@loreta.adams can you scope this out what you wish to have? @stevencevans and myself have already look at this but we don’t currently have the information in the system to work this out at the moment, so we can scope it here.
Thank you @chriscorr . The issue we have is that Service Managers are not setting the assessment date as per cl.50.1. They are assessing payments due in a passive manner - only when they receive an application for payment from the Consultant. Also, in FastDraft the entry of the assessment date in the application and in the SM assessment is ‘free’ text. We have found that rather than entering the assessment date in FastDraft, the SM and the Consultant PM are entering the date that they applied and the date that they do the assessment.
@loreta.adams This is on the list of future improvements. We currently do not capture the assessment interval on contract set up, so that is the starting point. Thereafter we need to allow the SM to fix the first assessment date and then calculate future assessment dates using the assessment interval from the previous assessment date.
You mention that the SMs do not set the assessment date; unless your contract is amended, the SM only sets the first assessment date and all future assessment dates are then fixed, as per the scope above. Clause 51.1 requires the SM to certify payment within 1 week of the assessment date and clause 51.2 requires interest to be paid to you at the interest rate in the Contract Data if the SM certifies a payment late.
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Steven can you scope out what extra information we would need to capture in order to calculate this. I think we might also need to consider Z clauses which change the clause you refer to, which would probably require us to allow this feature to be overridden on some projects that might include for example a z clause that allow a schedule of specific dates.
I agree that leaving users to populate ‘Assessment Date’ is sadly futile. As the issued date can already be captured automatically I would propose an interim measure of hiding/removing this field until it can be pre-populated.
Unfortunately, as mentioned elsewhere, National Grid’s method of determining assessment date is non-standard. Under the amended NG terms the assessment interval applies from the date of the previous application and the assessment date occurs 7 days after each application. Effectively, under the amended NG terms the assessment is triggered by the application so our requirements would be different to other clients. In our case the assessment interval calculation is linked to previous application date (as opposed to intervals from start date) and places on the onus on the supplier to apply by those dates (rather than PM to certify by those dates). For National Grid the assessment date is a simple calculation linked to the issue date of the latest application.
Long story short, I agree with @chriscorr you do need to allow for a variety of methods for calculating assessment dates.
Since you already capture Start Date on the Contract Overview, I would recommend you consider capturing more configurable parameters at contract level in days, being:
AFP_RESPONSE_DAYS (the number of days the PM has to respond to an Application for Payment would be a requirement for National Grid but not necessarily used by others)
FIRST_ASSESSMENT_DATE (For NEC3 this should be calculated as Start Date + ASSESSMENT_INTERVAL but for NEC4 this should be manually entered as NEC4 allows this to be decided by the PM. However, I don’t think it’s particularly unreasonable to require this to always be entered manually and, if not entered to treat Assessment Date calculation as Off)
ASSESSMENT_INTERVAL (assessment interval as defined in 50.1 and captured in Contract Data Part One)
ASSESSMENT_END (For NEC3 the number of days after the Defects Certificate that you should stop calculating assessment dates - although I accept you would also need a separate Defects Certificate form in order to be able to determine this. For NEC4 this should always be configured as 0).
To allow clients to deviate from the norm, I would propose configurable options at contract level, being:
Display Assessment Dates: Yes or No [Default being No] (at the very least this will give us the option to switch it off if it doesn’t work for us. I would suggest including validation that prevents this being set to ‘Yes’ if FIRST_ASSESSMENT_DATE is blank)
Assessment Dates based on (Dropdown with options being ‘Start Date’, ‘Application Date’)
If ‘Start Date’ [standard NEC3] your first Assessment Date is FIRST_ASSESSMENT_DATE and subsequent assessment dates are previous assessment date + ASSESSMENT_INTERVAL until Defects Cert issued date plus ASSESSMENT_END (“Next Application Due” should be hidden from the dashboard and ‘Next Assessment Date’ on the contract dashboard should always display the next assessment date that is after the issued date of the most recently communicated Payment Certificate)
If ‘Application Date’ [for National Grid bespoke NEC3] first Application Due Date is FIRST_ASSESSMENT_DATE and subsequent Application Due dates are previous assessment date + ASSESSMENT_INTERVAL until Defects Cert issued date plus ASSESSMENT_END. Where issued date and time of latest Application for Payment is greater than issued date and time of latest Payment Certificate Next Assessment Date is most recent Application Issued Date plus AFP_RESPONSE_DAYS or else null (“Next Application Due” until a Payment unless a Payment Certificate has been issued should always be displayed on the Contract dashboard up until the Defects Cert issued date plus ASSESSMENT_END and where null ‘Next Assessment Date’ should display the next assessment date unless null, in which case “Awaiting application” should be displayed)
Thank you @stevencevans - the issue we have is that the SMs do not set the first assessment date and do not comply with the assessment interval thereafter. It all tends to be a bit random, with SMs working reactively to an application being made.
We require, in accordance with the NEC process, a trigger to prompt the SM/ECC PM to set the first assessment date and enter the CD1 assessment interval. Subsequent assessment dates to appear as reminders on the action list.