Assess a subcontractor claim

Review a progress claim a subcontractor has submitted, assess it line by line, and approve it to lock in an immutable assessment record. The claim then becomes available for the next step in the payment lifecycle.

When to use this

When a subcontractor's claim arrives in your assessment queue, either submitted through Connect Mobile or entered in NetSuite from a claim received by email or on paper.

Enter a claim received by email or on paper

Open the subcontract (it must be Active; a claim can't be saved against a subcontract that is only Signed, so click Commence first), go to the Claims tab and click New FC PF Vendor Claim. The claim opens on the claim form for the subcontract's jurisdiction (for example FC PF Vendor Claim — NZ).
In Primary Information, fill in the Claim Sequence, the subcontractor's Reference (their invoice or claim number), the Claim Period start and end, and the Tax Code if you need one. There's no Name to enter: a claim is identified by its claim number (for example VCL-12) and its Claim Sequence.
On the Items tab, open Contract Items. Every line on the subcontract's purchase order is listed. Click a line to edit it, and enter either:
- % Complete to Date: the cumulative percentage complete, including earlier claims (as on a progress claim), or
- Claimed Amt This Claim.
The other one fills in to match. Click OK, or just click the next line. Leave lines that aren't being claimed blank.
If the subcontract has approved variations, their lines are on the Variations subtab. Enter those the same way.
If the subcontractor has claimed for anything that isn't on the subcontract, add it on the Additional subtab. See Items claimed that aren't on the subcontract.
Save. The claim is saved in Draft, and you can come back and change it until you submit it.
Click Submit Claim and confirm. The claim moves to Submitted, the Claim Date is set to today and the Assessment Due Date is calculated from it.

The Submitted total in the Summary panel updates as you type.

On NZ CCA subcontracts, submitting also fills in the claim's statutory details, where they're still blank (anything already entered is kept):

Reference Period: the Claim Period start and end
Claimed Due Date for Payment: the claim's Payment Due Date if its payment terms give one; otherwise 20 working days after the Claim Date (the default under the Construction Contracts Act)
Claimant NZBN: from the vendor record
Retention in Trust and Trust Account Reference: from the retention trust account on the subcontract, or failing that the project, or failing that your Project Financials configuration

For example, a claim dated Monday 5 October 2026 has its 20 working days end on Tuesday 3 November 2026, because Labour Day (26 October) is skipped. See How working days are counted.

The Calculation Method Statement, and the subcontractor's acknowledgement that the claim is made under the Act (Statutory Label Acknowledged NZ), are filled in only on claims submitted through Connect. On a claim you enter yourself, record what the subcontractor's own document says.

Prerequisites

Claim in Submitted or Under Assessment status
Parent subcontract is Active, PC (Practical Completion), DLP (Defects Liability Period), or Final — see Subcontract states
Permission to assess claims for the subcontract's subsidiary
Awareness of the Assessment Due Date — the statutory window starts the moment the claim arrives

The claim form at a glance

When you open a claim, the form shows:

Primary Information — the claim ID and its Status (at the top), claim sequence number, claim type, parent subcontract, and (top-right) a Summary panel with running totals. On NZ CCA subcontracts it also shows the claim's Payment Schedule (see Issue a payment schedule).
Key Dates — Service Date, Assessment Due Date, Claim Period, Assessment Date (stamped once you finalise)
Status & Workflow — Submitter (the subcontractor's contact), Assessor, Rejection Reason (if rejected)
Statutory Compliance — jurisdiction-specific fields (e.g. NZBN, Reference Period, Calculation Method Statement for New Zealand; ABN, Supporting Statement for Australia; Pay Less Notice fields for UK)
Items tab, with up to three subtabs:
- Contract Items: the claim against each original line of the subcontract, and what you've assessed
- Variations: the same, for lines added by approved variations. Only shown when the subcontract has them. They're kept apart so variances on variations can be reported separately from the original contract works
- Additional: anything the subcontractor claimed that isn't on the subcontract

The Summary panel shows the claim's totals, and updates as you change amounts in Edit:

Submitted — total the subcontractor is claiming this period
Assessed — total you're approving
Variance — Submitted minus Assessed
Retention This Claim — retention being withheld
Net Payable — the bottom-line amount the subcontractor will receive

Amounts are shown excluding GST

Every amount on the claim screens — the Summary panel and the Items lines — is excluding GST. GST is added once, at the end: on the Vendor Bill, and on the Payment Schedule where it's issued as a buyer-created tax invoice. It's worked out from the tax codes on the subcontract's purchase order lines.

Contract Items and Variations

Contract Items shows one row per original line of the subcontract, and Variations one row per line from an approved variation. Both work the same way. On a new or Draft claim every line is listed; once the claim is submitted, only the lines the subcontractor claimed are shown.

What you can change depends on the claim's status:

Claim status	Opened with	What you can change
New, or Draft	Edit	What's claimed: % Complete to Date, Claimed Amt This Claim
Under Assessment	Edit	Your assessment: Assessed Amt, Variance Reason, Reason Text
Under Assessment	View	One line at a time, with the Assess link on the line
Any other status	View	Nothing. Read only

In Edit, the lists behave like the Items list on a NetSuite transaction. Click a line to edit it: the current line is highlighted, and only its editable columns can be changed. Click OK (or click another line) to accept it, or Cancel to undo your changes to it. The lines themselves are fixed, one per line of the subcontract, so you can't insert or remove lines.

While you're assessing, the columns are:

PO Line #, Item, Description: the line on the subcontract's purchase order
Contract Qty, Rate, Contract Value, Previously Approved: what's been agreed, and what earlier claims have approved
Submitted Amt: what the subcontractor is claiming this period
Assessed Amt: what you're approving
Line Status, Variance Amt, Variance %: worked out from the assessed amount
Variance Reason, Reason Text: why the line isn't being approved in full

Line Status follows from the amounts. You don't set it yourself:

Pending: not assessed yet. A blank Assessed Amt means the line hasn't been assessed; it isn't treated as 0.
Approved: assessed in full (Assessed Amt equals Submitted Amt)
Reduced: assessed at less than claimed
Rejected: assessed at 0

Assessed Amt can't be more than the Submitted Amt. If you type a higher amount, NetSuite tells you and doesn't accept it: you can't approve more than the subcontractor claimed.

Variance Reason and Reason Text

On any line that isn't approved in full (Reduced or Rejected), you need both a Variance Reason and a Reason Text of at least 20 characters. The current line shows a red asterisk in those two cells. The line can't be accepted, nor the claim saved, until both are filled in, and the message names each line that's missing something. If you approve a line in full, its Variance Reason and Reason Text are cleared automatically. Pending lines need neither.

These are the same checks Assess & Approve makes, so a claim you've saved without messages won't be stopped for its lines later, except for any line you haven't assessed yet.

Picking a Variance Reason fills in Reason Text with that reason's standard wording, which you can then edit. It never overwrites text you've typed yourself: it only fills an empty Reason Text, or replaces another reason's standard wording you haven't changed. Other has no standard wording, so write your own.

The reasons supplied are:

Variance Reason	Standard Reason Text
Over-claim	The amount claimed exceeds the value of work completed to date.
Incomplete Work	Work claimed is not complete as at the date of assessment.
Quality Defect	Work claimed is defective and must be remedied before payment.
Awaiting Verification	The work claimed has not yet been verified on site. Payment will be assessed once verified.
Scope Change Pending Variation	Work claimed is outside the contract scope. It will be assessed once a variation is approved.
Other	(none)

Tailoring the Variance Reasons

The six reasons above are supplied as a standard set. Your NetSuite administrator can tailor them to how your business works. They're kept as a list of records called FC PF Claim Line Var Reason (Customization → Lists, Records, & Fields → Record Types, then List on that record type), and each reason has a Default Reason Text.

To stop using a supplied reason, open it and tick Inactive. It no longer appears in the list when assessing. Claims already assessed with it keep it. It stays inactive when the SuiteApp is updated.
To add your own reason, click New on that list and fill in its name and Default Reason Text.
Don't reword the supplied reasons. Updating the Project Financials SuiteApp may reset their wording to the text above. To use different wording, make the supplied reason inactive and add your own.

Items claimed that aren't on the subcontract

Subcontractors sometimes claim for work that isn't on the subcontract, such as extra hire or a site instruction that was never raised as a variation. Record those items on the Additional subtab, so the claim matches what the subcontractor sent you and your response covers every item.

Each Additional row has:

Description (as claimed), Claimed Amt: as the subcontractor claimed it
Assessed Amt: always 0. An item that isn't on the subcontract can't be paid as it stands
Line Status: Pending when added. Set it to Rejected when you decide it
Variance Reason, Reason Text: why it isn't being paid. Because an Additional row is always assessed at 0, every row needs a Variance Reason and a Reason Text of at least 20 characters, whether it's Pending or Rejected. The only exception is a row you're moving onto a contract line. While you're assessing, the row can't be accepted, nor the claim saved, without them. Picking a Variance Reason fills in its standard wording here too

An Additional item can only be paid through a variation. If the work should be paid:

Raise the variation on the subcontract and approve it (see Approve a subcontract variation). Approving it adds its line to the subcontract.
On the claim, in Edit while it's Under Assessment, pick that line in the Additional row's Move to Contract Line column, and save.

The claimed amount is added to this claim's line for that contract line, and the Additional row is removed. Assess the contract line as usual.

You can't set an Additional row to Approved or Reduced yourself. NetSuite stops the row and points you to Move to Contract Line.

On NZ CCA subcontracts, the Payment Schedule lists Additional items in their own section (see Issue a payment schedule).

Number formatting follows your NetSuite preferences

Amounts respect the Number Format set on your user preferences (for example, 1,234.56 US-style or 1.234,56 European-style).

Walkthrough

Walkthrough Scribe coming

A step-by-step Scribe recording of this flow is being prepared. Until it's available, the steps below describe the full path end-to-end.

Step 1 — Open the claim and start the assessment

Open the claim from your queue, a dashboard reminder, or an email notification.
Confirm the claim header is correct — Service Date, Assessment Due Date, parent subcontract.
Click Begin Assessment. The status moves to Under Assessment and you become the recorded Assessor.

Step 2 — Assess each line

There are two ways to assess the lines. Edit is the quicker way when there are several lines to get through.

In Edit (recommended):

Click Edit on the claim.
On Items → Contract Items (and Variations, if shown), click a line and enter the Assessed Amt:
- the Submitted Amt to approve it in full,
- a lower amount to reduce it, or
- 0 to reject it.
If you've reduced or rejected the line, pick a Variance Reason and check or edit the Reason Text it fills in (at least 20 characters).
Click OK, or click the next line to accept this one and move on.
On Items → Additional, give every row a Variance Reason and Reason Text, and decide it: set it to Rejected, or move it onto a contract line once its variation is approved (see Items claimed that aren't on the subcontract).
Click Save. The Summary panel shows the new totals, retention and net payable. You can come back later and continue; the claim stays in Under Assessment until you finalise.

One line at a time, from view mode:

With the claim open in view mode (not Edit), click Assess at the end of a line on Contract Items or Variations.
A window opens showing what's claimed on the line (read only) and the assessment fields: Assessed Amt, Line Status, Variance Amt, Variance %, Variance Reason and Reason Text. The same rules apply as in Edit.
Click Save. The window closes and the claim reloads with the line and totals updated.

If the claim is no longer Under Assessment (for example someone else has finalised it), the window tells you so and nothing is saved.

Reasons are mandatory for reductions

This is a statutory requirement under AU SOP Act and NZ CCA s21. A claim that's reduced or rejected without per-line reasons cannot be finalised — and on AU/NZ jurisdictions, an inadequate response exposes you to the full claimed amount under recent case law.

Step 3 — Finalise the assessment

When every line is decided (no Contract Items, Variations or Additional rows left in Pending) and your statutory compliance fields are complete:

Click Assess & Approve. You're asked to confirm: "Issue this assessment as the final schedule?"
The system runs validation:
- Every line must have a Line Status of Approved, Reduced, or Rejected — no Pending lines remain.
- Every Reduced or Rejected line, and every Additional row, must have a Variance Reason and Reason Text of at least 20 characters.
- No line may be assessed at more than was claimed.
- Jurisdiction-specific statutory fields must be populated.
On NZ CCA subcontracts, if Statutory Label Acknowledged NZ isn't ticked (the subcontractor hasn't stated that the claim is made under the Act), you're warned before the assessment is finalised. It's a warning only: you can go ahead.
Once validation passes, the claim status moves to Assessed — this is the assessment being finalised, not the claim being approved for payment (that's a separate step, see below) — the Assessment Date is stamped, and an immutable schedule snapshot is recorded against the claim — a legal artefact of what you assessed and why, anchored against the AU/NZ precedent (Witron 2023 NSWCA 305; Grove Darwin 2017 NTSC 28).

If you need to reject the whole claim

You can click Reject Claim from either Submitted or Under Assessment. A prompt collects the rejection reason (minimum 20 characters). The claim moves to Rejected and the reason is captured on the header.

Rejecting does not reset the statutory clock

The original Assessment Due Date still applies. If the subcontractor resubmits, fast, clear feedback helps them turn it around in time.

What success looks like

Claim status is Assessed.
Assessor and Assessment Date are stamped on the claim header.
The Summary panel shows your final Submitted / Assessed / Variance / Retention / Net Payable totals.
An immutable schedule snapshot has been created and linked to the claim — visible via the Current Snapshot field.
Reduced and rejected lines all carry a Variance Reason and Reason Text; lines approved in full carry none.

After the assessment

Beyond Assessed, a claim moves on to Approved and then Billed.

To approve an Assessed claim, click Approve Claim and confirm. The claim moves to Approved.

NZ CCA subcontracts: approving the claim produces its approved Payment Schedule automatically, ready to send. If the schedule can't be produced (for example, a GST number is missing), the claim is still approved and you're told what's missing; fix it and click Generate Payment Schedule. The Response Issued Date is set when you send the schedule to the subcontractor. See Issue a payment schedule.
AU SOP Act and UK HGCRA subcontracts: the Response Issued Date is set when you approve the claim.

Create Bill appears once a claim reaches Approved, and converts it to a Vendor Bill. Use it rather than raising the bill by hand: the automated conversion writes the claim-to-bill link and the audit entry that a manually-created bill won't, and it handles the receipt-then-bill path for fulfillable items. Each bill line takes the GST code from the claim line, so the bill's GST matches the Payment Schedule. Each claim gets its own Vendor Bill (or Vendor Credit). If Bill Approved Claims Automatically is ticked on the subcontract (or on the vendor as a default), approved claims are billed for you on a schedule, one bill per claim, every Automatic Billing Interval (Days) (30 days if left blank).

Issuing the statutory response

NZ CCA subcontracts: the Payment Schedule is produced when you approve the claim, and sent from the claim — see Issue a payment schedule.
AU SOP Act and UK HGCRA subcontracts: the response document (Payment Schedule / Pay Less Notice) is not generated by the system — issue it through your own process. See the warning below.
Communicate the outcome to the subcontractor yourself where no Payment Schedule is sent. Outside the NZ CCA Send to Subcontractor flow, the subcontractor is not told the result of your assessment by either Connect or the mobile app.

AU SOP Act and UK HGCRA: the statutory response document is not generated

Under the AU SOP Act and UK HGCRA, failing to issue a valid payment schedule (or pay less notice) inside the statutory window can expose you to the full claimed amount. The Subcontracts feature records your assessment and the evidence behind it, but on these jurisdictions it does not produce or serve that document. Issuing it, and doing so in time, remains your responsibility. (NZ CCA subcontracts can generate and send the Payment Schedule from the claim — see Issue a payment schedule.)

How working days are counted

The Assessment Due Date (your deadline to respond) and, on NZ CCA subcontracts, the default Claimed Due Date for Payment are counted forward from the Claim Date. On NZ CCA subcontracts both are 20 working days, which skip:

Saturdays and Sundays
the New Zealand public holidays set up in FullClarity's holiday list
every day from 24 December to 5 January

If a public holiday hasn't been set up, it's counted as an ordinary working day, so check the holiday list at the start of each year. Once a claim's Assessment Due Date has been set, it isn't recalculated.

Gotchas

The Service Date is immutable. It's the timestamp the claim arrived — not the date the subcontractor put on it. The statutory clock runs from Service Date and can't be reset by rejecting and re-receiving.
Assessment is line-level. You can't reduce a claim total without giving line-level reasons.
Reason Text must be at least 20 characters. Anything shorter blocks finalisation.
Edit mode and the workflow buttons are mutually exclusive. Workflow buttons (Submit Claim / Begin Assessment / Assess & Approve / Reject Claim) only appear in view mode. To change several lines, click Edit; save; then return to view mode to finalise.
What's claimed is fixed once the claim is submitted. Claimed amounts can only be changed while the claim is in Draft. From Under Assessment you change the assessed side only.
Tax and quantities aren't on the screen. You claim and assess in amounts (or % complete) excluding GST. GST is worked out on the bill (and a tax-invoice Payment Schedule) from the purchase order lines' tax codes, so make sure those are right.
Additional items are never paid directly. Raise and approve a variation, then use Move to Contract Line.
A claim can only be assessed if its subcontract is active. If the subcontract has been Cancelled, Closed Out, or hasn't reached Active yet, claim assessment is blocked.