Retention
Position at PC-04
Rate now
2.5%
Held
£4,205
Release
7 Sep 27
Practical completion7 Sep 2026
Rate before PC5.0%
Rate after PC2.5%
Rectification period12 months
The number on your dashboard and the number on the notice you sent the client have to be the same number. When they are not, the conversation stops being about the works.
Under JCT the retention rate halves at practical completion and falls away at the end of the rectification period. Everyone knows that. What goes wrong is remembering to do it in the month it happens.
Enter the practical completion date and QScope applies the right rate from that valuation onwards, without you touching the setting.
Retention is a deduction from a payment. Until a payment is certified there is nothing to retain from, however many variations have been approved.
QScope counts retention only against certificates actually issued, so the figure on the dashboard is the figure on the retention notice the client received.
There is nothing to retain from until a payment is certified. Retention is a line on the certificate, five per cent of the £24,180 valued this period, not a figure that exists on its own.
QScope deducts it inside the valuation, so the £4,205.75 held on the dashboard is the sum of the deductions actually made, certificate by certificate.
The rate does not fall on a date typed into a settings field. It falls when the certificate of practical completion is issued, and that certificate is the document the contractor received.
Enter the certified date and QScope halves the rate from that valuation, starts the rectification period and releases the first half of the retention, all from the one date.
Retention does not disappear at the final account, it is added back. Certified to date is deducted gross, then the retention release appears on its own line, so the security is returned in plain sight rather than folded into a total.
QScope carries the £4,205.75 through as an explicit release, matching the retention notice, so the final balance reconciles to what the client already holds.
Whatever your contract says. QScope suggests a default from the contract form you selected, 3 per cent for JCT Standard and Design and Build and 5 per cent for Intermediate and Minor Works, and you can override it on any project or any subcontract.
No, and it usually does not. Each subcontract carries its own rate, and the difference between what you hold down the chain and what is held from you is part of the cash position on the dashboard.
At the end of the rectification period, calculated from the practical completion date and the period length in your project settings. The project list warns you as that date approaches, because unclaimed retention is the most commonly forgotten money in the industry.
Normally not, and QScope lets you set a zero retention rate on an individual variation for exactly that reason.
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.