Getting the baseline accepted is the first hurdle. The second one comes back every month.
Most public contracts, and a growing number of private ones, make the monthly schedule update a condition of payment. The pay application and the updated schedule go in together. If the update is late, incomplete or rejected, the owner can hold the payment until it is fixed. For a small general contractor carrying payroll and subcontractor payments, a held pay application is a cash problem within weeks.
Here is what owners and their reviewers look for in each monthly update, and the mistakes that most often get updates sent back.
What a monthly update has to contain
The specification usually spells it out. The common requirements:
- A data date. The cut-off date for progress, normally the last day of the pay period.
- Actual dates. Actual start and actual finish for every activity that started or finished in the period.
- Progress on activities underway. Remaining duration, and percent complete where the spec asks for it.
- Logic and duration changes, disclosed. Any change to relationships, durations or calendars, listed and explained.
- The narrative. Work completed, the current critical path, any slip to milestones or completion, causes of delay, and the planned recovery.
- Native file and PDFs. The XER plus the reports the spec names.
The mistakes that get updates rejected
Actual dates in the future. An activity shown as finished after the data date, or progress recorded on work that has not started, is an immediate rejection. It also tells the reviewer the update was not built from field information.
Silent logic changes. Changing relationships or durations to make the completion date hold, without saying so, is the fastest way to lose an owner's trust. Reviewers compare each update to the last one. Changes they find on their own read as concealment even when the intent was innocent.
Out-of-sequence progress left unresolved. When work starts before its predecessors finish, P6 has to be told how to treat it. Left alone, the schedule can show float that does not exist.
A narrative that says nothing. "Work is progressing on schedule" with a completion date that moved two weeks is a rejected narrative. The narrative should explain every movement of the critical path and the completion date.
Delays that are noticed but not recorded. If a late owner decision or an unforeseen condition is holding up work, the update is where that delay first goes on the record. A delay that never appears in the monthly updates is much harder to support in a time extension request later.
Why the monthly update is your best protection
The updates are the contemporaneous record of the job. When a dispute about time comes up, both sides go back to them. A GC with twelve clean monthly updates, each showing what happened and why, is in a strong position. A GC whose updates were late, thin or quietly adjusted is not.
That is also why the update should not be the last thing done before the pay application goes in. Built properly, it is an early warning: it shows the critical path drifting while there is still time to recover, and it shows when a delay is the owner's responsibility and a time extension request should go in.
What it takes each month
For most small and mid-size jobs, a monthly update needs a short progress walk with the superintendent or project manager: what started, what finished, what is in progress and how much is left, and what got in the way. From that, a scheduler can produce the updated XER, the reports and the narrative in a few days.
Where CPM Pros fits
CPM Pros runs monthly P6 updates and narratives for general contractors who do not have a scheduler on staff. You send progress; we return the updated XER, PDF reports and narrative in 3 business days, with any delays flagged and documented while there is still time to act. We also take over updates partway through a job when an in-house scheduler leaves or the owner starts rejecting submittals.
Send us the scheduling specification and the latest accepted update, and we will send back a written quote, typically within 3 business days.