AI Construction Late-Payment & Retentions Compliance Toolkit for UK SME Subcontractors

Marcus runs a six-person groundworks firm in Birmingham. Every Friday after his lads knock off, he sits in his portacabin office and works through a stack of half-finished applications for payment, retention release letters, and the slow-burn email chain with the main contractor on the housing job in Telford who’s been “looking into it” for nine weeks. He knows, vaguely, that he’s entitled to issue a pay-less notice and refer the matter to adjudication under the Construction Act — his accountant said as much last year — but the JCT contract is 84 pages long, the timing rules are brutal (one missed deadline and the right is gone), and the last time he asked a solicitor for a fixed quote on adjudication paperwork it came back at £4,200 plus VAT. So he writes another polite chase email and hopes.

Then in March 2026 the government announces it’s banning retentions, capping payment terms at 60 days, hardcoding 8%-above-base statutory interest, and giving the Small Business Commissioner real teeth. Marcus reads the headline on his phone over a bacon roll and thinks: finally. A few weeks later he stumbles onto SubbiePay — drops in his JCT contract PDF, his last twelve invoices, and his job calendar. Within ninety seconds the platform has extracted every retention amount across every live job (£47,300, in case you were wondering), flagged two payment cycles where a pay-less notice deadline has just been missed by the main contractor (meaning he’s owed the lot), pre-drafted a compliant notice of adjudication for the Telford job, and queued a Small Business Commissioner complaint for the moment the new powers commence. He pays £49 a month. He’ll never write another polite chase email again.