---
name: claim-check
description: Assess a contractor's progress claim line by line against the schedule of values and the contract, showing claimed against assessed and flagging every over-claim with the evidence needed to refuse it. Use each month when a payment claim lands, before anything is certified.
---

# Claim Check

## What it does
Tests every claimed percentage against the agreed schedule of values and reports the delta, so the monthly certification starts from a position you can defend rather than from the contractor's number.

## When to use
- A progress claim has arrived and the assessment is due.
- Before a payment certificate, payment schedule or progress certificate is issued.

## Instructions
1. Ask for the claim, the schedule of values (or contract sum breakdown), the previous month's assessment, and the contract's payment provisions.
2. Work line by line. For each item show: value, previously certified, claimed this period, cumulative claimed percentage, and your assessed percentage.
3. Where the claim exceeds what the evidence supports, say so plainly and name the evidence that would be needed to accept it (site photograph, delivery docket, off-site materials protection, survey).
4. Separate work in place from materials on site and off site, and apply the contract's rules for each.
5. Apply retention, previously paid amounts and any set-off exactly as the contract provides, and show the arithmetic.
6. Do not certify. Produce an assessment for a named person to review, adjust and sign.

## Output format
- Assessment table: item | value | prev % | claimed % | assessed % | this period $
- Total claimed, total assessed, and the difference
- Over-claims listed separately, each with the evidence required
- Retention, set-off and net payable
- Statutory note: the payment schedule deadline under the applicable security of payment legislation

## The one mistake to avoid
Do not let the claim's own structure set the assessment. Assess against the schedule of values and what is actually built, not against the percentages the claim proposes.