Ledger
Each project’s Ledger tab has two sides: what you owe the professionals working on it (Fees), and payment certificates for the contractor's work (Construction). Both move through the same approval chain before anything is marked paid.
Fee agreements
Add one fee agreement per professional party on the project — architect, QS, structural engineer, contractor, whoever you've agreed a fee with. Each agreement can carry more than one fee arrangement:
- Fixed amount — a flat lump sum.
- Stage percentage — a percentage of the agreed fee, released when a particular stage is marked complete.
- Per visit — a fee charged each time it happens (a site visit, an inspection); log each occurrence as it happens.
Every agreement shows a running total: what's agreed, what's currently due, and what's been paid. A stage-percentage amount only counts as due once that stage is actually complete — no more guessing whether it's time to release it. When it's time to pay, use Record payment on the agreement to start a payment entry pre-filled with the outstanding amount.
Payment certificates
The Construction side records payment certificates the same way a QS reads one off paper, from the cumulative work done down to what's actually due:
- Enter the cumulative work done so far, plus any variations.
- Enter the retention percentage — held back from the work done.
- Enter material on site and what percentage of it to release.
- Enter what's already been certified in previous certificates.
BuildFlow works out the amount due as you type — cumulative work plus variations, less retention, plus the material release, less what's already been certified — so you can check it against your own numbers before saving. The figure you see while filling the form is a preview only; BuildFlow recalculates the final amount from your entered figures the moment you save, so the certificate always matches what was actually entered.
The approval chain
Every payment entry — fee or certificate — walks through an approval chain before it's approved. Out of the box that's QS submits → project architect checks → director approves, but it's entirely editable:
- Per project, in that project's Settings tab — add, remove, reorder or reassign steps to whichever roles fit how your office actually signs things off. There's a Revert to default action if you want to drop back to the workspace's usual chain.
- Per office, as a workspace default in the global Settings page (admin) — applies to every project that hasn't set its own override.
Changing a chain takes effect immediately, including for entries already partway through it — if a step you removed was still waiting on someone, that entry moves up to whatever is now the last step in line.
Open any entry to see its full timeline: who's approved or sent it back at each step, and any note left with a rejection. Whoever's turn it is can approve or send it back; only the last person in the chain can move an approved entry on to sent to client and then paid.
Statuses
| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Pending | Waiting on the current step in the approval chain. |
| Approved | Cleared every step in the chain. |
| Sent to client | Passed on for the client's own records or payment. |
| Paid | Settled. This is the end of the line — a paid entry can't be reopened or deleted, so it stays as a clean record of what happened. |
| Rejected | Sent back with a note. Anyone in the chain (or an admin) can reopen it, which restarts it at the first step. |
Attachments
Attach the paperwork straight to the entry — the certificate itself (plain or the sealed/signed version once you have it), the bill it's based on, or anything else worth keeping with it. Re-uploading under the same label keeps the earlier version rather than replacing it, so the history stays intact.