Practical completion is not a tidy site. It is a certificate, and on the date it carries, five separate things change at once. A program that prints the certificate and leaves the figures alone has done the easy half.
Enter the date on the certificate and the retention halves from that valuation, the rectification period starts, and liability for liquidated damages ends. You do not enter the date twice.
The same applies to making good. That certificate releases the balance of the retention, and QScope will not let it be issued while items remain outstanding on the schedule of defects, because that releases the last of the security for work nobody has done.
Where the contract divides the works into sections, each has its own completion date, its own damages rate and its own retention release. A section handed over in March should not be waiting on a contract that finishes in November, and in most systems it is.
Partial possession works the same way. Give the part a value and QScope releases retention against it as if it had reached practical completion, and reduces the damages rate in the same proportion, from the date of possession rather than retrospectively.
The calculation takes a minute. The procedure is where the money goes: under a JCT form the employer cannot deduct until the contract administrator has certified non-completion and the employer has given notice.
QScope calculates damages from the completion date after any extension, applies any cap, and refuses to let the figure stand unqualified while no certificate of non-completion is on the register. A deduction made in the wrong order is not a smaller deduction. It is repayable in full.
The moment practical completion is certified the held retention halves, and QScope carries the new figure straight onto the retention notice the client receives. The number on the certificate and the number on the notice are the same number.
Half the retention is released now. The balance waits on the certificate of making good, and the project list warns you as the release date approaches so unclaimed retention does not quietly stay with the employer.
The certificate of making good releases the balance of the retention, and it depends on the schedule of defects being clear. QScope will not let it be issued while items remain outstanding, because that hands back the last of the security for work nobody has done.
The schedule and the certificate are two views of the same fact, so the release cannot run ahead of the repairs.
No. If a certificate is on the register, that date governs, because the certificate is the document the contractor received. If both are filled in and they disagree, QScope tells you and applies the certificate.
Give each section a value that reconciles to the contract sum. QScope warns you when the values do not add up, because retention is released against them and an unreconciled split releases the wrong amount.
The contract does not really allow it, because the consequences cannot be made conditional. Record outstanding work as a separate schedule and issue an unqualified certificate.
Yes. Damages run to the date of practical completion and no further, and the calculation uses the certified date.
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.