The £30,000 That Vanished Because Nobody Wrote It Down

A final account meeting on one project. The Employer's QS calmly reducing the variation account by over £30,000 on the basis that several variations were not supported by written instructions.

The work had been done. Everyone in the room knew it had been done. But we had no CVIs, no email confirmations, no daywork sheets. The site team had done what the Employer's Representative had asked them to do and moved on. Nobody had written it down. We recovered a fraction of it.

Most project problems are not made on site. They are made at recording. A variation acknowledged verbally is a variation that does not exist when the final account meeting opens. A pay less notice that arrives at 4pm on the last permitted day either holds or fails depending on whether the PM understands the mechanism well enough to challenge it within hours.

The PMs who get senior fast are the ones who treat commercial records as a first-class part of the job. Confirm verbal instructions the same day. Keep a live variation log from day one. Understand the pay less notice mechanism well enough to know within an hour whether one is valid.

None of this requires legal training or a QS qualification. It requires discipline.