Certified vsPending Claim
A pay application states the work done. Certification approves it for payment. The amount is the same before and after; what changes is how much weight the record carries and what you are allowed to call it.
A pending claim is a pay application that has been submitted but not yet certified: the contractor’s statement of work completed and the amount due, awaiting the architect’s or owner’s representative’s certificate for payment. A certified pay application is one that has been reviewed and approved for payment. The certification changes the status and the strength of the record, not the amount of work the application reports.
Same number, two labels
Certification does not re-measure the work. It approves the statement and strengthens the record. The figure that drives actual cost is the same on both sides of the line.
- Submitted Apr 30, awaiting certification
- Governs actual cost from the day it lands
- Carries the caveat: submitted, not yet certified
- Same amount of work, same period
- Label switches to certified; the caveat drops
- Frozen as approved; a correction is a new version
Three rules that keep it honest
The number is current, not stale
The latest submitted application governs cost from the day it lands. Holding the figure back until certification would leave actual cost a billing cycle behind.
The label tells the truth
“Certified” is printed only when the record proves it. Until then the figure is a pending claim, submitted and awaiting certification, and the caveat travels with it.
Certification freezes the record
Once certified, the application is kept as it was approved. A later correction becomes a new version; the certified copy is never overwritten.
A worked example
A mechanical subcontractor submits Pay App #7 on April 30 for $1,240,000 completed and stored to date. The general contractor closes April the same week. Actual cost for that contract is $1,240,000, labelled a pending claim. On May 14 the architect certifies #7 unchanged. Nothing about April’s cost moves; the label becomes certified and the certified copy is frozen as version 1.
Now suppose #8 is submitted on May 31 for $1,610,000 while #7 is still the only certified application. The May close must use $1,610,000, labelled a pending claim, not the older certified $1,240,000. Preferring the certified figure because it is certified would make May’s cost a full month stale, and the CPI with it.
How POD labels the basis
POD reads a contracted line’s cost to date from the latest submitted pay application whose period ends on or before the as-of date, and labels that figure by the application’s own status: “certified pay application” or “pending claim, submitted, awaiting certification.” Certifying never changes the number. When a period is closed, the sealed snapshot records its basis as certified, pending claim, or mixed, and the morning brief and Ask POD add one line beside the cost when it is not yet certified. On certification POD freezes a versioned copy of the application’s normalized view, and a later re-upload cannot overwrite a certified or paid application. “Certified” is printed only when the record proves it; an older snapshot that never recorded a basis is worded as a pay app, never as certified.
The full EVM guideFrequently asked questions
The label is the honesty
The pay application itself is the next term: what the G702 and G703 are, and how they reconcile.