Most contracts are not new when they arrive here. The job started months ago, a few claims have already gone out, and the next one is due. Claim history is where you tell the platform what happened before, so the first claim you make here starts from the right place.
What claim history is
A contract whose start date is in the past owes an answer for every claim period since. Claim history is a tab on the contract's page, beside Claims. It lists those periods, from the start date to today, with what was recorded for each.
While any of those periods has no record, the contract's page says so above its figures, on every tab, with how many periods and where they start, and links here.
New contract starts by asking where the job is up to. If you answered Not claimed yet, the contract owes no history: there is no prompt, and your first claim asks which month it is for. If a claim had gone out after all, you can still record it here, free.
Claim history is for the claims you make. On a contract where you receive claims as the head contractor, there is none.
The answers are what set the contract's opening position: how much has been claimed to date, how much retention is held, and how much is left to claim. Without them the first claim you make here would claim the whole job again from nothing.
It sends nothing and costs nothing
Recording history is bookkeeping. For a claim you record here:
- nothing is generated, emailed or served on anyone;
- nothing is sent to your accounting system, because the claim was invoiced at the time;
- no response deadline is tracked, because its window closed long before it was recorded;
- you are not charged for it.
Answering each period
Only the earliest unanswered period offers anything to do, and it offers three answers:
- Record historic claim. A claim you already served, before the contract was set up here. Copy the figures from the claim as it was issued, then answer Was this claim paid as claimed? Answer Yes and it is recorded as certified at what you claimed. Answer Paid less and enter what the head contractor certified in the certified columns that open. Answer Not answered yet only if they have not paid it or sent a payment schedule: it is then recorded with nothing certified, and it counts for nothing towards the retention release trigger until you certify it from the claim's own page. Where your claim register states progress as a percentage complete, type that into % complete and the claimed figure is worked out from it, as on a new claim. It is the share of the whole item finished to date, not the share claimed that period. Where you have not typed the retention withheld on a line, it fills in at what your contract's retention terms would have withheld, highlighted for you to check. Change it or clear it wherever the claim states something else; a figure you type is never replaced. Once you enter what the head contractor certified, nothing more is filled in, because what they withheld is then in the certified retention you copy from their response.
- No claim. Nothing was claimed for that period. The site was quiet, your trade had not started, or the works were on hold.
- Make a claim. You have caught up, and this period is one to claim for now. This is a real payment claim: it is served and it is charged for.
The history stays open until a claim on the contract is prepared or served, or a claim is recorded as served through another platform. From then on the periods in it can no longer be recorded, removed or moved, because the figures on that claim were worked out from them.
Drafting a claim, or marking a period No claim, closes nothing. But history is always recorded before a contract's claims, so while that claim is there, no period can be added to the history or undone. Delete that claim to carry on recording. A retention release answers no period, so it holds nothing back. If a claim you have finalised was worked out from figures that have changed since, submitting it tells you what changed; unfinalise it and finalise it again to bring it up to date. A month marked No claim that ended before the contract was set up here is part of the history itself, so it holds nothing back.
So record everything that has already happened first. If a new claim would leave earlier periods unanswered behind it, you are told how many before it does, with a way back to claim history.
Reading it from your documents
If you have the old claims and the head contractor's payment schedules as files, drop them on Add documents at the top of the contract instead of typing them in. While the contract still owes history from before you set it up, each claim goes to Claim history, which is free, and you can change where any file goes before choosing File them. The platform reads what was claimed and certified in each period and shows you the result to check, one period at a time. Nothing is recorded until you accept it. Where no payment schedule was read for a claim, its period asks whether it was paid as claimed, with the same three answers. A % complete typed into one period counts what the periods above it on the same page put against the item: what was certified where a schedule was entered, and what was claimed where none was. So 80% after a month claimed and certified at 30% claims the other 50% of the item.
If all you have is one document that brings the whole job up to date, a single claim covering several months, upload that. Where it covers every period from the contract's start and nothing else answers them, it can be recorded as one opening position for the whole run, rather than asking you for months whose detail no longer exists.
Started on the wrong form?
If you begin recording a claim served before the contract was set up here as one lodged through the head contractor's platform, that form offers to record it as history instead and takes the reference and figures you have typed with it. Recording it as lodged stays available beside that, for a claim still waiting on its payment schedule, and is charged as any claim recorded here is.
Correcting a mistake
While the history can still be recorded, the most recent recorded period can be undone. A historic claim's reference can be corrected from its row on the Claim history tab, and what it was certified at from the claim's own page, opened from the contract's list of claims. A claim recorded with nothing certified asks there whether it was paid as claimed. Both can be corrected at any time, even after the history has closed.
What "No claim" means
A period marked No claim reads that way everywhere it appears: on the Claim history tab, in the contract's list of claims and on its own page. It is not a draft and it is not waiting for anything. It records that nothing was claimed, adds nothing to the amounts claimed to date, and lets the sequence move on to the next period.
A no-claim on the latest period recorded can be deleted from its own page, and the period then has no answer again. One with a later claim after it cannot, because that would leave a gap in the sequence. If a draft was moved to a later month and the months it left behind were recorded as no claim, open the draft and use Change period to move it back: the no-claims it passes over are removed.
Why claims go in order
A progress claim is cumulative: each one states what has been done to date, and its amount is that figure less what was claimed before. The platform works the next claim out from the ones before it, so a gap in the sequence would leave it working from the wrong total. Only one claim can be made for each period, and each period needs an answer before the next one opens.
The law behind this is in reference dates and claim periods, including why each claim builds on the last and why there is only one claim per period.