract sum.
It follows your contract. Many contracts do not retain against materials on site, since retention secures workmanship rather than delivery. Set it to suit the terms you are working under.
The advance stays outstanding and carries into the final account, where it is settled with everything else. Nothing disappears quietly.
Yes. It prints on your letterhead with the description, the quantity and rate breakdown, the VAT and the total, ready to issue.
Not your whole portfolio. One live job, one certificate. If it does not save you time the first time you use it, walk away and take your data with you.