NEC4 ECC: Next Payment Date option C

I think your question highlights the importance of having a detailed understanding of how the contract actually works in practice, from day one.

The first assessment date is decided by the Project Manager to ‘suit the procedures of the Parties’. This means that the Parties, taking account of the assessment interval, would have subsequent assessment dates which best align for the Contractor with payment dates, including, as you have highlighted, staff salary payments, and also for the Client, for example occurring at an appropriate time within their reporting cycle.

I have previously worked on an Option C contract where the Contractor set up payment dates for their Subcontractors which occurred a week after the payment assessment dates under the main contract. They requested that the main contract dates be changed, although this was not practical, so they brought all the Subcontract payment dates forward by a week.

One problem is where the assessment interval is 4 weeks instead of a month, which is often the case with certain public bodies, and the Contractor’s monthly payment cycle then gets out of sequence with the payment assessment dates.

Strictly speaking, if a payment date is one day outside of the payment assessment date then it shouldn’t be included, but I think common sense generally applies in such situations especially as you are dealing with a forecast, which becomes superseded by actual cost in the next payment assessment.