Claiming by percentage complete

Not every contract pays on fixed stages. Where yours claims on percentage complete, you assess how far through the work you are and claim that share of the contract.

Contract completed at the top of the claim is not somewhere you type — it is calculated from the stages. You enter your assessment on the Stages tab, as the Claim % against each stage, and the figures above follow.

When you would use it

Contract type	Usually claims on
Domestic fixed-price	Stages
Commercial	Percentage complete
Cost-plus	Actual cost, reported periodically
Small works	Either, often a deposit and a final

Assessing the percentage honestly

The temptation is to claim what your cash flow needs. The discipline is to claim what is built.

Two ways to assess it defensibly:

By value of work complete. Go through the trades and work out what proportion of each is done, weighted by its value in the bill. Slower, and far harder to argue with, because it comes from your own contract pricing.

By cost to date. Compare actual cost against total estimated cost. Quick, and reasonable when the job is running to budget — but it flatters you when you are overspending, because the overspend reads as progress.

Cost to date is not the same as progress

If you have spent 60% of the budget but only 45% of the work is built, you are 45% complete and 15% over. Claiming 60% invites a rejection and, on a contract with a superintendent, an assessment you will not like.

Worked example

The Hendricks job on a percentage-complete contract, assessed by value:

Trade	Value	Complete	Earned
Preliminaries	$12,400	70%	$8,680
Site works	$8,900	100%	$8,900
Concrete	$9,784	100%	$9,784
Framing	$34,200	100%	$34,200
Roofing	$18,600	100%	$18,600
External cladding	$22,100	60%	$13,260
Windows and doors	$16,800	100%	$16,800
Services	$28,400	40%	$11,360
Internal linings	$19,200	0%	$0
Fixing and joinery	$24,600	0%	$0
Painting	$11,200	0%	$0
Final clean	$2,400	0%	$0
Total	$208,584		$121,584

That is 58.3% complete.

To claim it, set the Claim % on the Stages tab so the stages add up to 58.3% of the contract — the footer’s Claim % is the share of the whole contract, so it is the number to watch. This claim value at the top then shows 58.3% of the contract sum less what has already been claimed.

Where your contract stages are coarser than your assessment, the usual approach is to part-claim the stage you are inside: with base and frame complete and lock-up one-third built, that is lock-up at 33%, not a stage ticked or left.

Note preliminaries at 70% rather than a share of elapsed time. Prelims are largely front-loaded — site establishment, fencing, temporary services — so they run ahead of the build, and claiming them by calendar time under-claims early.

Keep your working

Whatever method you use, keep the assessment. Percentage claims get queried far more often than stage claims, because the number is a judgement rather than a fact.

A table like the one above answers the query in one email. “It felt like about 60%” does not.

Mixing stages and percentages

Some contracts do both — stages for the base building, percentage for a variation works package.

SmarteBuild will let you claim either way. Be explicit on the claim about which is which, so the client can follow it. A claim that mixes the two without saying so reads as an error even when it is right.

The final claim

The last claim brings the total to 100% of the contract sum including approved variations.

Check it closes out exactly. If your claims to date plus this one do not equal the contract sum, something earlier was over- or under-claimed, and the final claim is where it surfaces — usually in front of a client who is already looking closely.