DEVELOPMENT OF A CONSTRUCTION PAYMENT APPLICATION TO ACHIEVE EARLY OR PROMPT PAYMENT.

Abstract

Central to any economic transaction is payment, whose absence will result in unsustainable business. This is crucial for the construction industry because of its extensive process durations and costly products. After financial failure, the next highest operational risk is delayed payment, resulting in later project completion. Payment issues are commonplace in the industry and have been a frustration for decades, as identified by the United Kingdom and many countries since the 1960s.

Similarly, literature reviews Singapore Construction Industry is plagued with delayed payment over two decades. Despite the implementation of the Security of Payment Act (SOPA) in 2005, a worsening debt payment behaviour is still witnessed in the recent years. Couple with a declining market performance to payment delay, around twenty construction and engineering firms are in liquidations in the third quarter, July to September, of 2018. The ramification of delayed payment are, therefore, unfavourable for the sustainability of the construction industry. Identification of causes of delayed payment and the analyse of the existing payment system is required to eradicate this chronic issue.

In this research study, the case study approach is adopted to have a systematic and in-depth inquiry of which the research has no control or influence over. Research findings review payment dispute is the main contributing factor for delayed payment. This is worrying as payment dispute is commonplace within the industry. “Disagreement in valuation”, “poorly drafted claims” and “dismissal of loss and expenses claim” are determined as the underlying factors for payment dispute. Without a strong payment system to streamline payment and create a standardized process, these issues could not be resolved. The analysis of current payment system identified a lack of transparency, enforcement, and inefficiency in its procedure.

The advent of mobile computing is presenting new opportunities to improve the current management process in construction. This study has therefore proposed a construction payment application, “VAULT”, to address this chronic issue of delayed payment and aim to achieve early or prompt payment. The development of a construction payment application is to streamline payment by mandating specific procedures, processes, and requirements, and creates a standardized process for collecting important data. To make mandated procedures easy to follow, place the data in appropriate locations and automating the rest of current paper-based process, intuitive user interface will be developed.