Claims, variations and retention, certified to the cumulative figure.
The money flow of a contracting business, on top of Projects, the BOQ and Sales contracts. Each contract carries its retention, advance and release terms. Variation orders move the contract value once approved, a progress claim certifies cumulative work to date, and approving it creates a draft tax invoice and holds the retention. Subcontracts run the same way in reverse and produce draft supplier bills.
| Claim | Certified | Retention | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Claim 1 | 320,000.00 | 32,000.00 | Approved |
| Claim 2 | 284,500.00 | 28,450.00 | Approved |
| Claim 3 | — | — | Draft |
| Order | Title | Amount | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| VO-001 | Additional piling, grid C | 60,000.00 | Approved |
| VO-002 | Loading dock canopy | 38,000.00 | Draft |
- Retention
- 10% of each claim
- Released after
- 180 days
- Advance
- 10% of value
- Original value
- 980,000.00
- Approved variations
- 60,000.00
- Advance to recover
- 43,550.00
Illustrative demo data.
How work moves through Contracting.
- 1Contract terms
- 2Variation order
- 3Progress claim
- 4Draft invoice
- 5Retention held
- 6Retention released
What Contracting covers.
- Contract terms
- Retention percentage, advance percentage and the days after which retention can be released, set per contract. Claims already approved keep the terms they were certified under.
- Variation orders
- Draft, approved or rejected. Approving adds the amount, positive or negative, to the revised contract value and to the project's contract value. A decided variation cannot be edited.
- Advance
- A draft prepayment invoice for up to the advance percentage of the revised value, recovered pro rata from each claim and never beyond what is outstanding.
- Progress claims
- The schedule of values comes from BOQ items with a customer rate, approved variations and a lump line for the rest. You enter cumulative quantity or percentage to date; the period is cumulative less what was certified before. One open claim per contract.
- Retention ledger
- An append-only record of retention held and released. A release, partial if needed, is allowed once the release date has passed and the claim's invoice has been issued, and never exceeds what is releasable.
- Subcontracts
- A supplier, a project, a schedule of values or one lump sum, a retention percentage and release days. Approved subcontract claims create draft supplier bills and count as the project's subcontractor cost.
What Contracting does not do.
- Amounts are in the company's base currency; contracts in a foreign currency are not supported.
- No subcontract variations: extra work is agreed as a new subcontract.
- Credit notes against a claim invoice do not adjust the retention ledger.
- Retention is a single percentage per contract, not per line, and there are no liquidated damages, price escalation, material-on-site claims or back-charges.
- No payment certificates in a specific form (FIDIC, NEC) and no e-signatures.
- Have an accountant confirm the VAT treatment of retention and advances for your country; the module does not decide it for you.
Every module reads the same record.
Sits on Projects and Sales contracts; claims become draft invoices in Finance and subcontract claims become draft bills in Procurement. It reads the same shared records as the other modules, so nothing is re-keyed between them.
See how the whole platform fits togetherRelated modules.
Projects
BOQ, budgets, progress, expenses and live profitability.
CRM & Customers
Customers, contacts, leads and opportunities, from first call to won deal.
Sales
Quotations, sales orders and customer contracts, connected end to end.
Inventory
Items, warehouses, stock movements, transfers and issues.
About Contracting
What does the Contracting module do in Circumz?
The money flow of a contracting business, on top of Projects, the BOQ and Sales contracts. Each contract carries its retention, advance and release terms. Variation orders move the contract value once approved, a progress claim certifies cumulative work to date, and approving it creates a draft tax invoice and holds the retention. Subcontracts run the same way in reverse and produce draft supplier bills.
How does the Contracting module connect to the rest of Circumz?
Sits on Projects and Sales contracts; claims become draft invoices in Finance and subcontract claims become draft bills in Procurement. It works with Projects, CRM and Finance.
What does the Contracting module not do?
Amounts are in the company's base currency; contracts in a foreign currency are not supported. No subcontract variations: extra work is agreed as a new subcontract. Credit notes against a claim invoice do not adjust the retention ledger. Retention is a single percentage per contract, not per line, and there are no liquidated damages, price escalation, material-on-site claims or back-charges. No payment certificates in a specific form (FIDIC, NEC) and no e-signatures. Have an accountant confirm the VAT treatment of retention and advances for your country; the module does not decide it for you.
See Contracting on your own operation.
A walkthrough of this module and the rest of the platform, configured around how you work.