Contraary to standard NEC terms, all NG contracts require the supplier to submit an Application for Payment and require the PM to certify payment within 7 days. On that basis, it would be extremely beneficial to provide the option to capture an additional contract attribute that allows an administrator to configure the number of response days relating to an application for payment, configure an Action Reminder for the action to certify x days after communication of the application, ability to clear the action against an AFP by generating an associated Payment Certificate.
Steve, I assume you are referring to NEC3 because NEC4 now obliges the Contractor to submit an application before the assessment date? In the NG conditions is the PM still responsible for assessing the amount due - 50.1? Also is the PM obliged to consider any application for payment if one is submitted - 50.4?
Clause 13.3 states that if the contract requires a reply and unless otherwise stated, people reply within the period for reply. The standard NEC3 does not require the PM to reply to the application for payment per se, it requires the PM to certify payment and give details of the amount due with the certificate; are you proposing a more formal process for responding to the application, perhaps to query it or ask for more information? If you are you need to be very careful and ensure that you do not exceed the timings imposed by the contract and/or by law for issuing a payment notice and the final date for payment.
@Steve.Webley Makes sense and would not doubt be a useful feature. Notwithstanding @stevebrownassociates points about NEC4 and Z clauses, where it is required a reminder in the dashboard would be useful. Let me collect my thoughts with the team on how best to do this as there are a few other workflows that would benefit from reminders.
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Thanks @stevebrownassociates. You are correct in referring to NEC3. NG’s amended NEC3 ECC terms do still include the obligation on the PM to assess the amount due and to consider any application. However, 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.
@chriscorr @Steve.Webley @stevebrownassociates I did raise another similar proposed improvement on the BI Roadmap. What I would like, if possible, is that the PM can set the first assessment date (with an action in the action register in FastDraft to remind the PM that the first date needs to be set) and FastDraft then sets the following assessment dates using the contract assessment interval (I presume we would have to enter that data on individual contract set up, or FastDraft take it from our contract templates? It would be really useful if the assessment dates could then flag as an action for the Supplier to submit an application before the assessment date and an action for the PM to certify payment within 1 week after the assessment date. Also remove free text entry for date of assessment when completing the payment certificate as PMs are entering the date they actually do the certificate and not the actual assessment date.