A calendar in someone's head
Your practice is on twelve live contracts. Each has its own valuation dates, its own period for the payment notice and its own final date for payment. Some are monthly on a fixed day, some follow a schedule in the contract particulars, some were varied when the programme changed.
Each surveyor keeps their own dates, usually in Outlook or in the back of a notebook. When someone is on leave or off sick, the dates go with them. More than once, a notice has gone out on the last possible day because someone happened to notice.
Why notice dates are easy to miss
The dates themselves are not hard. What makes them risky is that they are spread across many contracts, set up differently for each, and never held in one place where the practice can see them.
- Contract particulars are read at the start of the job and the dates noted by hand.
- Bank holidays and agreed schedule changes shift dates, and not everyone updates their diary.
- Issued notices are saved in project folders, so nobody can see at a glance what has gone out.
- Cover arrangements for leave are informal.
- Nobody at partner level has a view of what is due this week across the practice.
What a missed or late notice can mean
We will not tell you the legal consequences, which depend on the contract and are for your advisers. In practical terms, a late or missing notice can weaken your client's position on the amount paid, lead to difficult conversations with the client, and create work for your professional indemnity conversations that nobody wants. It is also avoidable admin stress for the surveyor involved.
| Date type | Where it comes from | Who needs warning |
|---|---|---|
| Valuation date | Contract particulars or schedule | Project surveyor |
| Payment notice due | Calculated from the confirmed period | Project surveyor and deputy |
| Pay less notice deadline | Calculated from the final date for payment | Project surveyor and deputy |
| Final date for payment | Contract terms as confirmed | Client contact, if you manage it |
The payment calendar we build
- When a contract is set up, a surveyor enters its valuation dates and periods, or confirms them from a reading of the contract particulars that a language model prepares as a draft.
- The calendar calculates every future date for the life of the job, including the effect of bank holidays under the rules your practice has confirmed.
- Each date has a named surveyor and a named deputy.
- Reminders go to both, by email or Teams, a set number of working days before each date, and again on the day if nothing has been recorded as issued.
- When a notice is issued, the surveyor attaches it or marks it issued, so the calendar knows.
- A practice-wide view shows every date due this week and next, and anything overdue, for partners.
- Schedule changes are entered once and all later dates recalculated, with the old dates kept for the record.
The rules for calculating dates are agreed with your team, and where there is doubt about how a contract works, that goes to your advisers. The calendar applies what you have confirmed. It does not interpret contracts.
How the week changes
Monday morning, the partner looks at one screen and sees which notices are due, who holds them and whether they have gone. Surveyors get warned early enough to prepare the valuation properly. When someone is off, their deputy already knows what is coming.
Signs you need this
- Notice dates live in individual surveyors' diaries.
- You have issued a notice on the last day because someone happened to remember.
- Nobody can say at a glance what notices went out last month.
- Leave cover for notice dates is arranged by word of mouth.
- Schedule changes on a contract were not reflected in everyone's diary.