The most useful document in a disputed final account is rarely a claim. It is a reconciliation: the contract sum at the top, every adjustment below it with its cause, and the account at the bottom. Built properly it shows exactly where the two positions diverge, which is where a final account dispute review starts.
Most disputed accounts have never had one. Each side has its own spreadsheet, built for its own purpose, and neither reconciles to the contract in a way the other can follow.
What the reconciliation contains
The contract sum as executed. Then each category of adjustment: variations, provisional sums expended, remeasurement, fluctuations where they apply, contra charges, retention.
Each line should state its cause and reference the documents that evidence it, so that any single movement can be examined on its own.
The total at the bottom should be the account as submitted, and the same structure should carry the assessed figures alongside, so the two positions sit side by side rather than in separate documents.
Both positions in one document
A reconciliation showing only your own figures proves nothing to anybody else. Showing both, line by line, with the difference, is what makes it useful.
That layout turns the dispute into a set of identified differences rather than a gap between two totals.
It also makes clear how much of the account is not in dispute, which is frequently most of it and almost always more than either side assumes.
Provisional sums
Each sum should appear as an omission of the sum and an addition of the work valued, rather than as a net adjustment.
Netting them conceals the valuation, which is usually where any disagreement lies, and it makes the reconciliation impossible to check.
Where consequential entitlement arises from an undefined sum, it belongs as a separate line rather than folded into the valuation.
Remeasurement
Where the contract provides for it, remeasured quantities should be shown against the original, with the difference and its cause.
Quantity differences are measured rather than argued, which makes them among the easiest items to resolve once they are isolated.
They are also among the largest in some accounts, which is why burying them in a net figure is unhelpful to everybody.
Contra charges and deductions
Shown as separate lines with the date of the notice that supported each one, because a deduction without a notice is a different kind of problem from one that is simply disputed on value.
Grouping them as a single deduction makes it impossible to tell which are contractually supported and which are not.
The same applies to liquidated damages, which belong on their own line with the basis for the period deducted.
Retention
The retention deducted across the certificates, the retention released, and the balance held, with the events that govern release.
On long projects this frequently does not reconcile, and establishing the correct balance is sometimes the first useful output of the whole exercise.
Where retention is the only money in question, the narrower retention recovery assessment is the right piece of work rather than a full account review.
What the exercise reveals
Arithmetic errors, which on accounts of any size are common in both directions.
Items claimed twice, typically where disruption appears both in variation valuations and in a separate claim.
And items both sides have forgotten, which on a long project is a genuine category and occasionally a large one in either direction.
Who should build it
Whoever builds it controls the structure of the dispute, which is a real advantage and a reason to do it rather than wait.
It should be built so that the other side can check it, which means showing working rather than conclusions.
A reconciliation the other party cannot verify is a spreadsheet; one they can verify is a basis for settlement, and the difference is entirely in how it is presented.
Keeping it current
A reconciliation maintained monthly is a short task. Rebuilt at the end from a year of certificates and instructions, it is weeks of work.
It also drifts. Each month that passes without reconciliation makes the eventual exercise harder, because the people who could explain a particular movement have moved on.
Projects that maintain one close their accounts in weeks rather than years, and the difference is almost entirely administrative.
What it does for a negotiation
It makes partial agreement possible. Where both parties can see which lines they agree on, those lines can be settled and paid while the rest continues.
It also prevents the same ground being covered twice, because the agreed position is recorded rather than remembered.
And it keeps the argument honest. A position that cannot be reconciled to the contract sum is a position that has not been thought through.
The version the other side will accept
A reconciliation built only from your own records will be read as a claim document. One built from the certificates, instructions and contract documents both parties hold will not.
Where a movement rests on something only you hold, say so and attach it rather than asserting the figure.
The aim is a document the other side could have built themselves and arrived at the same place, which is what makes it persuasive.
Where it fits
It is the first document in a disputed account and the last one in an agreed one, which is the same document doing two jobs.
Built as the project runs, it is maintenance rather than reconstruction, and that is commercial management work.
Built afterwards from two incompatible spreadsheets, it is the bulk of the effort in resolving the account, and it is still the thing most worth doing first.
Final account stopped moving?
A final account dispute review reconciles the account, sets the disputed items out on a schedule with their basis and evidence, and gives a view on where the gap can realistically be closed.