Contracts and active work — after the work is given out
A contract is QSME's record of who is doing a piece of work, for how much, and in what payment stages. It comes one of two ways: you award a tender, or you add work you have already agreed somewhere else. Either way it is the same record, and it lands in the same place: Active Work for the side paying, Awarded Work for the side doing the job. Each stage is worked, proved and paid there.
This page covers both: where contracts come from and what is in one, then the work area both sides use while the job runs. How money actually moves is in How payments work. Getting the work priced is in Tenders and bids.
Where it sits
| Where | Who it is for | |
|---|---|---|
| Contracts | Sidebar → Hire → Contracts, while you are hiring for a project | The project owner: every contract on the selected project, the ones you added and the ones that came from a tender. |
| Active Work | Sidebar → Active Work | The paying side: every job under way, on every project, and whose move it is. |
| Awarded Work | Sidebar → Awarded Work, while you are looking for projects | The doing side. The same page and the same jobs, seen from the other end. |
| A job's work area | Open any job on Active Work or Awarded Work. Notifications and emails link straight to it. | The two parties to that contract, and nobody else. |
| The phone app | Home → Active work | Both sides. A contract opens to its stages: submit progress, pay or record a payment, confirm one arrived. Adding a contract is done on the web. |
A main contractor is on both sides at once. Active Work shows what you are owed and what you owe as separate totals, never added together.
Where a contract comes from
| How | What it starts with | |
|---|---|---|
| Awarding a tender | Award a bid. The contract is made in the same moment. | The winning price and its GST basis, the bidder's dates, the payment stages agreed on the tender or the bid, and the tender's retention. See Tenders and bids. |
| Adding one yourself | Contracts → Add contract, for work agreed off the platform: a price agreed on site, a subbie you always use. | What you type in. |
An added contract is not a tender. Nothing goes out for bids, and there is nothing for the other side to accept. The price and the person are already agreed; you are recording it so both sides pay against the same stages.
Adding a contract
Add contract walks through four steps. Only the project's owner can add a contract to it.
- What's the work? The project, a title and the scope in plain words. Both sides see the scope. You can also tick the SOQ jobs it covers. The price then starts from their SOQ estimate, and any job already in a tender or another contract says so. Only jobs in an active pocket can be picked.
- Who's it with? One of your contacts, or a name, company and email. They do not need a QSME account.
- Price and dates. The agreed amount, whether it excludes or includes GST, and the start and end dates.
- How it gets paid. In stages or All on completion, a retention %, and the stages themselves. They start at 50% upfront and 50% on completion, and must add up to 100% less the retention. You can also say how you plan to pay, which is only a plan. See How payments work.
Finish with Save as draft, which only you can see, or Issue contract, which puts it live on both sides at once.
| The other side is… | When you issue |
|---|---|
| On QSME | They are notified straight away, the job appears on their Awarded Work, and they get view access to the project so they can open its documents. |
| Not on QSME yet | If you gave an email address, they get an email from you with the work, the project, the amount and the number of stages. The contract becomes theirs the day they sign up with that address, with everything recorded since. Until then, a payment you record as made outside QSME settles on your word, because there is nobody to confirm it. |
You can also add a contract from a task on the schedule. Add a contract on the task opens the same form with the project, name and dates filled in, and that task becomes the contract's work. An issued contract with nothing on the schedule for it gets placed there.
What a contract holds
| The parties | The client, who pays, and the contractor, who is paid. |
| The work | A title and scope, plus the SOQ jobs it covers. This is how the SOQ knows what is committed per job. |
| The value | One amount, with its GST basis printed beside it everywhere. |
| Dates | Start and end, or a duration. |
| Payment stages | Each has a name, a share of the contract and an amount. All on completion is one stage. A retention set on the contract or the tender is the last stage, Retention (release), paid like any other. |
| Paperwork | Contract downloads the contract PDF: the agreement, the parties, the scope, the payment schedule, the terms and a signature block. Tender work also has Summary, the award summary: who bid and what won. |
Only a draft can be edited. Once a contract is issued or awarded, its stages and terms are fixed for both sides, so neither side can have them changed underneath them. After that, a contract changes only through its stages being paid, or by being cancelled or closed.
| State | What it means |
|---|---|
| Draft | On your Contracts page only. Nobody else sees it and it counts towards nothing. Edit it, issue it or delete it. |
| Active | Issued or awarded. It is on both sides' work pages and counts towards the project's cost. |
| Completed | Every stage is settled. It moves to Finished by itself. |
| Cancelled | A contract you added, cancelled before any payment was recorded on it. The other side is told. |
| Closed | The tender behind it was closed out. It leaves Active Work and the schedule, but money on it can still be recorded. |
The Contracts page
It answers one question for the paying side: what have I committed to on this project, and what is left to pay? It follows the project selected in the sidebar.
| Section | What is in it | What you can do |
|---|---|---|
| Drafts | Contracts you have not issued. | Issue contract, Edit, Delete |
| Your contracts | Contracts you added and issued. | Open work area, Cancel contract (only before any payment) |
| From tenders | Contracts made by awarding a tender. They are managed on the tender. | Open work area, View tender |
| Closed and archived | Behind Show closed contracts: work that stopped, with the reason and note you gave. | Open work area. You can still settle money there. |
Each card shows the value with its GST basis, how many stages are done and what share is paid. It also flags when the other side is not on QSME yet.
Work from a tender is stopped on the tender, not here. Deleting an awarded tender closes it out. You pick what happened and add a note, such as "we agreed they keep the $500 deposit". The contract then moves to Closed and archived and its jobs come off the schedule.
Active Work and Awarded Work
This is one page with two names. Across the top are the money tiles: Paid to you or Paid out, Awaiting confirmation, Still to come or Still to pay, and Retention held when there is any. Under them is a line saying which GST basis the totals are on. While you are hiring, the tiles follow the selected project, and the list of jobs covers every project.
Each job is a tile showing the project and the other party, the value and how many stages are done. Its badge reads Needs you, In progress or Completed. Jobs waiting on you come first, with money first: confirming money arrived, then paying, then reviewing submitted work. Finished jobs fold away under Finished.
Inside a job
Opening a tile shows that job's work area, top to bottom:
- The header. Status, reference and the value with its GST basis, paid to date and retention, then the dates. The project, the other party and the tender are each links, and the Contract and Summary PDFs are here.
- Milestones. The stages in order, numbered M1, M2… The first stage not yet settled opens by itself.
- Agreements. The client can start a new agreement for the job or link an existing one. The contractor sees anything they have been asked to sign. See Agreements.
- Site induction and today's safety check. These are for the contractor only. See On site.
A stage, from each side
| The stage shows | The client | The contractor |
|---|---|---|
| Not started | Can pay at any time: with open banking, or I paid outside QSME. | Describes the work, attaches a file (up to 50 MB) and presses Submit progress. |
| Ready to release | Opens the proof, then pays the same way. | Waits. Edit submission or Upload invoice, which is optional. |
| Awaiting confirmation | Waits for the contractor to confirm. | Presses Confirm payment received once the money is in their account. |
| Released | Settled, with the route and reference shown. | The same. |
Submitting progress, recording a payment and confirming one each notify the other side. Proof of work is filed in the project's Documents under Proof of Work, and invoices under Invoices. Both also appear in the project's Daily log as documents filed. Which route settles a stage, and who has to confirm what, is in How payments work. When the last stage settles, the contract completes by itself.
On site
Site induction is once per contract. The contractor ticks eight items under the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015, covering the site safety plan, PPE, hazards, emergency procedures and how to report an incident, then presses Complete induction. The project owner sees who has signed on under On-site safety on the project's page.
Today's site safety check appears when the site asks for a daily sign-on. It is the same check the schedule uses, so work won straight from a tender is covered too.
Contracts and agreements
They are different tools, and a job often has both.
| Contract | Agreement | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | The price, the stages and who pays whom. The money runs on it. | A document people sign. |
| Signing | None. An issued contract is live for both sides at once. | Signed from a link, with a certificate. |
| What it drives | Active Work, the project's cost, the schedule, payments. | Nothing in the money. It is the paperwork. |
The contract PDF has a signature block but no way to sign it in QSME. To get one signed, the client uses New agreement on the job's Agreements card. It writes the contract's figures into a draft agreement with both parties already on it. See Agreements.
For AI assistants (MCP)
An assistant connected at qsme.co.nz/connect can read contracts and draft one. It cannot issue a contract, submit progress, pay, or confirm a payment. Those are done by a person in QSME. More in QSME for AI assistants.
| Tool | What it does | Scope |
|---|---|---|
list_contracts | Contracts you are party to, drafts included, with amounts and what is still owed. {project_id?} | read |
get_contract | One contract in full: parties, scope, amount, GST basis, dates, milestones, status. {contract_id} | read |
create_contract_draft | A draft contract that nobody else sees until you issue it. {project_id, title, scope_of_work, contract_amount, …} | write |
update_contract_draft | Change a draft. Only the fields passed change. {contract_id, …} | write |
An assistant cannot set payment stages. Each time it creates or changes a draft that is paid in stages, the stages are reset to a standard 20% / 30% / 50% split. Set the real stages in Edit after its last change, before you issue the contract.
If something looks wrong
| What you see | What it means |
|---|---|
| "Only the project owner can add a contract to this project" | Contracts commit the project's money, so only its owner can add them. |
| An SOQ job will not tick, or is refused | Its pocket is still a draft. Activate the pocket on the SOQ. |
| The other side cannot see the contract | It is still a draft, or they are not on QSME yet. In that case it appears the day they sign up with the email on the contract. |
| You cannot change an issued contract | Only drafts can be edited. For a change to the work, a Variation agreement records it, but it does not change the contract's stages. |
| Cancel contract is refused | A payment has been recorded on it, or it came from a tender. Close out the tender instead. |
| A stage is stuck on Awaiting confirmation | It was paid outside QSME. The contractor has to confirm the money arrived. |
| There is no Summary button | It is a contract you added. An award summary describes a tender, and there was none. |
| A contract has gone from Active Work | Its tender was closed out. Look on Contracts → Show closed contracts. |
Still stuck? hello@qsme.co.nz, or +64 27 338 8500.