Contract Management.
In today's construction and mining industries understanding your contractual obligations is paramount to successfully remaining in business and more importantly, profitable. Here at CCS, our team of professional provides contractors with ongoing support to understand their contractual obligations, assist in monitoring and managing their contracts in line with the agreed terms and conditions. Your contract is a binding agreement between you and your client, normally in the form of a written document and provides information including a start and completion date, details about progress payments and specifications, time bars regarding when to submit payment claims and so on.

The contract provides all the details about the how, when, and where of the project. As a contractor you must have an understanding of the various clauses contained in your contract. Particularly clauses that address the following;

Scope of Work - The most important part of all contracts. The majority of claims and disputes that occur on a project arise when the scope of works has either been poorly written or poorly understood.

Schedule - Many contractors either don’t have the time or expertise to develop schedules of works or more importantly, coordinate their works with the client's expectations, schedules or timelines.

Terms of Payment - All States and Territories have some form of security of payments legislation for construction contracts, this ensures that the contractors are able to maintain a positive cash flow. In mining contracts HSES and legislative provides become paramount and are generally linked to payment terms and conditions. In both forms of contract it is important to understand the terms and conditions of your contract so you are not left in a position of having suppliers withdrawing supply for non payment of accounts.

Insurance - Insurance is an extremely important asset for a contractor’s company and something you must have and understand.

Variations - Variations are either instructions given verbally or in writing to change something however, depending of the nature of the variation it can be very costly, it is important to understand what your contract states about variations and how they are claimed.

Disputes - Generally disputes between the contractor and the client or principle are over payment laims or the scope of works, all contractors need to understand these important clauses contained in their contracts.

Damages - As a general rule most contracts particularly in the mining sector have a liquidated damages clause. Failure to understand the context of L&Ds clauses in the ontract has the potential to bankrupt a contractor.

Collateral Warranty - Many contracts contain clauses for collateral, product and workmenship warranties, these have significant legal ramifications between manufactures, wholesalers, retailers and the contractor. A contractors ability to understand these features of a contract will impact on your ability to remain profitable.

Termination and Suspension - Contracts may contain Termination and Suspension clauses which if exercised by the client or principle can have a significant financial impact on contractors, particularly when the contractor has equipment on hire, not to mention the labour costs. It is important to understand these clauses and what mechanisms are in place to claim for any termination or suspension of works.

As a general rule, when disputes arise between parties in a contract, depending on the state, the first port of call is adjudication or some other form of dispute resolution process. Many contractors end up losing money on their contracts because of one simple fact, they normally do not have the document and contract management systems in place to successfully defend or submit an application for adjudication through the dispute resolution process.

Protect yourself and your business

• Protect your income by allowing CCS to manage your contracts which will free you up to concentrate on the job at hand.
• Creative Contract Solutions will help protect your family and assets by providing a fully integrated project and contract management system.