Contractor guide · No 1 of 5

Retention — your money, held back

Every payment they certify, they hold a slice back — and by mid-job that slice is real money sitting in the client's account, not yours. It only comes back on dates buried in your contract, and no one chases those dates for you.

What YPA does

Reads your retention terms the day you share the contract — the percentage and both release triggers — so what's yours is recorded, not remembered.
Carries the retention column on every certificate, so you always know what's parked and what it adds up to — one number, not a pile of certificates.
Marks both release dates — practical completion and end of defects — and tells you in your morning brief as they approach, with time to prepare the claim, not a panic at the end of the job.
Drafts the release claim when a release date lands — the message with the certificate numbers and amounts behind it. You review and send it.
Files the proof — the contract clause, the certificates, the claim — dated and traceable, so if the release is "forgotten", the conversation starts from evidence, not memory.

What retention actually is

Retention is a percentage the client keeps back from each payment certificate — commonly 5% in South African building contracts — as a guarantee that you'll finish the job and come back for the defects. It's not a penalty. It's your money, parked in someone else's account.

The exact percentage and the release dates are set by your signed contract — not by what the next-door job did. The contract is the only thing that decides when you see it again.

When it's supposed to come back

In most standard contracts, retention comes back in two halves:

First half — at or around practical completion, when the works are handed over.
Second half — at the end of the defects period, once snags are done and the certificate of completion of defects is issued.

Here's the catch: nobody chases it for you. The client's accountant won't ring you on the day the defects period ends. If you don't ask, it sits there. Jobs finish, teams move on, and retention quietly becomes the client's working capital instead of yours.

Why contractors lose it

The three ways retention disappears:

You never note the release dates — the defects period ends, nobody remembers, months pass.
The final account drags — retention release gets tied up in the final account, which nobody closes.
The paperwork is scattered — the retention terms are in the contract, the certificates are in the file, the dates are in your head. When you finally chase it, you can't prove what's owed.

What a YPA sheet looks like

Retention shows up on the YPA Payment Tracker — one row per certificate, with the retention deducted from every payment. This is the actual sheet format YPA generates (filled with example rows):

YPA — Your Project Assistant · Payment Tracker Example project · generated sheet format

Cert No	Period End	Application Amount	Certified Amount	Retention	Amount Due	Paid Date	Paid Amount	Status
Cert 1	2025-10-31	850000	807500	42500	807500	2025-12-02	807500	Paid
Cert 2	2025-11-30	920000	874000	46000	874000	2026-01-05	874000	Paid
Cert 3	2025-12-31	980000	931000	49000	931000	2026-02-03	931000	Paid
Cert 4	2026-01-31	1050000	997500	52500	997500	2026-03-04	997500	Paid
Cert 5	2026-02-28	1200000	1140000	60000	1140000	2026-04-02	1140000	Paid
Cert 6	2026-03-31	316000	300200	15800	300000	2026-05-02	300000	Paid
Cert 7	2026-04-30	357000	339150	17850	339150	2026-06-02	339150	Paid
Cert 8	2026-05-31	357000	339150	17850	339150	—	—	Due
Cert 9	2026-06-30	410000	389500	20500	389500	2026-08-02	389500	Paid
Cert 10	2026-07-31	445000	422750	22250	422750	—	—	Due
Cert 11	2026-08-31	470000	446500	23500	446500	—	—	Due
Cert 12	2026-09-30	500000	—	—	—	—	—	Applied

Retention held: R367,750 across these certificatesYPA tracks the retention column separately →

Example only — illustrative rows in the real YPA Payment Tracker sheet format.

What to do about it

Write down the retention terms the day you sign — percentage, half-release trigger, final release trigger.
Put the release dates on a calendar before you forget — practical completion and defects end.
Keep every certificate. The retention balance is in the certificates. If you can't lay your hands on them, you can't chase.
Chase in writing. A short email or WhatsApp to the principal agent — "the defects period ended on [date], please process the retention release" — with the certificate numbers behind it.

Want the full picture?

We've built YPA for the way African construction projects actually work. YPA is the site file with a memory. YPA is onboarding its first live builds in small, limited cohorts. Pilot places are free for a defined period — and if we ever charge, the plan and its price will be shown to you before anything is billed.

← Back to Contractor Guides Get on the list for a pilot place

This guide is general information, not legal advice. Retention percentages, release triggers and defects periods come from your signed contract — always check the contract before acting. YPA helps you track and draft; it doesn't give legal opinions.