A ready to use Excel register for tracking every long-lead item from enquiry to delivery, with lead time, days to required and late risk calculated automatically against your programme dates. Built by quantity surveyors.
A procurement or long-lead items register is the record a project keeps of every material or component with a lead time long enough to threaten the programme if it is ordered late: switchgear, curtain wall systems, lifts, specialist plant. It tracks enquiry, approval, order and forecast delivery dates against the date each item is actually required on site.
Long-lead items are one of the more common sources of NEC4 clause 60.1(3) compensation events, where the Client fails to provide something (an approval, a piece of free-issue information) by the date the contract requires it. This register is the evidence trail for that argument if it becomes necessary, though most items on it never need to.Most long-lead registers fail in one of two ways: nobody works out the days between forecast delivery and the date the item is actually required, so late risk only becomes visible once it has already happened, or the register only covers items that are placed and ignores the ones still stuck in design approval. This template calculates the gap automatically and tracks both stages.
| Field | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Package, item description, supplier | Ties every long-lead item to the trade package and the party responsible for delivering it |
| Design approval required? and approval status | Surfaces items stuck waiting on drawings before they ever get to an order date |
| Enquiry, order, required on site, forecast and actual delivery dates | The full life cycle of the item, from first enquiry to the date it lands on site |
| Lead time days and days to required (calculated) | Works out how long the item actually took to arrive, and how much runway is left before it is needed |
| Late risk (calculated) and programme critical? | Flags any item whose forecast delivery is later than the date required, and marks whether that item sits on the critical path |
[SCREENSHOT: Procurement Register tab showing the full column set with the late risk formula flagging PR-002 against the required on site date] Every row carries the same lead time and late risk formulas shown here, so the items worth escalating stand out without a separate procurement meeting to find them.
The Excel file with automatic lead time, days to required and late risk calculations, plus a worked example tab.
Download the template (.xlsx) Free download. No email needed. Yours to use and share with your team.PR-002 is enquired on 5 June for switchgear required on site by 1 September. The order is still pending approval, forecast delivery has slipped from an earlier estimate to 20 September, and the item is marked programme critical. The template's late risk formula flags this the moment forecast delivery is entered later than the required date, nineteen days before the item is needed rather than nineteen days after it should have arrived.
Compare that with PR-001, curtain wall brackets tracking three days ahead of the required date. Nothing to do there except confirm delivery when it lands. The register puts the attention where it belongs, on the one item actually at risk.
A procurement register only catches what someone remembers to update. If a supplier quietly slips a delivery date and nobody updates the forecast column, the late risk flag never fires, and the first anyone hears about it is the site team asking where the switchgear is.
Gather's AI QS turns the daily record into a contract aligned commercial position automatically, so the claim writes itself from evidence instead of memory.
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Anything with a lead time long enough that a late order threatens the programme: switchgear, lifts, curtain wall systems, specialist mechanical plant, bespoke joinery. There is no fixed threshold; if the supplier lead time is measured in months rather than weeks, it belongs on this register.
No. A late delivery only becomes an NEC4 compensation event if it is caused by something the contract puts at the Client's risk, such as a failure to provide free-issue information or an approval by the date required under clause 60.1(3). A late order caused by the contractor's own procurement is not a compensation event.
The template compares forecast delivery against the date the item is required on site. If forecast delivery falls after the required date, the row is flagged as late risk. Days to required counts down from today against the required date, so items with little runway left are visible before they turn into problems.
No. The lookahead planner shows what needs to happen on site over the next two, four or six weeks. This register tracks the procurement pipeline that feeds it, so a long-lead item never becomes a surprise gap in next month's lookahead.
Gather reads your site diaries as they come in and flags the CEs before the time bar does.
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