Applications for Payment Software for UK Contractors

The Problem

Late payments are the number one reason UK subcontractors go bust. Most SMEs run their valuations in a spreadsheet, miss a Pay Less Notice deadline, and end up chasing invoices through gritted teeth while suppliers wait.

What Changes

Build applications against the contract schedule, track the 7-day Pay Less Notice window, get applications certified through a client portal, and hold a full audit trail for every line — ready for the day a £40k variation gets questioned.

Construction Act s.111 deadlines tracked automaticallyNEC3/NEC4 and JCT valuation cyclesClients approve via a one-tap link — no sign-up neededPay Less Notice + Payment Certificate PDFs ready to send

How It Works

From first draft to certified value, keep the process simple, consistent, and easy to evidence when a line is challenged six months later.

1
Set the contract mechanics
Configure valuation period, application day of month or days-before-deadline, retention percentage, and contract type (NEC3, NEC4 ECC Option A/B/C, JCT D&B 2016). The platform uses these to project future deadlines automatically.
2
Build the application
Create an application for the period, add priced line items from the contract schedule, attach variations (with reasons and evidence), and include backup photos. Retention and cumulative applied are calculated live.
The Applications for Payment dashboard — total applied, total certified, variance, how many are awaiting action, and every live application on the job listed below. One click through for the detail.
3
Submit and start the clock
Export a professional PDF pack or send via the client portal. The platform starts tracking the Due Date, the Final Date for Payment, and the 7-day Pay Less Notice window required by Construction Act s.111.
An open application showing the Pay Less Notice countdown, applied vs certified values, retention, and the client approval panel where your QS marks each line.
4
Your client approves it — no login required
Your client (or their QS) opens a one-tap link. No sign-up, no password, no "can you resend that?". They mark each line as approved, reduced, or queried. Every change is time-stamped and traced back to whoever made it, so applied vs certified is always in sight.
5
Issue the notices, compliant and ready
Payment Certificates and Pay Less Notices generate straight from the application — with the right notice date, due date and Final Date for Payment worked out for you. Every PDF is saved against the application and every signature is time-stamped, so when a value gets challenged months later the paper trail is already there.
6
Chase the right thing — automatically
Every morning the system checks every live application and flags the ones getting close to their Pay Less Notice window. You get a nudge for the one that actually matters — not the loudest email in your inbox. Across jobs, it tells you what you are owed, what is overdue, and what you can chase today.

Features That Move The Needle

Built for high-stakes construction workflows: deadlines, compliance, and audit trails.

Pay Less Notice nudges

A nudge 7 days before the deadline, another at 3 days, and a final one the day before. Miss the Pay Less Notice window and you have lost your right to dispute the full application value. Do not miss it.

NEC3 / NEC4 / JCT — set once, used every time

Pick the contract type on the project — NEC3, NEC4 Options A/B/C, JCT D&B 2016 — and the valuation cycle comes with it. No more explaining to a US tool why your contract does not work like a purchase order.

Client approval without a login

Send your client a one-tap link. They open it on their phone or laptop, mark each line as approved, reduced, or queried, and every change is time-stamped and traced back to them. No sign-ups, no password resets, no "can you resend that?".

Construction Act-compliant PDFs

Payment Certificates and Pay Less Notices drop out of the system with the correct notice date, due date, and Final Date for Payment already worked out. Ready to send — you do not have to build them from a template.

Every line has a history

Every reduction, query, and approval is time-stamped and attributed. When a £40k variation gets questioned nine months later, you can show exactly what was said and when — not hunt through email threads.

Retention and variations in one view

Retention percentages, release schedules, JCT variations and NEC compensation events sit on the same application — not in a spreadsheet that someone forgot to save.

Early Warning register

Capture NEC Early Warnings on the same project, so programme and commercial risks stay joined up instead of sitting in two different systems.

Unlimited users on every plan

QS, directors, site teams, accounts — everyone sees what they need. You do not pay more when the team grows, and you do not have to ration logins.

UK Construction Act built in

Compliant with the frameworks your contracts actually reference

Most US-built construction tools ignore how UK payment law actually works. Site Samurai is built around HGCRA 1996 (as amended by LDEDCA 2009), the NEC and JCT contract families, and the 2011 Scheme for Construction Contracts — because that is what sits on your desk.

Housing Grants, Construction and Regeneration Act 1996

HGCRA (as amended by LDEDCA 2009) defines the notice sequence on every UK construction contract: Due Date, Payment Notice, Pay Less Notice at least 7 days before the Final Date for Payment. If the payer misses both notices, the notified sum is the applied-for amount. The platform tracks this sequence per application and fires deadline alerts at 7, 3, and 1 day.

HGCRA 1996 on legislation.gov.uk

Construction Act s.111 — Pay Less Notices

Section 111 requires a Pay Less Notice to be issued at least 7 days before the Final Date for Payment if the payer intends to pay less than the notified sum. Miss it, and the notified sum is payable in full. The platform generates s.111-compliant Pay Less Notice PDFs from the live application data.

NEC3 / NEC4 ECC — Options A, B, C

Record the NEC option on the project and the valuation cycle propagates to every application. Compensation events sit alongside the application and the Early Warning register preserves the programme-commercial link NEC requires.

JCT D&B 2016 and family

Configure the application day of month or days-before-deadline and the platform projects your interim valuation dates automatically. Retention and Final Account mechanics follow the JCT schedule.

Why not just keep using spreadsheets (or buy Procore)?

Most UK SME contractors try three things before they get to software that fits. Here is what goes wrong.

Excel / Google Sheets

No Pay Less Notice deadline tracking — you remember or you miss
Line-item audit trail is whoever last saved the file
No client portal — certifications live in email threads
Variations drift out of sync with the valuation
One QS off sick = nobody knows where the master is

Procore / Buildertrend

US-built — Construction Act is an afterthought
Enterprise pricing (£1,000s/month) for SME-scale jobs
No native NEC3/NEC4/JCT contract types
Pay Less Notices aren’t a proper built-in output — you’d have to template them yourself
Per-seat pricing punishes you as the team grows

Sage / Xero construction add-ons

Built for accounting, not commercial management
No application line-item workflow with client certification
Retention and variations are bolt-ons, not core
No Construction Act notice sequence awareness
No portal for client QS review without a login

Site Samurai

Pay Less Notice nudges at 7, 3 and 1 day before every deadline
NEC3 / NEC4 (A/B/C) and JCT D&B set once per project
Clients approve via a one-tap link — no login, no password
Payment Certificates and Pay Less Notices ready to send as PDFs
Unlimited users on every plan — add your whole team, no extra cost

Site Samurai is built in the UK for UK SME contractors. The Construction Act runs the timings, NEC and JCT are baked in from the start, and unlimited users on every plan means you are not re-doing the licence maths every time the team changes.

Free templates — use them today, software or not

Three Construction Act-ready templates you can download and use on your next application. No signup. Want the whole workflow joined up? Start a trial or book 15 minutes with Rich.

Payment Notice Template

HGCRA-compliant Payment Notice with the correct fields: notified sum, due date, basis of calculation. Use as-is or adapt to your contract.

DOCX

Payment Notice — Worked Example

A filled-in Payment Notice with commentary on each field so you can see how the Act mechanics land on a real valuation.

PDF

Payment Notice Template (PDF)

Print-ready version of the Payment Notice template. Same fields, same HGCRA compliance, in PDF form.

PDF

Seen enough?

Start a 14-day free trial with no card required, or book 15 minutes with Rich (the founder) to walk through your exact workflow.

Not ready? Grab the free templates instead →

Why It Works

Proper UK Construction Act payment cycles, a client portal that does not need your client to sign up, and Pay Less Notice nudges before every deadline — built for NEC and JCT, not a US project tool pretending to be.

Site Samurai — built for UK SME contractors

Construction Act s.111 aware on every application

Unlimited

Users on every plan

NEC + JCT

Contract types supported

7-day

Pay Less Notice nudges built in

Who It’s For

If you're a QS juggling three live valuations and losing Wednesdays to chasing Pay Less Notice deadlines in Outlook
If you run commercial on groundworks or civils jobs and your Excel tracker is one crashed laptop away from a final-account disaster
If your contracts are NEC3/NEC4 Options A/B/C or JCT D&B and the mechanics are different enough that a US tool gets it wrong
If you're the SME director whose monthly question is 'where are we on cashflow?' — and the answer takes two days to reconstruct
If you're a subcontractor who's been stung by a disputed final account and wants audit-grade evidence from day one
If you're a main contractor tracking both what you owe subbies and what clients owe you — and the two live in different spreadsheets

Already using Site Samurai? Jump to the module features and workflows your team needs.

FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions teams ask before they book a demo.

An application for payment is the interim submission a contractor or subcontractor issues for work completed in a period, usually monthly. Under the Housing Grants, Construction and Regeneration Act 1996 (as amended by the 2009 Act), it triggers a defined sequence: Due Date, Payment Notice (by the payer), Pay Less Notice (at least 7 days before the Final Date for Payment), and Final Date for Payment. If the payer misses the Payment Notice and the Pay Less Notice, the applied-for sum becomes the notified sum and is payable in full.

Yes. Every morning we check every live application against its Final Date for Payment and work out which ones have a Pay Less Notice window coming up. You get a nudge 7 days before the deadline, another at 3 days, and a final one the day before. These are warnings, not hard blocks — you stay in control — but nothing goes missing in an inbox.

Yes. Pick the contract type on the project — NEC3, NEC4 ECC Options A, B or C, or JCT D&B 2016 — and set the valuation cycle once (monthly, a specific day of the month, or so many days before a due date). Every application on that project then uses the same mechanics. The 2011 amendments to the Construction Act apply to both NEC and JCT unless your contract says otherwise.

You send your client a one-tap link. They open it on their phone or laptop, see the application line-by-line, and approve, reduce, or query each item. No account creation, no password resets. Every change they make is time-stamped and traced back to them. The link only works for that specific application, so it is not a back-door into anything else.

Yes. Both values live on every application line, so you always know the delta. A cashflow dashboard across jobs surfaces what is applied, certified, due, and overdue — so the QS is chasing the three applications that matter, not re-typing the same spreadsheet for the weekly review.

Variations (JCT) and compensation events (NEC) are tracked on the project and can be attached to the relevant application. Retention is configured per project as a percentage and accumulates automatically across applications. There is a separate register for Early Warnings on NEC contracts so programme and commercial risks stay linked.

Yes. Application packs export as a professional PDF including priced line items, variations, retention, cumulative applied, and all attached evidence (photos, backup documents). A separate Payment Certificate PDF and Pay Less Notice PDF are generated from the live certification data.

Under Construction Act s.111, if the payer does not issue a valid Payment Notice and does not issue a valid Pay Less Notice at least 7 days before the Final Date for Payment, the applied-for sum becomes the notified sum and is due in full. Site Samurai keeps the history you need to prove what was issued and when — including when your client opened the approval link and what they did with it.

Yes. Every line has a history: when it was applied for, who certified it or reduced it, what queries were raised, and what evidence was attached. When a value gets challenged nine months later during final account negotiations, you are not trying to piece the story back together from email threads.

Yes. Book a free 15-minute demo with Rich, the founder — he built Site Samurai for his own groundworks company and runs the demos himself. He will map your specific contract mechanics (NEC option, valuation day, retention) onto the platform so you can see whether it fits before committing to a trial.