Value from the last certificate and cost from the ledger at month end are not two sides of the same project. They are two different projects being compared with each other.
A CVR is a matter of judgement dressed as arithmetic, and the judgement that matters most is the cut-off. Get it wrong and the margin reported is wrong by whatever fell in the gap, in whichever direction happens to flatter.
QScope puts one date at the top of the period and applies it to both sides. Certified value to that date can be pulled straight from the certificates already issued, because that is the one figure the program does not have to guess.
Cost incurred but not yet invoiced has to be accrued, or the cost side is understated and every job looks profitable until the post arrives. That is the mechanism behind most late margin collapses.
Carrying no provisions is not neutrality either. It assumes nothing will go wrong. QScope flags a period with accruals or provisions at nil, because both are far more likely to be an omission than a position.
A CVR is an internal document. The client is never shown the margin on their job, and putting it in front of them is how a negotiation starts that did not need to.
The same figures drive a cost report that faces the client: anticipated final cost against budget, with no reference to cost or margin. One set of numbers, two audiences, kept apart on purpose.
Every period of a CVR is a forecast of the same thing: the margin at the end. The final account is where the forecast is settled and the estimating stops.
Variations carried at settlement value in the CVR become agreed figures in the final account, so the margin you reported month by month is tested against the adjusted contract sum rather than quietly abandoned.
Carrying no provisions assumes nothing will go wrong, which is why QScope warns on a nil period. The provision itself still needs a basis, or it is just a number that gets cut first.
The risk register quantifies each commercial risk as probability times cost, and the total feeds the provision in the CVR, so the figure protecting your margin can be defended line by line.
No. The cost side is entered by hand and stays that way. The program has no access to your accounts, and pretending it did would be the worst possible choice in a report about margin.
Contractors and subcontractors reporting internally. A client-side quantity surveyor reports the anticipated final cost instead, which is a different document with a different audience.
One per valuation cycle is usual, so the cut-off lines up with something that already exists rather than a date chosen for the report.
Because carrying none assumes nothing will go wrong, and that assumption is almost never deliberate. If it is deliberate, the warning costs you nothing.
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.