Instructions

The instruction register

An instruction is the authority for a variation. A variation with no instruction behind it is the first thing an auditor pulls out and the first thing a payer refuses.

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Log it when it arrives

  1. Open Instructions and add an entry.
  2. Keep the contract’s own numbering. It is what the correspondence will refer to years later.
  3. Choose the type: architect’s instruction, CA instruction, employer’s instruction, confirmation of verbal instruction or site instruction.
  4. Say whether it has a cost effect. If you do not know yet, say so.
Worth knowingOnly the person named in the contract can instruct. A clerk of works or a project manager who is not named does not vary the works, however reasonable the instruction was.

The two entries QScope colours

Red means the instruction changes the cost of the works and no variation has been raised against it. As things stand it will not reach the final account.

Amber means a verbal instruction is still waiting for written confirmation. It binds nobody until it is confirmed.

Those two colours are the whole point of the register. Everything else on the screen is bookkeeping; these two are money leaving the job quietly.

Confirming a verbal instruction

  1. Add the entry, choose Confirmation of verbal instruction, and record the date and place it was given and by whom.
  2. Describe what was instructed in enough detail to price.
  3. Send the confirmation.
  4. When it is confirmed or not dissented from, change the status.
Worth knowingJCT gives the contractor a period to confirm and the contract administrator a further period to dissent. Silence is not neutral: not dissenting is what makes the instruction take effect.

Linking to a variation

Choose the variation the instruction authorised and the two are joined in both directions. Daywork sheets link to instructions the same way, so a sheet with no instruction behind it is visible before it becomes an argument.

Still stuck?

Write to support@qscope.co.uk. Include the project reference and, if it is about a figure, the certificate number. Answers within one working day.

Try it on your next valuation

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.