A variation claim is a schedule plus a narrative. The schedule carries the detail and the narrative explains how to read it, what basis has been applied and where the real differences lie. Getting the proportion right between them is part of variation claim preparation, and most claims get it badly wrong.
The common failure is a narrative that has swallowed the claim: thirty pages of argument, a schedule buried in an appendix, and an assessor who cannot find the figures without reading the whole thing.
What the narrative is for
To explain the structure, so the reader knows what is in the schedule and how it is organised.
To state the valuation basis relied on and why, since that is the point most likely to be contested at the level of principle.
And to identify where the genuine differences are, which saves the assessor finding them and frequently narrows the dispute immediately.
What belongs in it
A short account of the project and the contract, with the provisions relied on identified.
An explanation of how the schedule is organised and what the columns mean.
A statement of the valuation approach, with the contract sequence set out and an explanation of which step applies to which category of item.
And a summary of the position: total claimed, total assessed where known, and the main causes of difference.
What does not belong
Argument about conduct. Whether the other side has behaved reasonably is irrelevant to the valuation and it changes how the whole document is read.
Repetition of the schedule in prose. If an item needs explaining, the explanation belongs against the item.
Legal submissions, unless the claim genuinely turns on a point of interpretation, in which case it should be stated briefly and separately.
And anything that cannot be supported. A single unsupportable assertion undermines everything around it.
Length and tone
Two to four pages for most accounts. Longer where the contractual position is genuinely complex, and shorter where it is not.
Plain, neutral and specific. A narrative that reads as an explanation is assessed; one that reads as an advocacy document is resisted.
The test is whether somebody who has never seen the project could use it to navigate the schedule. If they would still have to ask questions, it is not doing its job.
Structuring the account itself
Group items by valuation basis rather than by trade or by date. Items valued at contract rates, items valued at adjusted rates, items fairly valued, items on daywork.
That grouping mirrors the contract sequence and it makes the approach visible at a glance, which is what gets the approach agreed.
It also allows an assessor to deal with a whole group where they accept the basis, rather than working item by item through everything.
Dealing with the difficult items
Say which they are. A claim that flags its three contentious items and explains them properly is read quite differently from one that hides them among forty straightforward ones.
Explain what the difference turns on: a measurement, an assumption about conditions, a view about whether a rate applies.
That framing invites a focused response rather than a blanket reduction, which is usually what a blanket presentation produces.
The summary that gets read first
A one page summary at the front, with the totals and the main differences, is the part most likely to be read in full.
It should be accurate and conservative. A summary that overstates is discovered within minutes and colours everything after it.
Where parts of the account are already agreed, say so at the top. It focuses attention on what is actually in dispute.
Writing it for the right reader
The reader is an assessor under time pressure who was not on the project and has no reason to assume good faith.
Everything they would have to request should already be there. Everything that would irritate them should be removed.
Writing for that reader produces a shorter, flatter document than most people want to write, and it recovers more money than the version that feels satisfying to produce.
The version that arrives with the account
A narrative written monthly, as variations are instructed and valued, is largely finished by the time the account is submitted.
Written at the end, from a year of correspondence, it takes weeks and reads as reconstruction, because that is what it is.
The difference shows in the document. Narratives assembled at the end explain; narratives assembled as you go simply record.
Keeping it consistent with everything else
The narrative has to agree with the schedule, with the applications and with what has been said in correspondence over the preceding year.
Inconsistency is the first thing an assessor looks for, because it is the easiest thing to find and the most damaging when found.
Checking the claim against the project correspondence before submitting it is tedious and it prevents the single most avoidable kind of damage.
What to do with the other side’s narrative
Read it for the valuation basis before the figures. Most disagreements about an account are disagreements about approach, and the approach is stated in the narrative.
Where the basis is wrong, saying so early saves assessing every item on a footing that will have to change.
Where it is right, saying so is worth more than it costs. It focuses the remaining discussion on measurement and evidence, which is where it belongs.
Where it fits
The narrative and the schedule together are the claim. Assembled well during the project they are mostly a matter of collation rather than drafting.
That is cost control and variations work carried out monthly, which is why disciplined projects produce accounts rather than claims.
Where the account has already been refused, the same material supports whatever follows, and the claims and dispute services each start from it rather than from a blank page.
Variations that have not been agreed?
Variation claim preparation sets out the instructed scope, the measured difference and the valuation built on the rule the contract actually provides, with the evidence attached to each line.