COST VERIFICATION
Cost verification
Was this cost properly due under this contract? The question is simple. The evidence required to answer it defensibly is not.
The situation.
Cost verification asks a simple question: was this cost properly due under the contract? Answering it requires cost substantiation: the applicable contract position, the evidence supporting entitlement and a test of whether the two align — applied consistently, by a named person who can stand behind the result.
In practice, the contract position is rarely held in one document. The executed agreement, amendments, schedules and other incorporated documents interact, and the applicable position has to be established — often repeatedly — before a test can be run. Open-book evidence may make cost visible without making it auditable, and accountable certification depends on closing that gap. Evidence records are assembled by hand and their format varies by author.
When the conclusion is challenged — in a dispute, a National Audit Office review, or an internal investigation two years after practical completion — what is needed is not the conclusion. It is the chain from the contract position to the evidence to the test to the finding, attributed and intact. That chain is what cost verification produces, and it is what manual evidence records rarely preserve.
What is hard about it today.
- Evidence arrives in whatever form the supplying party chose to send it.
- The contract position has to be re-established for every test.
- Evidence records are built by hand, and their quality varies by author.
- The basis for a conclusion lives in a folder, not in a record.
- A challenge two years later reopens work nobody can reconstruct.
How the platform addresses it.
| Step | Capability | What the platform does | What the person decides |
|---|---|---|---|
| Contract mapping | Blueprint | Ingests the executed contract and the documents that amend it and constructs Contract DNA — a certified structural model of the applicable position | Reviews the applicable position for completeness and approves the Blueprint before testing begins |
| Evidence collection | TRACE™ | Ingests submitted cost evidence, classifies each item, and structures it against the contract model | Confirms the scope of the assessment and decides which items to include in the test set |
| Test execution | TRACE™ | Applies the governed test library against the evidence — testing each claimed cost against the cost rules the contract prescribes and the applicable contract position | Reviews each test result and decides whether to pursue an observation as a finding |
| Finding assembly | TRACE™ | Assembles the evidence chain behind each observation and drafts the finding, attributed to the named reviewer | Reviews, amends and authors each finding — the finding becomes a finding when a named person makes it one |
| Report approval | TRACE™ | Generates the draft report from approved findings and evidence only | Approves and issues the report — no report is issued without a named approval |
APPLIED TO THE CONTRACT IN FRONT OF IT
The workflow does not change with the contract. The contract position it is configured against does.
That position is established from the executed documents and certified before any test runs. What follows is the same governed sequence in every case; what differs is what the contract actually says.
NEC
The main Option and the cost regime it brings with it. Amendments and Z-clauses. Defined Cost and the Schedule of Cost Components. Compensation events, and what the contract makes disallowed.
FIDIC
Which form and edition governs. The Particular Conditions that amend the General Conditions. Cost as the contract defines it, and whether profit is recoverable. Variations, Provisional Sums, and the claims procedure that carries them.
Other forms — JCT, bespoke and amended contracts — would be established the same way: from the executed documents, not assumed from the form.
What you are left with.
A governed evidence record: every test cited to the applicable contract position, every finding authored by name, every piece of evidence identifiable by its content-addressed reference. The record can be reopened years later and the chain from contract to evidence to conclusion is still intact.
A challenge is answered from the record, not from recollection. That is what makes the conclusion defensible rather than merely confident. The governance model and approach to governed AI set the boundaries around that conclusion.
The capabilities involved.
Blueprint
Contract DNA
Builds a certified, content-addressed model of the executed contract — the applicable position every test is run against.
TRACE™
Assurance execution
Executes governed tests against evidence, assembles the chain behind each observation, and presents a draft finding for authorship.
Request a briefing
A working conversation about how any of these applies to your programme.