Key takeaways
- An as-built schedule is evidence, not a programme update — every date needs a source document behind it.
- Updated contractor programmes are a starting point for the as-built, never a substitute for it.
- Where the record is thin, say so and narrow the analysis rather than filling gaps with assumption.
What a forensic as-built actually is
A forensic as-built schedule sets out when each activity genuinely started, progressed and finished, and cites the document that establishes each of those dates. It is built from the project record: daily reports, inspection and test records, survey and quantity data, concrete pour logs, delivery and installation records, photographs with reliable metadata, minutes and correspondence.
The distinction matters because a contractor's final programme update is a management document. It was produced under commercial pressure, often with statused dates entered to preserve a logic-driven forecast rather than to record fact. Treated as evidence without testing, it imports every reporting convenience into the analysis.
The order of work
The sequence we follow on Ontario projects is deliberately unglamorous, because it is the part that gets tested hardest.
- Establish the contemporaneous document set and its completeness — what exists, what is missing, and for which periods
- Reconstruct actual dates activity by activity, recording the source reference for each
- Reconcile the reconstruction against the programme updates and explain every material difference
- Identify the as-built critical path by period, rather than assuming the baseline's critical path held throughout
- Test each alleged delay event against the as-built path in the window in which it occurred
Where the record runs out
On almost every project there is a period where the record is weak — an early works phase, a subcontractor package administered informally, a stretch where daily reports were signed but not completed. The credible response is to state the limitation in the report, describe the effect it has on the conclusions, and where necessary present the analysis for the periods the record does support.
Analysts who paper over those gaps generally lose more than the days in dispute. Once one inferred date is exposed, every other date is treated as inferred too.
Why this is done early, not late
The as-built is the most document-intensive and least compressible part of a claim. Starting it while the site team is still available, and the people who kept the records can still explain them, is materially cheaper than reconstructing the same picture two years later from archived files.
It is also the part that most often changes the client's own view of the claim, which is far better discovered before a submission is served than after.
Written by Elite Analytics Claims Practice. For advice on a specific project or claim, get in touch.
Contact the team