Prepare a Payment claim for your project.
Prepare and send your Payment claim
Introduction
At the end of each month, or when a stage of your project has been completed according to the agreed schedule, you can create a Payment claim to send to your Receivable customer for the work done. You would first prepare the Payment claim and send it to your customer for approval. When your customer approves the claim, you can mark the claim as Approved. If your customer disputes something in the claim, you can mark it as In dispute and update it as necessary to re-send it to your customer.
Once the Payment claim has been approved, it is ready to be invoiced, viewed and/or exported. After the Payment claim has been invoiced, it cannot be changed.
Create your Payment Claim
At the end of the month, or when a stage of the project has been completed, you can create the Payment claim for work that has been completed that month or for that stage. During the month, invoices for materials and work from your sub-contractors will have come in via your Invoice Automation. As these invoices have been approved, the amounts of the completed work will be updated in the Trade Summary lines of your Head Contract. This process relies on the correct Cost codes from the Project being applied to your Purchase orders and Invoices.
Claims can be made for a selected date range. e.g. monthly, weekly etc, by selected the appropriate start and end date for your claim.
NOTE: The importance of getting your Cost Codes right.
Matching the spent costs from your invoices to the Trade Summary lines of your Head Contract requires the correct Cost codes from the Project being applied to your Purchase orders and Invoices.
Labour hours can be entered for a Project using the Lentune Time Sheet module, and these hours will be matched to the Trade Summary line by the Cost Code.
To create a Payment Claim:
- Start at Payment Claims > Head Contracts and select your Head Contract.
- Click Add Claim.
In the Create Receivable Claim screen:
- Start date: Enter the start date for this claim.
- End date: Enter the month end date for this claim.
- Click Save.
This takes you back to the Claims tab where you can see the Claims line.
- Double click the line to open Edit Receivable Claim screen.
In the Edit Receivable Claim screen:
You can see how much has been invoiced on each Trade Summary line to determine how much has been spent and how much to claim for this period. Each line will show you the amount and the percentage completed that has been spent for the Cost Codes on that line. This information comes from your approved invoices and approved time sheets.
You can double-click a line to open and edit the amount to claim. Alternatively, you can edit the Completed percentage and Completed amounts in the respective columns where you can see the Edit icon 
.
To do this, move your cursor to the field you wish to edit and overwrite the amount or percentage. this will automatically update the corresponding field. If you edit the percentage, the Amount will be updated, and vice versa.
You can also see any value that has been recorded as Onsite / Offsite for each Trade Summary line.
If you have marked a Trade Summary line as Hide from client, then that line will not appear in the Claim grid.
Chargeable Labour
Where you have a line to claim for chargeable labour, you can see in the Claim screen the total value for that labour that has come from your Time Sheet module.
You can then double click on the Chargeable Labour value to see the breakdown of labour costs by User Group. You can also select to view by Cost Code.
TIP: There are tick boxes on the first Claim screen to allow you to:
- Show Unclaimed lines - this will show all the Trade Summary lines, and
- Show only lines with spent costs - this will show only Trade Summary lines that have spent costs against them.
In the Edit Head Contract Claim line screen:
Here you can see the details that have been entered for this Trade Summary line, with the quoted price, the budget from the Cost codes and the margin %.
- Claimed amount: Completed amount: Completed %: You can enter the value for any of these fields, and the values for the other two fields will be calculated.
- Click Save.
Now the lines in this screen are checked as Active.
- Repeat this process for all Trade Summary lines that you are claiming for this month or period.
TIP:
Actions: You can click Actions to Preview, Print or Download the provisional claim as you are creating it. You can also Set the selected claimed amounts from spent amounts and add a claim line.
Prepare and send your Payment claim
When you have updated all lines for this Payment claim, you can prepare and send it. All Trade Summary lines that have a new completed amount will be included.
Prepare your claim
- Start at Payment Claims > Head Contract.
- Double-click into your Contract then go to the Claims tab and double-click into the Payment Claim you want to work on.
- Click Mark as Prepared.
This takes you to the Claim Prepared screen where you can Preview, Print, Download or Email the PDF of the Payment claim.
TIP: If you do not print or send the Payment Claim, when you proceed to the Approve step, you will see a warning that the Payment Claim has not been served. If you do not Send or Payment Print the Claim from this dialog, you can do that later from the Actions button on the Payment Claim.
- Click Close.
Now the Mark as Prepared button has been replaced with the Approve button and there are now more options to select in the Actions menu. You can now Send, Mark as In Dispute and Roll back to previous status.
Send your claim
To send your Claim from the Actions button:
- Click Actions > Send.
In the Email Claim screen:
- Select the email address to send the claim to.
- Subject: You can edit the standard subject, which by default, contains the Payment Claim number.
- Message: You can edit the standard message.
- Click Send.
Other Options on the Actions button
Other Actions that you can perform from the Actions button are:
-
- Set selected claimed amounts from spent amounts.
- Mark as in dispute.
- Roll back to previous status.
- Add claim line.
To perform any of these functions:
Mark the Claim as In Dispute
- Click Actions > Mark as In Dispute.
Roll back the status of the Claim.
- Click Actions > Roll back to previous status.
Set selected claimed amounts from spent amounts
For this option, you can select specific lines by checking the box to the left of the required line/s. This the automatically sets the claim amount from the spent amounts, which has come from your checked-in invoices.
- Select the lines you want.
- Click Actions > Set selected claimed amounts from spent amounts.
Mark Claim as In Dispute
If your customer queries something in your progress claim, you can mark it as In Dispute while you check and update it.
- Go to Claims > Head Contract.
- Select your Contract.
- Go to the Claims tab and highlight the Claim you want to work on.
- Click Actions.
- Select Mark as in Dispute.
The Claim is now marked as In Dispute. The Claim shows its Status as In Dispute.
Now you can check what needs to be adjusted and then come back to re-send the Payment claim to your Customer.
What's next?
When your progress claim has been prepared and approved by your customer, you can now mark it as approved and create the invoice for it.
Please refer to Approve and Invoice your Payment Claim.
Need more help? We’re here! We hope our article was helpful! If you need more info or want to connect, drop us an email at support@lentune.com.
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Last updated: 26 February 2024