Every blocked invoice, traced to one of five causes
The £601k of aged-WIP and completed-not-invoiced exposure, sorted into five categories. Three recur across periods; proposed process controls address their causes without guaranteeing billing or collection.
- Client
- Meridian M&E Ltd
- Portfolio
- 8 contracts · £14.2m
- Reference
- MER-IBL-P7
- Period
- April 2026 · Month 7
- Prepared by
- BuiltAI Intelligence Ltd
- Status
- 3 repeat blockers
Illustrative example: fictional project and parties.
It is five problems, not fourteen
The £601k is the same £387k aged work-in-progress plus £214k completed-not-invoiced exposure shown in the companion registers, not additional value or collected cash. The fourteen holds fall into five categories; three have recurred across two or more consecutive periods.
Rate queries, valuation disputes, missing evidence and retention conditions can delay application or billing. Naming a cause does not establish contractual entitlement, invoice readiness or when payment will be received.
Application format is £212k, 35% of exposure. The top two categories total £338k, 56%; the three named process categories total £431k, approximately 72% of £601k. These are current category totals, not proven preventable future losses or assured recovery amounts.
The £601k, ranked by cause
Five categories ranked by reported exposure. The top two carry 56% of the current value; this concentration prioritises review but does not prove that two fixes will clear it.
| # | Blocker category | Share of blocked value | Cumulative |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Application formatTemplate mismatch, rejected submission format |
£212k35%
|
35% |
| 2 | QS delay / queryRate queries, valuation disputes, QS availability |
£126k21%
|
56% |
| 3 | Missing evidenceDaywork sheets, sign-off photos, delivery notes |
£93k16%
|
72% |
| 4 | Normal billing cycleStandard month-end applications in progress |
£91k15%
|
87% |
| 5 | Sign-off / QS availabilityClient scheduling, snagging, retention |
£79k13%
|
100% |
| Total blocked value |
£601k100%
|
100% |
The causes worth fixing
Three categories have proposed process controls. Normal billing (£91k) is scheduled for May application, subject to the normal run and requirements; client-side sign-off (£79k) depends on client availability, snagging and retention conditions. Neither timing nor collection is guaranteed.
#1 · Application format - £212k
Camborne revised its application template in February 2026 without telling Meridian. The January and February applications went in on the old format and were both rejected (£56.4k and £68.2k); the March value (£87.4k) is held while all three are reformatted. The gap is the absence of any process to catch a client changing a template.
#2 · QS delay and query - £126k
Cathedral Quarter has drawn rate queries on three consecutive valuations (£54.1k, £18.4k and £5.6k) - a standing disconnect between the schedule rates and how the works are measured and presented, not any single rate. A separate Docklands hold is simpler: the client's QS was unavailable, not in dispute.
#3 · Missing evidence - £93k
The reported evidence includes Kingsferry Crossing daywork sheets (£32.8k WIP and £22.8k CNI) on paper on site and Riverside sign-off photos (£3.2k, since recovered) on an engineer's phone. Same-day shared capture addresses retrieval; sufficiency, acceptance and payment still require review.
The fixes, and what they protect
| # | Process improvement | Exposure addressed | Effort | Owner | Due |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | Master template register CriticalLog each client's current application format, version and last-updated date; review quarterly. | £212k+ | Low | K. Hughes | 23 May |
| 02 | Pre-valuation rates alignment HighConfirm measurement method and rate interpretation with the client QS before each valuation; cite contract references on every measured line. | £126k+ | Medium | J. Palmer | Ongoing |
| 03 | Same-day evidence capture HighUpload daywork sheets, sign-off photos and delivery notes the same day; weekly evidence audit by the site supervisor. | £93k+ | Medium | R. Barker | 16 May |
| 04 | Mobilisation QS alignment StandardAt contract start, agree measurement method, rate interpretation and application format with the client QS. | Preventative | Low | Comml. Dir. | All new |
The three controls address categories totalling £431k, approximately 72% of £601k. The table's retained '+' annotations do not quantify any extra benefit. The prior £1.2m annual cash illustration has a basis and recurrence assumptions not supplied here; it is unvalidated, not a guarantee of collection.