Variations
VO-01 Additional window to gable
Basis of valuationContract rates
Contract clauseJCT 5.6.1
Extension of time2 days
Loss and expenseNo
Instructed byR. Hall, architect
Subtotal£1,000.00
Certified in valuations£1,000.00
Still to certify£0.00
Recording the amount is the easy half. What matters two years later is which rule you valued it under, who instructed it, and whether it has already been paid.
A spreadsheet records that a variation was worth one thousand pounds. It does not record that you valued it at contract rates under clause 5.6.1, that it carried two days of extension of time, and that loss and expense was not claimed.
That is the part you are asked for when the final account is disputed, and it is the part that is always missing.
Under JCT a variation is valued in the periodic valuation, not paid separately on the side. Keeping them apart is how retention on variations quietly goes missing.
Add Variations pulls every approved variation into the certificate as a normal line, so retention, progress and the statutory dates run down one track.
VO-01 is worth £1,000, but it is not money until it is certified, and under JCT it is certified inside the valuation, not on a separate note.
Add Variations pulls VO-01 and VO-03 into the certificate as lines, so retention is deducted once and the certified percentage is written back to the variation record.
A variation that is approved but never carried into the final account is money left on the table. The adjusted contract sum is the original contract plus every approved change, additions and omissions alike.
QScope rolls the approved variations into the adjusted contract sum automatically, so VO-01 and the rest are in the account without being re-keyed.
The first thing a payer refuses is a variation with no instruction to authorise it. VO-01 exists because an architect's instruction told the contractor to build the additional window.
QScope links every variation to the instruction that authorised it, both ways, and flags an instruction that changes cost with no variation raised against it.
Yes, if that is what your contract does. Mark it Paid on the variation itself. If you later certify the same variation inside a valuation, QScope stops it counting twice rather than trusting you to remember.
Yes. A variation can be an addition, an omission or a substitution, and omissions carry through to the adjusted contract sum and the final account as negative figures.
It follows your contract. If a variation is certified inside a valuation, retention is deducted there once. If it is paid separately, you can set a retention rate on the variation itself, including zero for loss and expense which is normally not subject to retention.
Yes. Each variation prints on your letterhead with the description, the reason, the basis of valuation and the amount, ready to be issued as a confirmation of instruction.
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.