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Contract Administration Forms

NBS Contract Administrator includes electronic copies of the official RIBA Contract Administration Forms for use with the JCT Standard, Intermediate and Minor Works contracts. The software filters the right forms for the right contract and much of the form completion is automated. Generic forms are also for use with other contracts.

Guidance

Extensive guidance is provided in the software and gives both detailed advice and information about contract administration and communication, and guidance on how to complete the contract administration forms on screen.

Address book

Details of clients, contractors and others within a project team can be saved in to the address book. Once entered they are automatically populated on to forms and transmittal sheets.

Automated completion

Job details for example job reference; name and address of the issuer, employer and contractor; address of the works; status of the contract sum are all automatically populated on the forms.

NBS Contract Administrator also tracks costs against the contract sum, including cost variations, interim payments, and VAT.

Audit trail, archive and printing

NBS Contract Administrator maintains comprehensive records, storing all forms in electronic format (PDF) for record purposes in one electronic file. The quality of the audit trail is maintained because once a form has been issued it can not be edited. When a form is issued, a transmittal sheet is also produced which can be sent with forms by email or printed for distribution.

Reports

Detailed reports on the status of each job are available at any time. Reports cover:

1. Architect’s/Contract Administrator’s Instructions issued and their impact on the contract sum
2. Estimate, claimed and agreed cost variations
3. Details of all issued contract administration forms and their impact on the contract sum
4. The current amount of money retained by the employer and the outstanding contract value
5. Financial summary statement of the job.

Reports can be printed or exported to PDF format for electronic distribution and archiving.

Intuitive user interface

NBS Contract Administrator has been designed to be intuitive and simple to use. Projects and Contract Administration Forms are organized on the left-hand side of the screen. The centre of the screen is used for editing project details, contacts and forms. The right-hand side of the screen displays Guidance. Users of other NBS products will find the user interface of NBS Contract Administrator familiar.

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NBS Contract Administrator is a subscription service. As part of the subscription you will receive updates on CD Rom twice a year. Additional updates can be downloaded from the NBS website when available.

NBS Contract Administrator supports JCT 98, IFC 98, MW 98, SBC 05, IC 05/ICD 05, MW 05/MWD 05, SBC/SCOT 05, MW/SCOT 05 and MWD/SCOT 05 forms of contract. At the heart of the system are the well-known RIBA forms for contract administration. NBS Contract Administrator is the only software available that is licensed to use these RIBA contract administration forms. The content included in the current release is listed below:

NBS Contract Administrator also includes four “generic” contract administration forms to enable you to use the software to administer a range of contracts other than the JCT contracts listed above. These generic forms support Instruction, Completion, Payment and Deduction.

Included content:

Contract Administration Forms	SBC 05	IC 05 / ICD 05	MW 05 / MWD 05	JCT 98	IFC 98	MW 98	SBC/ SCOT 05	MW/ SCOT 05, MWD/ SCOT 05	Generic
Interim Certificate and Direction	x			x			x	x
Statement of Retention	x			x
Notification to Nominated Sub-Contractor of amount included in Certificate				x
Certificate of Completion of Making Good Defects	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x
Notification of Revision to Completion Date	x			x			x
Architect’s/Contract Administrator’s Instruction	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x
Clerk of Works Direction	x			x			x
Certificate of Failure to Provide Proof of Payment to Nominated Sub-Contractor				x
Statement of Partial Possession by the Employer	x	x		x	x		x
Certificate of Practical Completion of Nominated Sub-Contract Works				x			x
Certificate of Failure to Complete Nominated Sub-Contract Works				x
Certificate of Interim/ Progress Payment		x	x		x	x
Final Certificate	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x
Certificate of Practical Completion	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x
Certificate of Non-Completion	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x
Notification of an Extension of Time						x		x
Statement/Record of Reimbursement of advance payment	x	x		x	x		x
Section Completion Certificate	x	x
Instruction									x
Completion Certificate									x
Stage Payment Certificate									x
Statement of Deductions									x

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NBS Software Licensing

NBS software can be licensed for use on standalone PCs, or for use on a network. When running on a standalone PC the software will be licence locked for use only on that machine.

For network installations, the software will be licence locked to the server PC. Other PCs on the network may access the licence on the server for concurrent use, up to the number of licences subscribed to.

System requirements

NBS software requires the following components in order to run:

1. Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 (IE6)
2. Microsoft .NET framework

Both are supplied on the software CD. All products require a CD-ROM drive for initial installation of the software.

In addition the software will run on the following platforms:

1. Windows 2000 (SP4)
2. Windows XP Professional (SP2)
3. Windows XP Home (SP2)
4. Windows 2000 Server and above (for Server PCs)
5. Windows Vista (All Editions) 32-bit and 64-bit

Full instructions for installation are contained in the Getting Started Guide and help files provided in the software. Our software support team also provide assistance, and you can contact them on 0845 456 9594 (+44 191 232 9594 from outside the UK) and at support@theNBS.com.

Please note that the speed of running any software application depends upon several factors. The following specification is an approximate guide only.

Recommended minimum requirements for all NBS software:

1. Processor: Pentium III 750 MHz.
2. Memory: 256 MB.
3. Free disk space: 60 - 200 MB.
4. Screen resolution: 1024 x 768 in 16 bit colour.

Microsoft Windows Vista

On 30th January 2007 Microsoft formally launched  Windows Vista, to supersede Windows XP.

Windows Vista is available in five different editions, each in both 32bit and 64bit versions:

1. Windows Vista Ultimate
2. Windows Vista Home Premium
3. Windows Vista Home Basic
4. Windows Vista Business
5. Windows Vista Enterprise

If you are considering the operating system, NBS can confirm that we continue to develop the product range in order to be compatible with Windows Vista.

For the latest information please see NBS software Vista compatibility

Apple Macintosh

We have successfully tested our products on Apple Macintosh computers with Windows emulation software (see specification below). We cannot guarantee, however, that customers' experiences will be the same in all instances.

1. Mac G4, 867 MHz, 640 MB RAM
2. Mac OS X 10.2.8
3. Virtual PC 6.1 & 7.1
4. Windows 2000 SP4 / Windows XP Service Pack 1 (256 Mb allocated to PC) + VPC additions
5. 1024*768 HiColour

We have recently tested the compatibility of NBS software with Apple Boot Camp. The specification of the machine tested on is as follows:

1. iMac 1.83GHz Intel Core Duo
2. 17-inch widescreen LCD with 1440x900 resolution
3. 1.83GHz Intel Core Duo with 2MB shared L2 cache
4. 512MB (single SO-DIMM) 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM
5. 160GB Serial ATA hard drive
6. Slot-load 8x double-layer SuperDrive
7. ATI Radeon X1600 graphics with 128MB GDDR3 memory
8. Built-in AirPort Extreme and Bluetooth 2.0

Please Note: In order to run NBS software using Apple Boot Camp users will require a bona fide installation disc for Microsoft Windows XP, Service Pack 2, Home or Professional (no multi-disc, upgrade or Media Centre versions).

NBS have tested the Specification Family portfolio software (NBS Building, NBS Landscape, NBS Engineering Services), NBS Contract Administrator and NBS Scheduler successfully for standalone and network installations and the platform appears to be very stable.

Although the software has been successfully tested on this platform we cannot guarantee that the software will react the same with another specification Mac. Therefore, we cannot guarantee performance of our software when using Windows on a Mac. Support will be limited for any customers using our software on Mac as we will not be able to determine that the encountered problems are due to our software or the system used.

Windows 95, 98, 98SE, ME and NT4

Microsoft has retired support for:

1. Windows 95
2. Windows 98
3. Windows 98SE
4. Windows ME
5. Windows NT4

Microsoft state that these operating systems are outdated and can expose customers to security risks. NBS recommend that customers who are still running the above upgrade to a newer, more secure Microsoft operating system, such as Windows XP (SP2), as soon as possible.

Microsoft has announced that the above operating systems will no longer be supported. Whilst the current versions of the NBS product range will continue to run on these operating systems (except Windows 95 and 98), NBS will no longer support the development of future versions of the product range on these operating systems.

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