Managing Payments in Mastt
Mastt's Payments module provides a complete system for recording and tracking contract payments. You can create payments against contracts and variations, manage approval workflows, track payment periods, record retention, and generate payment certificates for distribution to stakeholders.
Objective
By the end of this guide, you'll be able to:
- Create and manage payments for contracts and variations
- Track payment approval workflows from draft to paid
- Record and manage retention amounts
- Generate payment documentation like certificates and schedules
Prerequisites
- Access to a Mastt project
- Existing contracts in the Cost Module
- Basic understanding of payment processes
Video Walkthrough
Step-by-Step Payment Management
Navigating the Payments Module
1. Payment List View- The main Payments tab shows all payments
- You can group payments by:
- Contract: Payments organized by contract (default)
- Month Paid: Payments grouped by payment month
- Month: Payments grouped by work period month
- Status: Payments grouped by approval status
- Reimbursable: Payments grouped by reimbursable status
- None: No grouping applied
- Add: Create new payments
- Export: Export payment data
- Bulk Export Letters: Generate payment certificates for multiple payments
- Expand/Collapse All: Control the view detail level
Creating a New Payment
1. Basic Payment Information- Click Add to create a new payment
- Enter a payment name
- Select the status:
- Draft: Initial payment creation
- Submitted: Payment submitted for approval
- Approved: Payment approved but not yet paid
- Paid: Payment processed
- Rejected: Payment declined
- Month: Calendar month when the work occurred
- For non-calendar periods, expand Additional Fields to set:
- Payment Period From/To: Custom period dates
- Other date fields:
- Payment Notification Received: When the invoice arrived
- Payment Due: When payment must be made
- Date Approved: When the payment was approved (auto-fills when status changes)
- Month Paid: When payment was processed (auto-fills when status changes)
- Enter relevant reference numbers:
- Payment Reference Number
- Invoice Number
- Payment Statement/Claim Number
Selecting Contract and Amounts
1. Contract Selection- Select the contract for this payment
- The system displays the contract breakdown:
- Line items
- Approved or in-principle variations
Variations must be approved before creating payments against them
- Enter payment amounts in either:
- Amount Approved column: Direct dollar amount
- Percentage Complete column: Percentage of the line item
- The system calculates the other value automatically
- Toggle on Submitted Amount to record initially requested amounts
- Enter amounts in the submitted fields
- This helps track differences between requested and approved payments
- Click next to any line item to add comments
- Use this to explain variances between submitted and approved amounts
- Comments appear on the payment PDF
Managing Retention
Setting Retention- Scroll down to the Retention section
- This is specifically for cash retention
- Select either:
- Percentage Based: Enter a percentage to apply
- Amount Based: Enter specific dollar amounts
- Retention is calculated on contract line items only
- Retention is not automatically applied to variations
-
For variations, manually adjust the retention amount if required
Finalizing the Payment
1. Additional Information- Add any notes for internal reference
- Upload attachments (e.g., invoices, supporting documentation)
- Click Add to create the payment
- Click the three dots next to a payment
- Choose from:
- Payment Certificate
- Payment Schedule
- Payment Recommendation
- The document includes all payment details and comments
- When generating a payment document, you can include attachments
- Select the attachments to include when prompted
E-signed or encrypted PDFs may not work with this feature
Bulk Certificate Generation
1. Multiple Payment Documents- Select payments using the checkbox next to each payment
- Click Letters
- Choose the document type to generate
- System creates all documents in a ZIP file
Payment Deletion
1. Removing Payments- Click the three dots next to a payment
- Select Delete
- Payments can be deleted in any order
Common Pitfalls and Solutions
- Issue: Can't find a variation for payment
- Solution: Ensure the variation is approved or in-principle
- Issue: Payment documents not generating
- Solution: Check if the attached PDFs are encrypted
- Issue: Retention is not calculating correctly
- Solution: Remember, retention only applies to contract line items by default
- Issue: Month fields not activating
- Solution: Status must be changed to Approved for Date Approved to activate, and to Paid for Month Paid to activate
Next Steps
Now that you understand how to manage payments, explore the Cash Flow Management guide to learn how to project and track your project's financial cash flow in Mastt.
Note: Regular payment entry helps maintain accurate financial reporting. Consider implementing a standardized payment recording schedule to ensure your financial data is always current.