What is a backcharge?
What it does today
There is no separate backcharge register, and YourCA keeps no record that you asked them to substantiate one. A backcharge lives on the payment schedule that carried it. Their answer belongs in Documents on that job, beside the claim it is about.
- Ask in writing what it is for. Ask for the evidence and the make up of the figure.
- A backcharge with no substantiation is common, and it is the easiest kind to have removed.
- Read your own subcontract before you accept it.
- Many subcontracts require the builder to give notice before a backcharge, and to give you the chance to fix the problem yourself. If yours does, that is worth more than an argument about the rate.
- YourCA does not read that clause, and does not tell you if they are entitled to charge you. Look it up, or take it to a lawyer.
- Deal with it as part of the payment schedule it came on. Do not treat it as a separate argument.
- It is a reason they gave for paying you less. The window to act on that runs from the day the schedule reached you.
- In YourCA, record what came back against the claim in Financials.
- Their reasons may use the words back charge, contra charge, set off, on charge, recharge or charge back. Then Backcharges and set-offs in their reasons names it and marks their word inside their own reason.
- It shows what came off that line, and drafts the request for substantiation for you to send from your own email.
Worth knowing
To defeat a backcharge for damage, use photographs of your work at the time, and diary lines that name who else was on that floor. Both build up in the Site tab as you do the work. That is why they are worth doing on the day.