A payment on a construction site runs into two traps discovered too late: a legal holdback people think they can adjust, and a deadline that has been running without anyone noticing since when. In Canada, each province sets its own rules, and mixing them up means applying, say, one province's holdback to a site in another. This application keeps the regime proper to each site and refuses a payment that does not respect it.
Who the application is for
For general contractors and construction subcontractors working on sites in the Canadian provinces the application covers, or on a building under the federal regime, who must justify, on every payment, the holdback kept and the deadline respected.
What the application does
- Attaches to each site the provincial regime that applies, with its own holdback rate and its own deadlines — never one rule stretched over the whole country.
- Calculates, on every payment, the holdback required under the site's regime, and refuses the payment if the amount kept falls short.
- Requires a proper invoice date on the payment, the starting point for every prompt-payment deadline, and refuses the payment without it.
- Calculates the holdback release window from the notice published on the contract, and refuses a release that comes too early or too late.
- Lets you override a block under a written, dated reason — the override stays visible in the payment's history.
Day to day
- For each site, name the applicable provincial regime: the place where the work is carried out decides, never your company's head office.
- Date the proper invoice received on every payment: it is what starts the deadlines running.
- At payment time, let the application check the holdback kept and the deadline: it refuses the payment if either is missing.
- To release the holdback built up on a contract, record the published release notice first; the payment window is then worked out on its own.
- For a justified block, record a written reason before overriding it.
What the application does not do
- It does not cover Quebec, whose security and calendar regime is entirely different from the other provinces covered.
- It does not cover Nova Scotia, nor the other provinces and territories outside its declared scope.
- It never merges the provincial rules into a single national rule.
- It does not connect to any register or administration: every document is entered and dated by hand.
- It does not replace the advice of a Canadian construction law professional: provincial rules do change, and must be checked for each site with the competent authority.
Getting started
Before recording a first contract, name for each site the Canadian provincial regime that actually applies at its place of execution, and adjust that regime's deadlines if your adviser gives you a value different from the one delivered by default.
Going further
To find out whether this application suits your business and how to activate it, compare the plans or write to us.