Construction & Contracting — construction contract management software for the Gulf
For contractors and subcontractors in the Gulf who build under a contract. One record for each contract job holds its bill of quantities, its budget, the measurements agreed with the client, every progress claim with its retention, advance recovery and VAT, the variations, the subcontracts and their certificates, the bank guarantees, the site diary and work in progress. It replaces the spreadsheet that holds the claim, the paper diary and the bank letters in a drawer, and it shows who prepared, certified and approved each step.
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117 features in 16 areas · works with 9 other modules · 6 team workflows
Full feature list
Contract jobs
One record for each contract you run, from the signed contract to the final account.
- Create a job in one form — Give the job its name, the client, the project, the contract value, the dates and the people. The number is drawn for you and the job starts as a draft you can finish later.For: Construction manager, Quantity surveyor
- Terms copied from your settings — Retention, its cap, the share released at practical completion, the advance and how it is recovered, VAT timing and the defects period start from your workspace settings and are kept on the job, so later changes to the settings never move a running job.For: Construction manager, Tenant admin
- One project, one job — Every contract job is tied to one project in Projects, which keeps the schedule and the tasks. The same project cannot carry two live jobs, and you can create the project from the picker without leaving the form.For: Construction manager, Quantity surveyor
- Activate only when it is complete — A job needs its client, its project and a contract value above zero before it can be activated, and the refusal says which one is missing. From activation the money terms are fixed.For: Construction manager
- Suspend, resume, complete, close — Suspend a job with a reason and resume it, certify practical completion on the date of the certificate (a day that has happened, never before the job started; the defects period and its end date are worked out), issue the final account (never dated before practical completion), then close the job. Terminating needs a reason and cannot be undone.For: Construction manager
- Closing is refused while anything is open — A job cannot be closed while a claim, a certificate, a retention release or an advance is still open. If retention is still held, you say why before it closes.For: Construction manager
- The contract file and its signature — Attach the contract from Documents and record the contract reference. When the client signs on paper or outside the system you record the signed copy, and the signature state shows on the job.For: Construction manager, Quantity surveyor
- A summary of where the job stands — The job page shows the contract value, the revised value with approved variations, the budget, the cost to date and the forecast final cost, and lists what is still missing before activation.For: Construction manager, Quantity surveyor
- Hijri dates beside Gregorian — Choose per job to show Hijri dates next to the Gregorian ones on its pages, and set the default for new jobs in your settings.For: Construction manager, Tenant admin
- A job list with quick filters — The list opens on Running, Drafts, In the defects period or Mine (jobs you manage, survey or engineer) and searches by number, name, contract reference, client or project.For: Construction manager, Quantity surveyor, Site engineer
Bill of quantities and cost codes
What the contract is made of, priced, and the codes every cost is filed under.
- A bill that is a tree — Headings hold items. An item is measured, a provisional sum, a prime cost, daywork or a lump sum, with its unit, quantity, rate and cost code; the amount is worked out and rounded for you.For: Quantity surveyor
- Import from Excel — Choose your workbook, map its columns, and every row is checked before anything is added. Up to 20,000 rows at a time, with the item number, description, Arabic description, unit, quantity, rate, amount, cost code, kind and level.For: Quantity surveyor
- Every row explains itself — Each row says what it will do or why it cannot: a repeated item number, a heading with a price, a cost code outside your library, a rate worked out as amount divided by quantity. Importing the same file twice adds nothing twice.For: Quantity surveyor
- Arabic descriptions — Every item can carry an Arabic description next to the English one, and the printed certificate shows both.For: Quantity surveyor
- Claimed items are archived, not deleted — An item that has been claimed leaves the bill by archive and stays in the history; its quantity and rate change only through a variation, so a certified figure never moves under you.For: Quantity surveyor
- A cost-code library in English and Arabic — A two-level library of cost codes by kind of cost (labour, material, subcontract, equipment, overhead) comes with the workspace in both languages. Edit it, add your own codes and switch off the ones you do not use.For: Quantity surveyor, Tenant admin
- Cost codes shared with Accounting — Your cost codes are the master list: Accounting's cost analysis follows them, so a bill posted against a code lands on the same code in the ledger.For: Quantity surveyor, Accountant
- Bill against contract value — The job page compares the total of the bill with the contract value and says when they differ, so a missing section shows before the first claim.For: Quantity surveyor, Construction manager
Budget and job cost
What the job is allowed to cost, what it has cost, and what is still to spend.
- A budget for each cost code — Set the budget code by code. It is the original budget until the job is active; after that it moves only by an approved variation or a transfer.For: Quantity surveyor, Construction manager
- Move budget between codes with a second person — Ask to move budget from one code to another with a reason; someone else approves or rejects it, and the total never changes.For: Quantity surveyor, Construction manager
- Committed, actual and forecast by code — For every cost code the grid shows the budget, what is committed to subcontractors, the cost posted, the estimate to complete and the forecast final cost, with quick filters for codes over budget or with cost and no budget.For: Construction manager, Quantity surveyor
- Warn or block when a code goes over — Choose in your settings whether a subcontract or a variation that pushes a cost code over its budget goes ahead with a warning to the manager or is refused with the figures.For: Tenant admin, Construction manager
- Cost from posted bills and payments — Costs posted in Accounting against the job's project reach the budget grid by cost code, so the job sees what has really been spent without re-keying it.For: Accountant, Construction manager
- Labour and equipment rate cards — Keep what an hour of each trade, grade or named employee costs, and what an hour of a machine, a kind of machine or a category of equipment costs, working and idle, from a date. The most specific rate on the day wins.For: Quantity surveyor, Construction manager
- Labour cost from approved timesheets — When Attendance reports each approved day by project, the hours are priced from your rate cards and costed to the job, and the diary's manpower is pre-filled from them. Choose whether labour hours come from attendance or from time logged in Projects, never both.For: Construction manager, Site engineer
- Waiting budget transfers are announced — When a budget transfer is waiting for a decision, everyone who may approve budget changes gets a notice with the amount, the two cost codes, the job and the reason. All waiting transfers across jobs can also be listed by the Copilot. While the company's separation-of-duties setting is on, which it is by default, the person who raised a transfer cannot approve or reject it.For: Construction manager
- Plant cost from the site diary — When a site diary is approved, its equipment hours are costed at the machine's own rate, its type's or its category's, with working and standing hours priced separately, and land on the job's equipment cost code. Approving twice, or reloading, never costs an hour twice.For: Construction manager, Quantity surveyor
- Crew cost from the diary or from timesheets, never both — Choose where labour hours come from: approved timesheets (by project, from Attendance), time logged in Projects, or the approved site diary's crew by trade at the trade's rate. An hour is costed from one source only, and the job's work in progress follows.For: Construction manager, Quantity surveyor
- Re-cost books what lacked a rate — Hours, crews and machines with no rate are left out, never guessed, and the Budget & cost tab says how many approved hours are waiting. Add the rate, press Re-cost, and exactly what was skipped is booked once; pressing it again books nothing twice.For: Quantity surveyor
- Reports across jobs — Five reports over every job, each as a table you can search, sort and group and as an Excel file: job cost (contract value, budget, committed, spent, forecast and margin), the work-in-progress schedule (percent complete, earned, billed, over- and under-billed), retention ageing (what is held, per job and side, aged 0-30, 31-60, 61-90 and over 90 days), the claims register (what was claimed, held back, payable, still outstanding and how late) and bond exposure (what is at stake and the days left to expiry). Filter by job, client, as-of date, period and status. The figures are the job screens' own, so a total is the sum of the jobs, and each currency has its own total, never added to another. Each report also needs the permission to read the data underneath it.For: Construction manager, Accountant, Quantity surveyor
Measurements and progress claims
From the work measured on site to the claim the engineer certifies.
- Measurement sheets with dimensions — Measure an item of the bill by number, length, width and height, with the place, the date, the client's reference and photos. A deduction such as an opening is a negative quantity, and you can type a quantity yourself with the reason.For: Site engineer, Quantity surveyor
- Agree a measurement with the client — Once the client's representative agrees, the measurement is marked agreed and can never change. New claims are filled from agreed measurements only.For: Quantity surveyor, Site engineer
- Start a claim from what was agreed — A new claim starts from what the last certificate gave, so no earlier work drops out, and can be filled from the measurements already agreed. A job has one open claim at a time.For: Quantity surveyor
- A worksheet of previous, this period and to date — Type the quantity done to date of each line, or the percentage done for a lump sum, and see what was certified before, what this period adds and the total to date, line by line.For: Quantity surveyor
- Materials on site at a share you set — List materials delivered and not yet built in with the delivery note. Only the share you set in your settings counts, and the list is restated on every claim.For: Quantity surveyor
- Totals as you type — The panel beside the worksheet works out the work done, the retention held back, the advance recovered, the taxable amount, the VAT and the amount payable as you type, and shows the same figures that are later certified and invoiced.For: Quantity surveyor, Construction manager
- Over-measurement is refused — A line cannot be claimed above its bill quantity unless you allow it in your settings, and a line that goes down needs a reason.For: Quantity surveyor, Tenant admin
- The engineer's certificate is recorded by someone else — The surveyor submits the claim for certification; the construction manager records the engineer's certificate number and date and any line certified at a different figure. Retention, advance recovery, VAT and the amount payable then come from the certified figures.For: Quantity surveyor, Construction manager
- A printed interim payment certificate — Print the certificate in English and Arabic with the previous, this-period and to-date columns and the totals of the screen.For: Quantity surveyor, Construction manager
- Void a claim with a reason — A draft or submitted claim can be voided with a reason and leaves the account for good; a certified claim cannot be voided.For: Quantity surveyor
- Alerts for slow certificates and late payments — The daily check tells the manager about claims waiting longer than your certification days, and about invoiced claims past their payment due date; the hub counts them.For: Construction manager, Accountant
Retention, advances and VAT
The deductions and the tax on every claim, worked out the same way every time.
- Retention held back, with a cap — A percentage of each certificate is held back until the total reaches the cap you set. Retention never falls on a later claim.For: Quantity surveyor, Accountant
- A release wizard — Release the client's retention, or a subcontractor's, at practical completion, at the end of the defects period or for any excess over the cap. The amount of each stage is worked out and a release can never exceed what is held.For: Accountant, Construction manager
- Advance payments and their recovery — Record an advance paid by the client or to a subcontractor. Each certificate recovers part of it by the threshold method (start, rate and full-recovery points are yours) or pro rata, and recovery starts only once the advance is invoiced.For: Accountant, Quantity surveyor
- VAT on retention at the timing you choose — Choose whether VAT on retention falls due when the retention is released or on every certificate. The split is worked out the same way on every claim, and you should confirm the treatment with your tax adviser.For: Accountant, Tenant admin
- VAT on held retention falls due by a set day — Where the law does not let VAT on retention wait for the release, the daily check records the day it falls due: by default in the UAE the earliest of the invoice, the payment and 12 months after practical completion, and in Saudi Arabia the earliest of the invoice and the payment. Each default comes from published guidance and says so; confirm it with your tax adviser or set your company's own rule. You are warned 30 days before, the VAT on the retention still held is recorded on the day, and the later release does not charge it again.For: Accountant, Tenant admin
- The same by-a-set-day rule for a subcontractor's retention — Retention you hold from a subcontractor follows the same rule, subcontract by subcontract. The daily check warns the job manager and the people who invoice 30 days before, records the VAT on the retention still held from that subcontractor on the day, and the subcontract page offers the supplier bill for it — drafted by Accounting, or the supplier's invoice number recorded by hand. The subcontractor's later release does not charge that VAT again.For: Accountant, Quantity surveyor
- A reduction is flagged for a credit note — When a period comes to less than the last claim, or the deductions would make the amount payable negative, the claim is flagged as needing a credit note, the hub counts it and the accountant raises it. An invoice never carries a negative total.For: Accountant, Construction manager
- The same rules for subcontractors — Subcontracts carry their own retention, advance and VAT terms and use the same calculations, with retention payable and advances paid instead of received.For: Quantity surveyor, Accountant
- Ledgers that are never edited — Retention and advance movements are written once and never changed; a correction is a new movement, so the balance always explains itself.For: Accountant, Construction manager
- Rounded to the currency's own unit — Money is rounded to the currency's own unit (two decimals for AED, SAR and QAR, three for BHD, KWD and OMR), and every period amount is the difference of two rounded cumulative amounts, so the periods always add up to the total.For: Quantity surveyor, Accountant
Invoicing, payment and approvals
From a certified claim to money in the bank, with the right person deciding each step.
- Record the invoice and the payment — Raise the invoice in Accounting or on your own system and record its number and date on the claim; when the client pays, record the payment date and reference. The claim moves from certified to invoiced to paid.For: Accountant
- Ask Accounting to draft the invoice — With the automated path switched on, one press asks Accounting for a draft invoice carrying the work done and, on the same invoice, the retention held back and the advance recovered. Pressing again never creates a second invoice. The path is off until you have confirmed the VAT treatment with your tax adviser.For: Accountant
- The invoice's answer comes back — When the invoice is issued, paid or voided in Accounting the claim follows by itself, shows the invoice number and any VAT difference between the two systems, and goes back to certified if the invoice is voided.For: Accountant
- Retention and advance invoices the same way — A retention release and an advance payment are invoiced, or billed for a subcontractor, by the same request and answer, or recorded by hand.For: Accountant
- Overdue client payments at a glance — The hub tile counts invoiced claims past their payment due date and opens the list sorted by due date, and the list has quick filters for certified-not-invoiced and invoiced-not-paid.For: Accountant, Construction manager
- Approvals through the approval matrix — A submitted claim, variation, subcontract or subcontractor certificate opens an approval in Accounting that follows your approval matrix. Without Accounting, the person who holds the approving permission decides.For: Construction manager, Accountant
- Nobody approves their own submission — The person who submitted a claim, variation, subcontract or certificate, or asked for a budget move, cannot be the one who approves it. The rule is on by default and your administrator can turn it off for a one-person company.For: Construction manager, Tenant admin
Variations
Every change to what the contract is worth, priced, approved and carried through.
- Price a variation by lines or as a lump sum — Add new items and changes to existing items (a quantity change, a new rate), or price the variation as one lump sum. An omission is a negative amount.For: Quantity surveyor
- The reason, the time and the client's instruction — Record why the change was made (client instruction, design change, site condition, omission), the extension of time in days, the client's reference and the instruction or drawing from Documents.For: Quantity surveyor
- Submit, approve, reject, revise, withdraw — The surveyor submits; the manager approves, or rejects with a note the preparer reads. A rejected variation comes back as a draft to revise, and a draft or submitted one can be withdrawn.For: Quantity surveyor, Construction manager
- Approval moves the contract, the bill and the budget — Approving a variation changes the revised contract value, adds or changes the items in the bill and moves the budget of each cost code by its budget effect, which the approver can adjust line by line.For: Construction manager
- Lump-sum variations are claimed by percentage — An approved lump-sum variation is offered on the claim worksheet and claimed as a percentage done, like a lump-sum item.For: Quantity surveyor
Requests for information
Questions to the consultant or the client, who has to answer, and what the answer does to the contract.
- Raise a request for information on a job — Put a question to the consultant or the client when the drawings or the specification do not settle it: a subject, the question, how urgent it is, who has to answer, the date an answer is needed (a week ahead unless you change the setting), whether the answer may change the cost or the programme, and a drawing or photo from Documents.For: Site engineer, Quantity surveyor, Construction manager
- Record the answer, or withdraw the request — Whoever receives the reply records it, with the reply letter attached; the request closes and keeps the answer, who recorded it and when. A request that is no longer needed is withdrawn with a reason. Both are final.For: Construction manager, Quantity surveyor, Site engineer
- Start a variation from an answer — One button opens a draft variation on the same job with the request's number and subject as its title and the question and answer in its description, and links the two. Pricing and approval stay on the variation.For: Quantity surveyor
- Overdue alerts and a register of what is waiting — The daily check tells the job's manager, its quantity surveyor and the person who raised the request when an answer is late, once per due date. The list opens straight onto what is waiting, what is overdue and what is urgent.For: Construction manager, Quantity surveyor, Site engineer
Packages, subcontracts and certificates
Let the work, commit the cost and certify what each subcontractor has done.
- Work packages — Group the work you want to put out: a title, the scope, and the lines from the bill or described freely, each with a quantity, a unit and a budget rate.For: Quantity surveyor
- Make a subcontract from a package — Turn a package into a draft subcontract in one step, then choose the subcontractor from your party records and give every line the cost code it is charged to.For: Quantity surveyor
- Subcontract terms of its own — Each subcontract has its own retention, cap, release share, advance and recovery terms and VAT. A term you leave empty takes your workspace default.For: Quantity surveyor, Tenant admin
- Approve, issue, sign, complete, close — A subcontract is a draft until it is submitted, approved and issued; the signed copy is recorded; it is completed when the work is done and closed when every certificate is paid. Terminating needs a reason.For: Quantity surveyor, Construction manager
- Committed cost on the budget — The lines of an approved subcontract become committed cost against their cost codes, so the budget grid shows what you have already promised to spend and what remains.For: Construction manager, Quantity surveyor
- Subcontractor certificates — Certify each period on the same worksheet as a client claim: work done to date by line, retention held back, advance recovered. A certificate starts from the last one and a subcontract has one open certificate at a time.For: Quantity surveyor, Construction manager
- Contra charges — Record what you recover from a subcontractor for the period (crane hire, cleaning, damage) with the cost code it recovers and the supporting file. They reduce what is paid for the work, or are set off as a separate supply, as your settings say.For: Quantity surveyor
- From certificate to bill — A certified certificate is billed by hand, recording the subcontractor's bill number and date, or, with the automated path on, drafted in Accounting. Billing makes the work done a job cost and moves the commitment.For: Accountant, Quantity surveyor
- Over-value certification is refused — A subcontractor cannot be certified above the subcontract value unless you allow it in your settings.For: Quantity surveyor, Tenant admin
- Change a subcontract with a variation — When the subcontractor is asked to do more, raise a variation on the signed subcontract instead of a new one: itemised lines or a lump sum, with the signed variation order attached. Someone other than the person who submitted it approves it. The subcontract's revised value, its retention cap and the budget's committed cost move together, and the new lines appear on the next certificate.For: Quantity surveyor, Construction manager
- A printed subcontractor certificate — Print the subcontractor's payment certificate in English and Arabic: the signed value, the approved variations, the revised value and the retention cap, every line with the ones a variation added marked, the deductions and the amount payable.For: Quantity surveyor, Accountant
- Tender a package through Procurement — Send a work package to tender and Procurement opens a draft tender from it — the lines with your budget rates as the buyer's estimate, the package as its source, you as the buyer — without publishing or inviting anyone. When the buyer awards it, a draft subcontract appears for each awarded supplier at the awarded rates, every line keeping its package line and bill-of-quantities item. Cancelling the tender, or the package while it is out, withdraws the tender while it is still a draft or open to bids.For: Construction manager, Buyer
Bonds and guarantees
Every bank guarantee, with the days left on it.
- A register of every guarantee — Record bid, performance, advance payment, retention and warranty bonds, whether you gave them to the client or a subcontractor gave them to you, with the bank, the amount and the document.For: Accountant, Quantity surveyor
- Issue, extend, release, call — Record a bond as issued with the bank's reference and dates, extend it with the bank's letter (the old date stays in the history), release it, or record a call. A call cannot be more than the bond.For: Construction manager, Accountant
- Warnings before expiry — The daily check warns the team at the days you choose (90, 60, 30 and 7 by default) and marks a bond past its expiry date as expired. The hub counts bonds expiring in the next 30 days.For: Construction manager, Accountant
Extension of time and liquidated damages
Move the completion date when something outside your control delays the job, and keep the damages for lateness fair.
- Claims for more time — Raise an extension-of-time claim with its cause, the days asked and the delay it rests on, and link the site diaries and variations that show the delay. A different person grants it for a number of days or rejects it with a reason; the person who submitted it can never decide it.For: Quantity surveyor, Construction manager
- A completion date that follows the contract — The revised completion date is the original finish date plus the days of approved variations plus the days of granted extensions. The job shows each part, the days late today and what the damages stand at.For: Construction manager, Quantity surveyor
- Liquidated damages on a progress claim — Set a damages rate per day late and a cap on the job. A claim whose period ends after the completion date deducts the days late times the rate, never above the cap and never twice, as its own line with its VAT effect set by a setting your tax adviser can confirm.For: Quantity surveyor, Accountant
- Pass the damages down — Charge all or part of the damages a claim deducted to the subcontractor responsible: it becomes a contra charge on that subcontractor's draft certificate, with the reason kept, and can be taken back while the certificate is still a draft.For: Construction manager, Quantity surveyor
Site diary
The day on site, written once, with who was there and what held it up.
- One diary for each job and day — Write the weather and temperature, the people on site by trade with their hours, the work done against cost codes, materials delivered or used, delays with the hours lost, and a summary of the day.For: Site engineer
- Equipment from the asset register — Pick a machine from your asset register or describe it, with the hours it worked and the hours it stood idle.For: Site engineer
- Incidents and near misses — Report what happened (near miss, injury, damage, environment), its severity from 1 to 4, a description and the people involved. The names and the description stay in the record; the manager is told the kind and severity.For: Site engineer, Construction manager
- Photos filed in Documents — Take or add photos on the diary; they are filed in Documents with the record.For: Site engineer
- A location stamp — Stamp the diary with where it was written and how accurate the position is. It is optional, or required before hand-in if you set it so.For: Site engineer, Tenant admin
- Write offline — With no signal on site the diary keeps what you type on the device and offers it back when you reopen the page, so a day's notes are not lost.For: Site engineer
- Hand in, approve or send back — The engineer hands the diary in for review; the manager approves it or sends it back with what to change. An approved diary never changes, and an older diary can be edited only by an approver after the lock days you set.For: Site engineer, Construction manager
- A reminder for a missing diary — When yesterday's diary was not written for a running job the daily check reminds the manager, once.For: Construction manager
- Midday break and heat checks — Off until a company turns it on. The diary asks for each crew's start and end time, checks outdoor work against the country's summer midday break (UAE: 12:30 to 15:00, 15 June to 15 September) and will not be handed in with work through the break unless a reason from the country's list is picked: a concrete pour that cannot be stopped, asphalt laying, or an emergency repair of a utility. Shade, drinking water and cooling are recorded, more than the day's hours a worker warns as overtime, and a Summer compliance report lists every exception per job. The dates, hours and reasons are data per country.For: Site engineer, Construction manager
Snags, defects and handover
What is left to put right before handover, what comes up after it, and the certificate that hands the job over.
- A snag list with photos and owners — Record each snag with a title, where it is, the trade, a priority, a due date and photos, and say which subcontract has to fix it. Every snag is numbered per job and shows what is past its date.For: Site engineer, Quantity surveyor
- A fix is checked by someone else — The person who puts a snag right records the fix with a note or a photo; a second person checks it and closes it, or sends it back with what is still wrong. The person who recorded the fix cannot close it.For: Site engineer, Quantity surveyor
- Accept a snag as it is, or void it — A snag can be handed over as it is, with the reason, and then appears on the handover certificate as an exception; one raised by mistake is voided. Neither can be undone and the reason stays on the record.For: Construction manager
- A defects register for the defects period — Record defects found after handover, fix and close them the same way, and see which are open. An open defect holds the final retention release back until it is closed, charged or waived.For: Quantity surveyor, Construction manager
- Charge a defect to the subcontractor — Recover the cost from the subcontractor that did the work: a contra charge is added to its open certificate and reduces what it is paid. You can take the charge back until the certificate is certified.For: Quantity surveyor
- The handover certificate — When no snag is open, issue the certificate: it records the date, the scope and the snag counts, and lists the snags accepted as they are as its exceptions. A wrong certificate is voided and a new one issued.For: Construction manager
- Final retention waits for open defects — Your setting decides what the final retention release does while a defect is open: ask the person to confirm they know, refuse, or ignore. The release screen shows how many are open.For: Accountant, Construction manager
Work in progress
Where each job really stands at the end of the month, and what that does to the books.
- A snapshot at each period end — Take a snapshot of a job at a period end, measuring progress by cost spent or by work certified. It works out the expected cost at completion, the percentage complete, what is earned, what is billed and whether you are billed ahead of or behind the work.For: Quantity surveyor, Construction manager
- Your own estimate to complete — Where you know better than the budget how much is left to spend on a cost code, type your own estimate with the reason; the rest default to what remains of the budget.For: Quantity surveyor
- A loss is provided at once — When the expected cost at completion is above the contract value the whole expected loss is recognised in that period: revenue to date already shows part of it, and a provision carries the rest, so the loss is never counted twice.For: Accountant, Construction manager
- Approve, discard and post to the ledger — A manager approves or discards a snapshot; an approved one can be posted to the ledger as a single entry that reverses the last posted position and books the new one, so the ledger always equals the latest posted snapshot. Posting is off until you switch it on in your settings.For: Construction manager, Accountant
- Jobs billed behind the work — A hub tile counts jobs whose latest snapshot shows work done but not yet billed, and opens the work-in-progress list.For: Construction manager, Accountant
Roles, settings and control
Who may do what, what your terms are, and a record of every change.
- Roles that separate who prepares from who decides — Three roles come with the module: construction manager, quantity surveyor and site engineer. The surveyor prepares claims, variations and certificates but cannot certify a claim, approve a variation, release retention or close a job; the engineer writes measurements and diaries only. Accountants and managers gain the keys that suit them.For: Tenant admin, Construction manager
- A permission for each step — Every action has its own permission, so you can give a person the right to invoice a claim without letting them certify it, or to release a bond without letting them edit one. Custom roles can mix any of them.For: Tenant admin
- Switch each feature on or off — Turn bill import, variations, claims, subcontracts, retention release, advances, bonds, the site diary, labour and equipment costing and work in progress on or off for your workspace. A feature that is off disappears from the menus and is refused by the server.For: Tenant admin
- Your terms in one settings page — Set the defaults new jobs start from (retention, advances, defects period, VAT timing), the days to certify and to pay, the share of materials on site that counts, bond warning days, the diary lock, how a cost code over budget is treated and how progress is measured.For: Tenant admin, Construction manager
- Document numbers in your own pattern — Choose the pattern of each number (jobs, claims, variations, subcontracts, certificates, packages, bonds, diaries, advances and releases), using the year, the job number and a counter.For: Tenant admin
- A home page that acts — Seven tiles count what needs you: jobs running, claims to certify, client payments overdue, claims needing a credit note, bonds expiring, jobs over budget and jobs billed behind the work. Each opens its list already filtered, and a tile you may not open is not shown.For: Construction manager, Accountant
- History on every record — Every job, claim, variation, subcontract, certificate, bond and diary has a history of who changed what and when, from and to, in plain words.For: Construction manager, Tenant admin
- Arabic and English, right to left — Every screen and printed certificate works in Arabic and English, with right-to-left layout and optional Hijri dates.For: Construction manager, Quantity surveyor, Site engineer, Accountant, Tenant admin
- An assistant that knows contracting — Ask the AI copilot about your jobs, claims, variations, bonds or diaries, or let it prepare a draft such as a claim or a variation for you to review. It sees only what your role may see, and everything it can do is also available through the developer API.For: Construction manager, Quantity surveyor
Learn it in the app
A guided tour inside Construction & Contracting teaches the work by having you do it.
- Hands-on guided tour — 6 short chapters (Open a contract job; Set up a new job; Run the site day to day; Handle changes and delays; Claim and certify payments; Figures across your jobs) that start by themselves the first time you open Construction & Contracting. Each step waits for you to really do it, such as opening a list or saving a first record, and any chapter can be paused, resumed or replayed from the last row of the Construction & Contracting menu or from Tours in the account menu.For: Construction manager, Quantity surveyor, Tenant admin, Site engineer, Accountant, Buyer
Works with other modules
A certified claim becomes an invoice in AccountingWith the automated path switched on, a certified claim, an advance or a retention release asks Accounting for a draft invoice, with the retention and the advance recovery as deductions on the same invoice. Accounting answers when the invoice is issued, paid or voided and the claim follows. Without it the accountant raises the invoice and records its number by hand.Approvals, cost codes and job cost flow both waysA submitted claim, variation, subcontract or certificate opens an approval in Accounting that follows your matrix, and the decision returns. Your cost codes are copied to Accounting's cost analysis, and costs posted there against a job's project, with the tax rates, come back to the job.Work in progress is posted to the ledgerWhen you post an approved work-in-progress snapshot, Accounting books one entry for the contract asset or liability, the revenue and any loss provision, reversing the last posted position, so the ledger always equals the latest snapshot.A contract job and its projectEvery contract job is tied to one project in Projects, which keeps the schedule and the tasks. The job reads the project's name and status, and an archived project is flagged on its live job.Approved timesheets price the job's labourWhen Attendance reports an approved day by project, the hours are priced from your labour rate cards and costed to the job, and they pre-fill the site diary's manpower. Until Attendance reports hours by project, the diary's manpower is typed by hand.Pick the machine from the asset registerThe site diary lists the machines from your asset register, with their tag, name and status, so equipment on site is one record, not typed text. Without Assets, equipment is described in words.Clients, subcontractors and banks are partiesThe client of a job, a subcontractor and the bank behind a bond are picked from the register of parties, so each exists once. When two parties are merged, the jobs, subcontracts and bonds follow the surviving one.Contracts, bond letters, delivery notes and site photosFiles that belong to a job are kept in Documents and linked from the record: the contract and its signed copy, a bond and its extension letters, a delivery note for materials on site, a variation's instruction, and the diary's photos.The right person is told before a guarantee expiresThe daily check sends alerts for bonds approaching their expiry, claims waiting for certification, overdue client payments and missing diaries, and the incident notice for a site diary, each once, to the people the module's workflows name.Job contracts and subcontracts are signed through ContractsConstruction asks Contracts to collect the signatures for a job contract or a subcontract and is told the outcome, which is then shown on the job or the subcontract. Where Contracts is not in your plan, the signed copy is uploaded by hand.
Done by more than one person
A progress claim becomes money in the bankA variation changes the contract only when it is approvedA subcontractor is certified, billed and paidThe site diary is written, reviewed and keptBudget moves between cost codes with a second personA snag is fixed by one person and closed by another
What each role gets
- Construction manager — Answers for the contract jobs. Creates and activates a job, approves variations and subcontracts, records the engineer's certificate on each claim, releases retention and bonds, approves site diaries and budget moves, posts work in progress and sets the module's terms. Nobody approves their own submission.
- Quantity surveyor — Prepares the money. Keeps the bill of quantities and imports it from Excel, agrees measurements, prepares progress claims, prices variations, drafts packages and subcontracts, certifies subcontractor applications and takes work-in-progress snapshots. Cannot certify a claim, approve a variation, release retention or close a job.
- Site engineer — Works on site. Measures the work against the bill of quantities, writes the site diary each day with people, equipment, delays, incidents and photos, and hands it in for review. Reads the job, the bill and the cost codes and nothing else.
- Accountant — Turns certified work into money. Records or requests the invoice for each claim and the bill for each subcontractor certificate, records payments, releases retention, tracks advances and the guarantee register, and posts approved work in progress to the ledger.
- Tenant admin — Switches the module on, grants the roles, turns features on or off and sets the terms new jobs start from: retention, advances, VAT timing, alert days, numbering and which exchanges with other modules run.
Frequently asked questions
Does it work out retention, advance recovery and VAT on a progress claim?
Yes. Each job keeps its own terms, which start from your settings, and the claim shows the work done, the retention held back, the advance recovered, the taxable amount, the VAT and the amount payable as you type. Which VAT timing applies to retention is a setting you should confirm with your tax adviser.
Can it raise the tax invoice for a certified claim?
Accounting can draft the invoice from a certified claim, with the retention and the advance recovery as deductions on the same invoice. That automated path is switched off until you have confirmed the VAT treatment with your tax adviser; until then your accountant raises the invoice and records its number and date on the claim.
Who certifies a claim, and can the same person prepare it?
The client's engineer certifies; your construction manager records the certificate. The surveyor who prepared the claim cannot record it, and nobody approves their own submission while that setting is on, which it is by default.
Can I import our bill of quantities from Excel?
Yes. Choose the workbook, map its columns, and every row is checked and explained before anything is added, up to 20,000 rows at a time. Importing the same file again does not duplicate items.
Does the site diary work without a signal?
The diary keeps what you type on the device while you are offline and offers it back when you reopen the page. The other pages need a connection.
Does it work without Accounting?
Yes. Without Accounting a claim stops at certified, you record the invoice and the payment by hand, VAT comes from the rate in your settings, and work in progress stays at approved. With Accounting, approvals follow your approval matrix and job cost and the ledger flow both ways.
Which currencies and VAT rates does it use?
The job's currency, with money rounded to that currency's own unit (two decimals for AED, SAR and QAR, three for BHD, KWD and OMR). The VAT rate comes from the tax you choose on the job, or from the standard rate for your country when you choose none.
Can my client or subcontractor sign in?
No. There is no client or subcontractor portal: your team enters what they send you, and prints the certificate for the client.
Can the person who fixes a snag also close it?
No. A second person checks the work and closes the snag, so a fix is never marked as right by the person who did it. Your administrator can switch that rule off for the whole module in the settings, under 'Nobody approves their own submission'.
Part of one platform
Construction & Contracting is one of 59 apps (36 business apps and 23 ISO standards) that share the same sign-in, the same people, the same customers and the same AI copilot. See all apps or how Tarleaks ERP compares with Odoo, ERPNext and Zoho.