Final Account
The final reconciliation of everything owed under the contract — measured work, variations, claims, contra charges, retention — settled after completion. It is where every unresolved argument on the project arrives at once.
Final account is not an accounting exercise; it is a negotiation, and its outcome is determined largely by the quality of records each side brings to it. Every variation that was never formalised, every daywork sheet that was never signed, every notice that went in late — all of it lands here, together, and gets traded.
Which is why the party with the better contemporaneous record does better, more or less mechanically, regardless of who was right about anything. The final account rewards administration, and it does so with a precision that is uncomfortable to watch.
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