A UK payment reminder is the way Retention Track asks a contractor to release retention on a UK contract — at Practical Completion, or at the end of the Defects Liability period. It plays the same role as a payment claim on an Australian or New Zealand contract, but the wording, the amounts and the follow-up options are all geared to the UK.
This article is the UK companion to Creating a Payment Claim. It walks through:
Why UK contracts use a payment reminder instead of a payment claim
When you can send a payment reminder
Prerequisites
Sending a payment reminder from the contract page
Why amounts on the reminder are shown excluding VAT
Email recipients and the workspace CC list
After the reminder has been sent
What's different from an AU or NZ payment claim
Common errors and blocking conditions
Why UK contracts use a payment reminder instead of a payment claim
In Australia and New Zealand, retention is released through a formal payment claim issued under the local security of payment rules. Those rules give the claim a fixed response window, a statutory due date, and a defined adjudication path if the contractor doesn't pay.
The UK doesn't work the same way. A request to release retention is a normal contractual matter between you and the contractor, so Retention Track sends a payment reminder instead — a plainly worded letter asking for the outstanding retention to be released. The reminder isn't a statutory notice, has no fixed due date attached, and doesn't unlock an adjudication workflow.
In practice, the day-to-day flow inside Retention Track is almost identical to a payment claim — the same buttons sit on the same retention card, the same email is generated on your behalf, and the same close / revert actions are available once it's been sent. The differences are mostly in the labels, the email template, and what is and isn't possible after the reminder has gone out.
When you can send a payment reminder
Retention on a UK contract is held in two parts: a Practical Completion (PC) portion released at the PC Date, and a Defects portion released at the end of the Defects Liability period. Each portion is reminded separately — typically the PC reminder first, the Defects reminder later when the defects period closes.
The Send Payment Reminder button appears on the contract page once:
The relevant date has passed — the PC Date for a PC reminder, the Defects End Date for a Defects reminder.
There is an outstanding retention balance still to recover on that portion.
There is no active reminder of the same type already on the contract.
Prerequisites
Before sending a payment reminder, check that:
The contract has at least one contractor contact with a valid email address. The reminder is sent to those contacts.
The contract's PC Date (or Defects End Date) has passed.
All Xero invoices on the contract are either fully paid, or already linked to a previous payment reminder. Unpaid invoices block the reminder — see Common errors below.
You have permission to update contracts in the workspace.
Sending a payment reminder from the contract page
Open the contract you want to send a reminder for. On the contract overview, find the retention card for the portion you're chasing — there is one card for Practical Completion (PC) and one for Defects Liability. Each card shows its current status and the actions available for that portion.
On the card for the portion you want to chase, click Send Payment Reminder. A dialog opens.
What's in the dialog
The dialog title reads Send Payment Reminder. It has two sections:
Claim Details — a read-only summary of what's being chased. It lists:
Total Retention Withheld — the total retention held against the contract so far.
Less Retention Used — any retention already consumed (for example, applied to defect costs).
Less Retention Released — any retention already paid back.
Outstanding Retention Balance — what's left, and the figure that will appear on the reminder.
Each line has a small pill marking whether the figure is shown inclusive or exclusive of VAT. On UK contracts these default to exclusive — see the next section for why.Email Preview — a live render of the exact email that will go to the contractor. It uses a placeholder claim number (
RT-XXXX-000000); the real claim number is generated when you click Send.
Note: There are no editable fields in this dialog. The retention amount and the email content are derived from the contract itself — to change them, update the contract or its contractor contacts before sending.
Sending
Click Send Payment Reminder at the bottom of the dialog. Retention Track will:
Generate a claim number (format
RT-XXXX-XXXXXX, derived from the company name and a timestamp). The number is used to identify the reminder internally and on any follow-up Xero invoice.Email the reminder to the contractor's contacts, with the workspace's CC list copied in. The email matches the preview, with the placeholder claim number replaced by the real one.
Stamp the reminder with today's date as the date sent. No due date is set — UK reminders don't have one.
Record a "Payment Claim Sent" entry in the contract's activity log. (The activity log uses the same wording across all jurisdictions.)
After the dialog closes, the retention card updates to show the reminder's status, claim number, date sent, the amount being chased, and a progress bar with paid / outstanding / used segments. The action buttons on the card change to reflect the new state — for example, options to record a retention payment, create a Xero invoice, close the balance, or revert the reminder.
Why amounts on the reminder are shown excluding VAT
Retention itself is a portion of the contract value, and the underlying retention figures are tracked exclusive of VAT. On UK contracts, every figure in the reminder dialog and in the outgoing email is shown the same way — excluding VAT — to match how retention is usually discussed and accounted for in UK construction.
In practice that means:
The Outstanding Retention Balance in the Claim Details card defaults to the VAT-exclusive figure. The pill next to each amount makes this explicit.
The email to the contractor states the amount due as "{amount} (excl. VAT) is now due". The figure quoted is the same VAT-exclusive outstanding balance.
When you later raise a Xero invoice from the reminder, VAT is added by Xero on top of that VAT-exclusive amount according to the tax rate on the line — including domestic reverse charge rates where they apply.
Note: Australian and New Zealand contracts default to displaying amounts inclusive of GST instead. The pill next to each figure in the dialog always tells you which one you're looking at, so there's no ambiguity if you work across jurisdictions.
Email recipients and the workspace CC list
The payment reminder email is sent to:
To — every contractor contact on the contract with a valid email address. If the contract has multiple contacts, all of them are addressed on the same email.
CC — the workspace's Outbound Email CC Recipients list. Any address that already appears in the To line is removed from the CC line to avoid duplicates.
The workspace CC list is the place to add your own team's internal addresses (e.g. [email protected]) so they're automatically copied in on every reminder. It applies to every payment claim, payment reminder, and adjudication notice sent from the workspace — it isn't set per contract.
To set up or change the list, open Settings in the Workspace section of the left sidebar and find the Outbound Email CC Recipients card. Changes take effect immediately for the next reminder sent. See Outbound Email CC Settings for a full walkthrough.
Note: The CC list isn't previewed in the Send Payment Reminder dialog. To check who will be copied on a given reminder, open Workspace Settings beforehand. The actual recipients used are also recorded against the sent message and can be inspected later from the outbound emails view.
After the reminder has been sent
Once the reminder is out, the retention card on the contract page exposes a smaller set of follow-up actions than the AU/NZ payment claim flow. The reminder is, in effect, a chase — there is no statutory schedule of response or adjudication path to manage. The available actions are:
Record Retention Payment — log a payment the contractor has made back to you, in part or in full. The reminder is automatically marked off as the balance gets paid down. See Recording and Deleting Retention Payments.
Create Xero Invoice — raise the matching VAT invoice in Xero and link it to the reminder, so payment progress is then tracked through Xero. This is optional. On UK contracts a Reverse Charge Tax Type dropdown is shown if your company has reverse charge tax type mappings configured — defaulting to no reverse charge. See Configuring Xero Tax Type Mappings for setup.
Close Balance — finalise the reminder once the retention has been paid out in full or settled by agreement. The button uses the label Close Balance on UK contracts rather than Close Payment Claim, but the action is the same.
Revert Payment Reminder — withdraw a reminder sent in error and free the card up so a fresh reminder can be sent.
Close and revert both work the same way as on AU/NZ payment claims, and neither sends an email to the contractor. For a detailed walkthrough see Closing and Reverting a Payment Claim.
What's different from an AU or NZ payment claim
The mechanics of sending the reminder are essentially the same as a payment claim — what changes is the labelling, the email content, the tax treatment, and what's possible after sending:
| AU and NZ | UK |
Button label on the retention card | Send Payment Claim | Send Payment Reminder |
Dialog title | Send New Payment Claim | Send Payment Reminder |
Email template | Jurisdiction-specific, with statutory language referencing the relevant Security of Payment Act or Construction Contracts Act | Plain reminder template — no statutory language |
Default display of amounts | Inclusive of GST | Exclusive of VAT |
Due date on the claim | Calculated from the jurisdiction (e.g. 10 business days for NSW) | None — UK reminders have no due date |
Follow-up workflow actions | Record a Payment Schedule, Lodge / Raise an Adjudication Notice, Download Adjudication Package | Not applicable |
Close action label | Close Payment Claim | Close Balance |
Revert action label | Revert Payment Claim | Revert Payment Reminder |
Xero invoice — reverse charge option | Not shown | Shown when reverse charge tax type mappings are configured |
Common errors and blocking conditions
"Cannot submit retention claim — this contract has unpaid invoices"
If the contract still has unpaid Xero invoices that aren't already linked to a previous payment reminder, the dialog shows this warning and the Send button is disabled. Resolve the open invoices first — either record payment on them in Xero, or write off any residual amount — then open the reminder dialog again.
Xero invoices already linked to an earlier reminder do not block a new reminder, so PC and Defects reminders can run in parallel without interfering with each other.
The Send Payment Reminder button is not visible at all
If you don't see a Send button on the retention card, one of the following is true:
The date hasn't been reached yet — the PC Date or Defects End Date is still in the future. The card will show when the window opens.
There is no outstanding balance to chase. The card will show "No Retention to Recover".
An active payment reminder of this type already exists. Revert it first if you need to send a new one.
You don't have permission to update this contract. Speak to your workspace owner about your role.
"Contractor email address not found"
If none of the contractor contacts on the contract have an email address, the reminder cannot be sent. Edit the contract or the contractor record to add at least one contact with a valid email address, then try again.