Billing Engineer Course

Lesson 1 • Regulatory and Compliance Framework

Outlines statutory payment timelines, adjudication rights, and audit requirements applicable to billing. Students identify compliance obligations without referencing jurisdiction-specific codes.

Lesson 2 • Core Billing Terminology

Introduces essential vocabulary: invoices, payment certificates, retention, variations, and claims. Precise terminology prevents costly miscommunication throughout the course.

Lesson 3 • Project Delivery and Billing Cycles

Maps billing milestones to project phases from mobilisation to final account. Students connect billing timing to project cash flow requirements.

Lesson 4 • The Billing Engineer Role Defined

Covers the professional scope, daily duties, and stakeholder relationships of a billing engineer. Anchors all subsequent technical content to real job context.

Lesson 1 • Variation and Change Order Clauses

Analyses contractual mechanisms for instructing, valuing, and approving variations. Students trace a variation from instruction to payment.

Lesson 2 • Contract Document Hierarchy

Explains precedence of contract documents: agreement, conditions, specifications, drawings, and schedules. Students resolve conflicts between documents using precedence rules.

Lesson 3 • Scope of Work and Bill of Quantities

Teaches how scope definitions and priced bills of quantities govern what can be billed. Students identify billable scope boundaries and exclusions.

Lesson 4 • Risk and Liability Provisions

Identifies indemnity, insurance, and liquidated damages clauses that affect billing deductions. Students flag risk clauses that reduce certified amounts.

Lesson 1 • Pricing and Rate Buildup

Covers labour, plant, material, and overhead components used to build unit rates. Students construct a rate buildup schedule that supports billing justification.

Lesson 2 • Measurement Audits and Disputes

Addresses common measurement errors, audit procedures, and resolution of quantity disputes. Students apply audit techniques to identify and correct billing discrepancies.

Lesson 3 • Bill of Quantities Preparation

Guides students through formatting, coding, and pricing a complete bill of quantities. The output directly feeds into interim billing submissions.

Lesson 4 • Principles of Measurement

Introduces standard measurement rules, units, and conventions used across civil, structural, and MEP disciplines. Students apply consistent measurement methods to avoid billing disputes.

Lesson 1 • Retention and Advance Payment Tracking

Explains how to calculate, track, and recover retention and advance payment deductions across billing cycles. Students maintain a running retention and advance ledger.

Lesson 2 • Submission, Review, and Certification

Covers submission protocols, engineer review procedures, and responding to certification deductions. Students negotiate and resolve under-certification professionally.

Lesson 3 • Progress Assessment and Valuation

Teaches methods for assessing physical progress: milestone, percentage complete, and measured work. Students translate site progress into a defensible monetary valuation.

Lesson 4 • Variation and Claim Inclusion

Integrates approved and pending variations and claims into the interim application. Students apply inclusion rules to avoid rejection of unapproved items.

Lesson 1 • Identifying and Classifying Variations

Teaches how to distinguish instructed variations, constructive changes, and scope creep. Students classify site events against contract definitions to establish entitlement.

Lesson 2 • Variation Final Account Integration

Consolidates all variations into the final account and reconciles against interim payments. Students produce a variation final account schedule.

Lesson 3 • Pricing Variations and Change Orders

Applies contract valuation rules: bill rates, analogous rates, fair rates, and daywork. Students price a complex variation using multiple valuation methods.

Lesson 4 • Negotiating and Agreeing Variations

Covers negotiation strategies, commercial correspondence, and achieving timely agreement on variation values. Students draft a variation negotiation letter.

Lesson 1 • Claim Types and Entitlement Basis

Distinguishes extension of time, prolongation cost, disruption, and acceleration claims. Students map each claim type to its contractual and common-law basis.

Lesson 2 • Quantifying and Documenting Costs

Covers methods for calculating prolongation, disruption, and additional overhead costs with supporting records. Students build a cost claim schedule with full documentary backup.

Lesson 3 • Notice and Preservation of Rights

Explains contractual notice requirements and the consequences of late or missing notices. Students draft timely notices that preserve full claim entitlement.

Lesson 4 • Claim Submission and Response

Guides students through structuring, presenting, and defending a formal claim submission. Students respond professionally to employer rejections and counterclaims.

Lesson 1 • Negotiating the Final Account

Applies negotiation techniques specific to final account settlement including package deals and concessions. Students simulate a final account negotiation meeting.

Lesson 2 • Lessons Learned and Benchmarking

Captures billing performance data and benchmarks against project targets for continuous improvement. Students compile a billing lessons-learned report.

Lesson 3 • Reconciling Interim Payments

Reconciles all interim certificates against final account totals to determine the balance due. Students identify and resolve discrepancies between interim and final values.

Lesson 4 • Final Account Components and Structure

Identifies all elements of a final account: contract sum, variations, claims, adjustments, and deductions. Students build a final account framework from a project data set.

Lesson 1 • Dispute Avoidance and Early Resolution

Applies proactive communication, early warning systems, and senior escalation to prevent billing disputes. Students design a dispute avoidance protocol for a project.

Lesson 2 • Commercial Positioning and Front-Loading

Examines front-loading, unbalanced pricing, and early billing strategies within contractual limits. Students evaluate the commercial and reputational trade-offs of each approach.

Lesson 3 • Cash Flow Forecasting and Optimisation

Builds project cash flow forecasts linked to billing milestones and payment terms. Students optimise billing timing to minimise negative cash flow exposure.

Lesson 4 • Subcontractor Billing Management

Covers back-to-back billing alignment, subcontractor payment certification, and retention management. Students design a subcontractor billing control framework.