How do I serve my claim?

1. First, press Approve claim N on the claim's Review. A draft has nothing to export. After approval, the claim pack appears there, and the claim's row also offers Download the claim as PDF or as Word.
2. Export the claim pack. Check every figure on it. Sign it.
3. Send it through the channel the contract requires.
4. Then record that you served it, in the claim pack: Day you served it, then Record it as served.
5. Enter the day you actually served it. The box offers today. If you served on Friday and record it on Monday, change it to Friday. Both deadlines count from that day and freeze on the claim, so check this field. YourCA does not take a future day, or a day before the job started.
6. If you asked for practical completion on this claim, tick that beside the serve control. YourCA asks here because now you know the answer.
7. The tick tells YourCA the first half of your retention is due. It offers this claim’s date as the practical completion date, to confirm against the certificate. It sets no date on its own. You can change it later on Financials, Retention.
8. After you serve it, the claim is fixed. Put corrections in the next claim; do not edit this one. If you and the builder agree the claim itself was wrong, use "Withdraw and re-serve" on the served claim.
9. To get that copy back later, pick Download the claim as PDF, or as Word, from the Actions menu on the claim's row. Or open the served claim, where Download the claim is at the top of every step.
10. The PDF and the Word file carry your subcontractor's statement or declaration straight after the claim, so the builder gets one bundle. PDF, statement signed adds your held signature where the form needs no witness.
11. The claim pack gives you the PDF, the Word file, the plain text, or the whole claim copied to your clipboard. It rebuilds exactly what you served, under the Act you served it under. YourCA still sends it to nobody.
12. A served claim opens as the whole claim, not a summary. It shows the two deadlines and the total. Under those is the schedule line by line: what each line was worth, what earlier claims took against it, how far it was complete, and what this claim asked for.
13. The served claim is read-only, because nobody can change it. A line that was not claimed keeps its row and says why.
14. YourCA records the Security of Payment Act on the claim when you serve it, and nothing can change it afterwards. If you later link a contract or correct the state on the job, a served claim still names the Act you served under. So your re-export still matches the copy the builder holds.
15. YourCA works out the day you are due to be paid when you serve. It uses your payment period as it stood that day, and freezes the date.
16. If YourCA does not know your payment period, that date is blank, and the claim never shows as overdue. So before you serve, answer Payment period under Statutory facts, at the top of the job’s Calendar.
17. YourCA takes a digest of the exact wording of the pack and keeps it on the claim. If anyone argues about service, you can produce the document and show it is the one you served.
18. The digest is of the claim as characters (the download and the copy), not of a PDF. A PDF changes byte for byte with the printer and the day. The printed sheet says the same thing in the same order. Keep the one you sent; anyone can check the wording.
19. The pack has no date that fills itself in later, so the digest still matches a year from now. The claim on screen shows the date of service, the day their payment schedule is due back and the day you are due to be paid.
20. YourCA derives both of those deadlines in New South Wales, Queensland and Victoria.