Useful Tips for Processing Sub Contracts

General Notes on Sub Contract claims and retentions

Some useful tips for Sub contracts

1. When you receive an invoice for a payment claim from your subcontractor, it will arrive in the Invoice Automation check screen. Here you can populate whatever fields you can, and then you can either (a) mark it as a Claim invoice by ticking the Claims invoice field and populate the claim reference number in the PO field so you can approve it, (b) or Convert the invoice to a payable claim (from the More button above the invoice details, Convert to payable claim). It can then be approved in the Payment Claims area.

2. If you have a retention policy set up, and you have claims coming in from your sub contractor, then a retention amount will be deducted from the payment to be made.

3. When processing an invoice to release a retention amount, the invoice will arrive in the Invoice Automation check screen. When checking the retention invoice in Invoice automation, you must mark the invoice as Retention invoice and then select the sub contract that it relates to. Do not mark the invoice as Claims invoice. This doesn't need to be processed through the subcontract claims area.

4. You cannot release a retention without an invoice from your sub-contractor, (or dummy invoice that you can create yourself).

5. Once you have Prepared claims, it is not possible to alter the retention policy that will affect amounts over the retention level. Refer to Adjusting Retention Levels to read more about this.

6. You cannot include a retention release in the final (or any) sub-contractor claim payment transaction in Lentune. The claims invoice and the retention invoice must be processed as separate transactions (invoice) in Lentune. However, it is then up to your accounts team to determine how the separate amounts are paid, as they will be paid from your accounting program, e.g. xero.

7. The sub-contract must be at the Status of Completed for you to be able to release the final retention amount. If all the figures in the sub contract match, then the status will be updated to Completed. Otherwise you can manually update this flag for a sub contract in the Edit Sub Contract screen on the left hand side.

How can I fix an incorrect retention amount on a sub contract?

If you've inadvertently taken a retention on a sub-contractor payment and you didn't mean to do so, (perhaps there was an incorrect retention policy set up at the start of the contract), you will need an invoice to be able to release the retention.

This invoice can be either from your sub contractor, or you can create a dummy invoice as a PDF, and manually import it. Do this in the Invoice Automation > Check screen, from the Actions button then select Manually add invoice.

Then mark the invoice as Retention invoice and check and approve it. Now you will see a window where you can select the Sun Contract that this invoice relates to. Select the required sub contract.

Now your accounts department can pay the original invoice (that will have been processed as the total less the retention amount) and the released retention invoice amount.

Last updated: 18 April 2024