Contracting
A printed pack is not completion.
Contracting snag and retention software only works if practical completion, variations, and money point at the same register. Unsigned labour should not hide on the original bill.
The problem
Snags live in a notebook. Variations live in email. Certificates live in a pack that was printed too early. Retention lives in accounts, which is another building.
Keys are requested while a snag is open. Labour is already on an unsigned variation. A fire cert has expired and the pack went out anyway. Practical completion becomes a conversation, not a gate.
The register is the job. Snags, variations, certificates, and retention point at each other. PC cannot be signed while a snag is open. Trades see the list; they do not see the commercial ledger.
What a custom system holds
- Snags that block practical completion
- Variations visible when labour is already on site
- Certificates inside the handover pack
- Retention tied to completion, not a separate ledger
- Trade access without the commercial numbers
Questions
- Why isn’t a printed handover pack completion?
- Because a snag can still be open, a variation unsigned, and a certificate expired. Practical completion, variations, and retention have to point at the same register.
- How does a custom build start?
- A twenty-minute discovery call. We watch how work, stock, and money move — including the exceptions a template never modelled. Then a written scope. If a packaged product already covers it, we will say so.
- Where are you based, and who do you work with?
- Metalique Studios is a UK software company based in Chigwell, Essex. We build custom operations software for UK hire companies, workshops, field teams, and other ops-heavy SMEs — in the language those floors already use. See the UK page.
Where we work
If handover still starts from a pack that was printed too early, book a twenty-minute call. We scope after we have seen the register.