How do I make a claim?

1. Go to Financials. It opens on the Overview, which shows where this job stands, top to bottom. Build claim is on it, with the number of the next claim on the button.
2. The Claims pill beside it is the register. Claims open on Summary, where the register is: the claims newest first, under one line of figures. The figures show what is owed on this job, the age of the oldest part, and how many claims you served.
3. The same Build claim button is at the right end of the band. Under the register, a chart shows what you asked for, what was certified and what was paid, claim by claim. There you see a gap that has grown for months.
4. When you open a claim, you go to Claim detail. The row of pills beside it is the rest of that claim: Progress plan, Declaration, Review, and What came back after you serve it. Contract lines sits with Summary and Month by month, because it is the job's schedule, not one claim's. The right of that row names the claim you are on. Change it there to move every pill to the claim you pick. Summary stays one press away, so you get back to the register with one press, not a scroll.
5. Press it. The claim arrives assembled from your schedule of rates lines and the variations the builder approved. It starts at nothing claimed, with what you already claimed against each line carried forward.
6. A variation the builder has not agreed to is not on it. An unapproved variation is not contract value, and you cannot claim it as if it were.
7. YourCA shows the reference date it worked out from your contract and the security of payment act in your state, with the clause beside it.
8. YourCA puts in a shortfall you chose to claim again. If the builder short paid a line on your last claim and you answered Claim it again next month, the new claim carries it. The line says how much is last month's shortfall. Claimed before shows that much lower; the shortfall is not added to this month's ask. So the line does not read as claimed past its contract value.
9. It is carried once. When a later claim is served, the position is settled. So YourCA does not offer again a shortfall you set to claim again and never used. The claim that carried one records how much. If you change your mind later, what a served claim said does not move.
10. If a draft is already open, the button says Continue instead of Build. Press it to go to that draft. It does not start a second one.
11. Set the percentages. The contract lines behind the claim have their own pill beside Month by month. You can correct a line without leaving Claims.
12. A draft claim has four steps: Claim detail, Progress plan, Declaration, then Review. Those pills are numbered. Each gets a tick when its part has nothing left to fix. Progress plan is optional: skip it if you do not mark up drawings.
13. The foot of each part shows which step you are on and how many things are still to fix, with Back and Next.
14. Review lists the parts before it as Done, as a count still to fix, or as Not opened yet, each with Open beside it. The approve button is under that list. An approved or served claim has no steps, only the pills.
15. Check the retention it holds. Set the basis once here, not every month.
16. On Review, press Approve claim N. One press saves the percentages you typed on Claim detail and approves the claim. The claim pack then appears in its place. There you export it and record that you served it.
17. Save draft on Claim detail is only to come back to it later.
18. The declaration is its own part of the claim, for a builder who asks for one. It never stops a claim being approved or served.
19. Download on the claim pack offers three files. PDF gives the laid-out claim on your own letterhead, with the schedule as a table and the total ruled off under it. Send that one to a builder. Word is the same claim to edit. Plain text is the same claim as plain characters.
20. Copy the claim, beside it, puts those characters on your clipboard. Paste them into an email or your own template.
21. Record the date you served it. That date starts the clock on their payment schedule and on your right to adjudicate.