See how your NEC contracts are really being run
You pay for the outcome of every reply your Project Manager sends or misses, often without seeing it. Contract Status gives your organisation one shared record with your contractors, and a view across every contract you have let.
Why clients care about procedure
NEC contracts are meant to be managed day to day. The reward for doing so is that problems are raised early, and that time and money change by a visible process. The cost of not doing so can fall on the Client. A late reply to the Contractor is itself a compensation event (60.1(6)). A notification or quotation can be treated as accepted if no reply follows the Contractor's notice (61.4, 62.6, 64.4). Under NEC4, a programme can too (31.3).
So when a sponsor asks "are we in control of this contract?", the answer should come from the record, not from whoever gave the most recent update. This matters even more if you have to account for how public money was spent, or if you use different consultants as your Project Managers across a programme.
A day with NEC, without it and with it
| When | The old way | With Contract Status |
|---|---|---|
| Sponsor meeting | You have the PM's report. It says all is well, and the forecast is unchanged from last month. | You can see open compensation events, the Completion Date in force and the largest risks, from the same contract page they use. |
| Audit query | Someone asks when an instruction was given. You ask the consultant, who asks their assistant, who has left. | The instruction is on the record, with who submitted it and when, and every later change is shown. |
| Programme of works | Each consultant reports in a different format. You cannot compare one contract with another. | Contract Intelligence applies the contract's time limits to each obligation, and shows them side by side. |
| A contractor changes | Their people and their files go with them. | The contract's history stays with you. A close-out pack contains the history, the timeline and every document. |
| Month end | You find out the certificate went late after the contractor raises it. | A page shows which applications came on time, and whether certificates followed within a week. |
What it gives your organisation
Time limits, watched for you
Contract health uses your contract's own periods. It shows Red, Amber, Green or Unknown, with the clause and next step. Unknown means a rule could not be checked: it never pretends to be Green.
A register per NEC process
Early warnings (15), compensation events (60 to 66), programmes (31 and 32), payment (50 and 51), Defects (43 to 46), tests and inspections (41), each its own register. NEC3 contracts use NEC3 numbers and words.
Spending control
Money approvals hold a quotation decision or Task Order over a role's limit until someone whose limit covers it releases it. The Contractor sees nothing until then.
Your standard clauses and Z clauses
Keep your own Z clause library, and use your own wording where you need to. Every sent notice records the clause as sent.
Access that is right
Roles by side, read-only viewers and payment figures only for those allowed. A role change is previewed and saved with a reason. Permissions are checked on the server.
Your data, out when you need it
Reports as PDF and spreadsheet, a data feed for Power BI or Excel, and a close-out pack for your records.
Works however you run contracts
Your Project Manager and Supervisor might be your own staff, or a consultant. Either way they work in your account with the role you give them, and your contractors work on the same records from their own side. The two sides name themselves in your words. NEC3 contracts say Employer. NEC4 contracts say Client.
What you put in the contract still matters. Whether a message in the system counts as a communication depends on clause 13 and your Scope or Works Information, so if you plan to use it for all contract communications, say so in the contract. Our guide on communications covers this.
See it, try it, read up
Nobody has responded to my early warning
A contractor's early warning gets no response. Contract Status shows it overdue on the register, and lets either side ask for an early warning meeting.
See the exampleThe Project Manager has rejected my compensation event
A contractor's notification is rejected. Contract Status keeps the decision, the reason and the dates on the record, ready for the next conversation.
See the exampleAn instruction came with no compensation event
The Project Manager gives an instruction and notifies no compensation event. How the contractor picks it up in Contract Status and notifies it.
See the exampleTry the role-play
You are the sponsor. Your Project Manager has a problem, and the board wants an answer.
Play the scenarioTake a download
Checklists for setting up and managing an NEC contract from the Client's side.
See the downloadsRead up
What NEC asks of a Client, and how to stay in control.
Read the guideShow your project team how it would work
We can walk through a whole contract on sample data. Bring your commercial, PMO and project leads if it helps.