Most loss and expense submissions set out what happened and what it cost, and leave the reader to join them. That gap is why claims are refused, and closing it is the central discipline of loss and expense claim preparation.
The work is not difficult and it is laborious, which is why it gets left out. Done properly it also shortens the submission rather than lengthening it.
What the link actually requires
For each matter relied on: what it was, when it happened, what it did to the work, and what that cost.
Four statements per event, each supported by something, and nothing asserted between them.
A claim that can do this for twelve events is stronger than one that gestures at fifty.
Why claims skip it
Because on a disrupted project everything was happening at once and separating the effects is genuinely hard.
Because the records frequently do not allow it for every event.
And because the global approach, where total cost is set against total events, appears to avoid the difficulty.
Why the global approach fails
It asks the assessor to accept that all the overspend was caused by the events listed, which requires ruling out everything else.
Nothing in the submission rules anything else out, so the assessor cannot accept it.
A global claim is sometimes allowed where the circumstances justify it, and that is a legal question and not a drafting shortcut.
Working event by event
Take the largest events first. On most projects a handful account for most of the cost.
For each, establish the effect from contemporaneous records rather than from recollection.
Where an event’s effect cannot be established, leave it out of the quantified claim and say that it is part of the background.
Dealing with concurrent effects
Where two events affected the same work at the same time, the cost cannot simply be claimed twice.
Where one is the employer’s responsibility and one the contractor’s, the position needs addressing rather than avoiding.
Addressing it openly, with a reasoned apportionment, is far better received than claiming the whole and hoping.
The records that make the link
Dated instructions, information release records and correspondence that raised the difficulty at the time.
Site records showing the activity stopping, restarting or being reworked.
And resource records showing the additional input, against the activity rather than the project.
Keeping the submission readable
One page per event, in the same format each time, with the supporting documents referenced rather than reproduced.
A schedule at the front listing the events and the sums, so the shape of the claim is visible in a minute.
The appendices carry the volume. The argument stays short.
What the other side does with it
Tests each event separately, which a structured claim allows and a global one does not.
Allows some, reduces some, refuses some, which is a settlement rather than a refusal.
That partial outcome is what a properly linked claim is for, and it is ordinarily better than the alternative.
The discipline on a live project
The link is far easier to establish at the time than afterwards, when the detail has gone.
A short note when an event affects the work, recording what it affected, is worth more later than any amount of analysis.
Projects that do this produce claims in weeks rather than months, and recover more of what they claim.
When to stop
Once the events that account for most of the cost are linked, the remainder frequently is not worth the work.
A claim covering eighty per cent of the loss, properly supported, is a better commercial position than one covering everything badly.
Deciding where that line falls is a judgement, and it is worth making deliberately rather than by exhaustion.
Writing the event sheet
One page per event, in the same shape every time: what the matter was, the contractual provision it falls under, the date it arose, the activity it affected, what happened to that activity, and the cost that followed.
Each line references a document rather than reproducing it, so the page stays readable and the appendix carries the weight. An assessor who can check one event in five minutes will check them all.
The same format also exposes the weak events, because the gaps are visible in the same place on every page. That is uncomfortable to look at and it is exactly what should be known before the submission goes anywhere.
Where the records only reach part of the way
Sometimes the event and the effect are established and the cost is not, or the cost is clear and the link to the particular event is not. Saying which part is missing is better than writing around it.
Where the gap is the cost, an estimate identified as one, with the basis stated, is sometimes accepted in part. Where the gap is the link, it usually is not, because that is the question the assessor exists to answer.
Treating the two differently, rather than presenting everything with equal confidence, is what makes a submission read as prepared rather than as advocacy.
Assessors read a great many submissions and they recognise the difference quickly. A document that distinguishes what it can prove from what it believes tends to be met with an assessment rather than a refusal, which is the whole object.
Where it fits
Cause and effect sits between entitlement and quantum and both depend on it.
Where a claim arrives without it, the same gap is what a initial dispute review identifies first.
The records that make it straightforward come from cost control and variations kept during the works.
Costs incurred that nobody has agreed to pay?
Loss and expense claim preparation sets out the contractual provisions relied on, the costs actually incurred and the link between each matter and each head of cost, in a form that can be tested.