Assess a subcontractor claim

Review a progress claim a subcontractor has submitted, assess it line by line, finalise the assessment to issue a statutory Payment Schedule (AU/NZ) or Pay Less Notice (UK), and convert the approved claim to a Vendor Bill.

When to use this

When a subcontractor has submitted a progress claim — through Connect web, Connect Mobile, or entered manually if they sent it by email or paper — and it's now sitting in your queue waiting for assessment.

Prerequisites

• Claim in Submitted or Under Assessment status
• Subcontract in Active, PC, DLP, or Final status — see Subcontract states
• Permission to assess claims for this subcontract's subsidiary
• Awareness of the Assessment Due Date — the statutory window starts the moment the claim arrives

Walkthrough

1. Open the Claim record. You'll get a notification, dashboard reminder, or daily summary email when one arrives. The claim header shows:
   • Service Date — when the claim arrived in the system; this is what starts the statutory clock
   • Assessment Due Date — Service Date + the statutory window for your subsidiary's jurisdiction
   • Submitted gross — the total amount the sub is claiming this period
2. Review the claim lines grid. One row per SoV line being claimed, with columns for:
   • Submitted amount
   • Assessed amount (editable)
   • Variance (calculated)
   • Variance Reason (mandatory if you adjust the assessed amount)
   • Variance Note (free text — explanation of the adjustment)
3. Assess each line: approve as submitted, reduce, or reject with a Variance Reason.
4. Click Finalise Assessment. The system:
   • Generates a Payment Schedule (AU/NZ) or Pay Less Notice (UK) PDF automatically
   • Emails the document to the sub
   • Stops the statutory clock
5. The claim enters approval routing — auto-approved by default, or routed per your subsidiary's Approval Mode.
6. Once approved, click Convert to Bill to create the Vendor Bill (or it happens automatically if you've enabled Auto-Generate Bill). Retention is held back at this point by the Retainage SuiteApp per your retention policy.

Assessing in Connect web

Claims can also be assessed in Connect web — same fields, same validation, same effect. Use whichever surface is convenient. NetSuite is the source of truth either way — Connect writes through to NetSuite immediately.

What success looks like

• Claim status moves through Under Assessment → Assessed → Approved → Billed.
• A Payment Schedule (AU/NZ) or Pay Less Notice (UK) PDF has been generated, emailed to the sub, and attached to the Claim record.
• The linked Vendor Bill exists in NetSuite, in Pending Approval or Approved status per your subsidiary's AP config.
• Retention is held back per your Retainage policy.
• The subcontractor sees the response in Connect (web or mobile) and is notified.

Gotchas

• The Service Date is immutable. It's the timestamp when the claim arrived, not the date the sub put on their claim. The statutory clock runs from Service Date — you can't extend the deadline by rejecting and re-receiving.
• Assessment is line-level. You can't reduce a claim header amount without giving line-level Variance Reasons — the Payment Schedule auto-generates from the variance reasons, so they need to be complete.
• Urgency indicators on the claim list compute live from business-day arithmetic — public holidays come from the Code Library SuiteApp's holiday record. If the dates look wrong, check your holiday calendar.
• Once a Payment Schedule is issued, the statutory clock stops — but the claim still needs to be Approved and converted to a Bill before the sub gets paid.
• If the sub's pre-qualification has expired, claim approval is blocked. Administrators can override with a reason.
• Rejecting a claim does not reset the clock. The sub has until the original Assessment Due Date to resubmit — clear, fast feedback helps them turn it around.

Related

• Create a subcontract
• Approve a subcontract variation
• Raise a back-charge
• Subcontract states