Timesheets and allocation sheets under NEC4

What you need to know

Timesheets and allocation records can both provide useful evidence.
Reconcile records rather than assume one format is inherently reliable.
Missing activity codes do not automatically determine Disallowed cost.
Recording an event is distinct from notifying it.

A timesheet may record hours worked and can also include activity information. An allocation sheet explains how resources were deployed. Their contents vary by project and system; the name of a document does not determine its evidential value.

Use complementary evidence

For example, a timesheet might show ten hours on a project. An allocation record might explain four hours on piling, three on formwork and three awaiting a delivery. Read both alongside payroll, employment or agency arrangements and other relevant evidence.

Do not dismiss timesheets as commercially useless or assume that an allocation sheet is necessarily accurate. Both can contain mistakes. Reconcile them, investigate differences and keep corrections traceable.

Check the contract’s cost and record requirements

On NEC4 ECC Options C, D and E, apply the relevant Defined Cost, Schedule of Cost Components and Disallowed cost provisions. Option F differs. Options A and B have different routine payment arrangements and use their applicable assessment rules for compensation events.

Clause 11.2(26) for Options C–E includes a ground concerning costs not justified by accounts and records. Its resource-use provisions also require consideration of reasonable availability and utilisation. Neither missing an activity code nor recording standing time automatically establishes that every associated cost is disallowed.

The Scope may require detailed resource or activity records. Comply with that requirement, but do not present a particular allocation-sheet format as a universal condition of NEC payment.

Separate payroll obligations from recovery

Whether a person is entitled to wages and whether a Contractor can recover a cost under the construction contract are separate questions. Record standing time honestly; do not relabel it as productive work to make a commercial application look stronger.

A project may use separate payroll and allocation systems or a controlled combined system. What matters is accurate information, appropriate access and reconciliation. Separation alone does not guarantee truthful entries. Tax and employment requirements also depend on the arrangements; NEC does not prescribe a single payroll workflow.

Support assessment without claiming certainty

Allocation information can help investigate an event’s cause and effect and provide data for forecasts. It does not automatically prove contractual entitlement or avoid a notification time bar. A compensation-event assessment uses the relevant actual and forecast cost rules at the dividing date, not simply a total of every hour recorded afterwards.