Progress claims and variations: how subcontractors get paid for the work they do

Every subbie has a variation they never got paid for. Usually it was not refused. It was agreed on site, never written down, and by the time the claim went in nobody could remember the price. This article is about closing that gap — claiming what you have earned, when you have earned it, including the work that was never in the original contract.

A note before we start: I am an estimator, not a lawyer. Where this touches security of payment law it is general information only. Check the Act for your state or territory, and your contract, before relying on any of it.

What is a progress claim, and what should it show?

A progress claim is a request for payment for the work done to date, made against the contract — usually each month. For a subcontractor it is normally claimed by percentage complete on each scope you priced.

A builder's contract administrator expects a familiar layout. If your claim does not match it, it comes back with questions, and a claim with questions is a claim paid late.

In Subino a progress claim is claimed by percentage complete against the scopes you priced, with exactly that split: original contract sum, approved variations, contract sum to date. Retention takes a percentage and a cap and carries forward what is already held. Each claim's schedule of values is frozen when you claim, so last month's claim stays exactly what it was.

Why do subcontractors lose money on variations?

Because the variation is agreed in one place, priced in another and claimed from memory. The work is real. The paperwork is what is missing.

The pattern is familiar to anyone who has run a facade job:

• The site manager asks for an extra return on the parapet. Your foreman says yes.
• Nobody prices it that week, because the job is busy.
• The claim goes in at month end without it, because it was never in the spreadsheet.
• Two claims later someone remembers. The builder asks for the instruction. There isn't one.

None of that is a software problem at first. It is a habit problem. But the habit is much easier to keep when pricing and sending a variation takes a few minutes from the job itself, instead of a separate document someone has to find time to write.

How do you get paid for extra work as a subcontractor?

Treat every change as a priced, approved line before it becomes a claim. This checklist is the habit that works:

1. Write it down the day it is asked for. Who asked, what for, and when. A follow-up note on the job with a next step and an owner is enough to start.
2. Read the variation clause. Your contract says how a variation must be notified and approved. Follow it, because a variation that misses the contract's process is the easiest one to reject.
3. Price it on the job's own rates. Not a guess, and not a new rate invented on the spot. In Subino a variation is priced off the job's own rates and markup.
4. Send it to the builder for a decision. As a page they can open, read and answer — approve or decline — rather than an attachment that sits in an inbox.
5. Get the answer on record. With a timestamp, on the job, where anyone in your office can find it.
6. Claim it as its own line. Approved variations should flow into the next claim as their own line instead of being remembered. In Subino they do.
7. Keep the declined ones too. A declined variation is still a record of what was asked and when.

How does the builder approve a variation or certify a claim?

The fastest approval is the one that needs no login. In Subino you send a purchase order, RFQ, variation, progress claim, shop drawing or follow-up as a secure link (a link the builder can just open). The builder opens it with no login, answers it there — approve, certify, price or query — and the answer lands back on the job with a timestamp. Links can be switched off.

That matters for two reasons. First, the builder's site manager is far more likely to answer a link on a phone than to open an attachment at a desk. Second, the answer is stored against the variation or claim it belongs to, not in one person's inbox.

What does security of payment law mean for a subbie?

Every Australian state and territory has its own security of payment legislation — in Victoria, for example, the Building and Construction Industry Security of Payment Act 2002; in New South Wales, the Building and Construction Industry Security of Payment Act 1999. The schemes generally give people who carry out construction work, including subcontractors, a statutory right to make payment claims and a process for disputed amounts.

The details are where it matters, and they differ: what a valid payment claim must contain, how it must be served, the timeframes for a response, and what happens if none arrives. Those rules change from state to state and are amended from time to time, so this article deliberately does not give day counts. Read the current Act for the state the work is in, check your contract, and get advice from someone qualified if a payment is in dispute.

What software can do is make the facts easy to produce: the claim as it was submitted, the variations and when they were approved, and the builder's answers with their timestamps.

How do claims connect to the rest of the job?

A claim is only as good as the contract it is claimed against. In Subino, awarding the job locks the contract to the winning revision, so the scopes you claim against are the scopes you priced (win it, and the estimate is the budget). Approved variations join the contract sum. The claim is the last step of one job that started as a tender — entered once, not retyped at each stage.

Across the book, the work-in-progress view shows per cent complete by cost, revenue earned against what you have billed, cost to complete and expected gross profit. It is the number that tells you whether you are funding the builder.

One honest limit: today one claim line is one whole scope, so you cannot claim one elevation separately from another. Splitting a scope by elevation or level is the next thing being built.

What's the simplest way to make sure you get paid?

Claim against the contract. Price every variation the week it is asked for, get the answer in writing, and let approved variations land on the next claim by themselves. Keep last month's claim frozen. And know your state's Act, or know who to ask.

The Get paid section of the features page has the detail, and pricing shows that claims, variations and the builder link are on every plan. If you would like to see a claim built from a job you have already won, book a 15-minute demo.