Free NEC Compensation Event Templates
By Sheldon Wright MCICES. Last reviewed September 2026. For the NEC3 and NEC4 ECC and ECS.
Ten templates that cover the paperwork of a compensation event from the first early warning to the quotation. I wrote them the way I would want to receive them if I were assessing the event. They are in my own words and are not NEC's published forms.
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Compensation event notification (Word)
A one-page notification under clause 61.3: the event, when you became aware of it, which compensation event it is and why.
Quotation cover sheet (Word)
The summary an assessor reads first: basis, dividing date, assumptions, change to the Prices, delay, risk and appendices.
Early warning notice (Word)
A one-page notice: the matter, what it could affect, your proposals, and whether you want a meeting.
Early warning register (Excel)
Matters, decisions, owners and dates, with a link to any compensation event that follows.
Compensation event timeline calculator (web page)
Enter the dates you know and see every deadline that follows, for NEC3 or NEC4, main contract or subcontract.
The NEC Change Control Pack
Six workbooks that do the arithmetic for you. They are sent to your work email, in one message, straight away.
Change management register (Excel)
Early warnings, instructions, notifications, compensation events, technical queries and communications in one workbook. Every reply date is calculated from the periods in your contract and it tells you whose move it is.
Compensation event register (Excel)
Every deadline for a single event from awareness to implementation, with the reminder and treated-acceptance dates.
And the quotation build-up, four times over
One workbook cannot do this honestly. Main Options A and B price a compensation event from the short schedule of cost components; Options C, D and E use the full one. The components differ between the two, and they differ again between NEC3 and NEC4 — NEC4 folded the overhead percentages into a single Fee, where NEC3 keeps a subcontracted fee percentage and a direct one. So there are four, and you need the one that matches your contract.
Each lists the components in the order its own schedule sets them out, and every percentage lives on one Contract Data sheet, so a Z clause that changes a percentage is a one-cell change.
Quotation build-up — NEC4, Schedule of Cost Components (Options C, D, E) (Excel)
Defined Cost built from the full Schedule: People, Equipment, Plant and Materials, Subcontractors, Charges, manufacture and fabrication, design and insurance, with one Fee percentage on the total including risk.
Quotation build-up — NEC4, Short Schedule of Cost Components (Options A, B) (Excel)
People priced at the rates in your Contract Data, and Equipment from the published list with your Contract Data adjustment applied for you.
Quotation build-up — NEC3, Schedule of Cost Components (Options C, D, E) (Excel)
Subcontractor payments sit outside the components, as NEC3 has them, and the Working Areas, manufacture and design overhead percentages are calculated from the items they attach to.
Quotation build-up — NEC3, Shorter Schedule of Cost Components (Options A, B) (Excel)
Subcontracted lines are flagged, so the subcontracted fee percentage applies to those and the direct fee percentage to everything else. Under clause 63.15 this schedule can also be used on Options C, D and E where the Project Manager and the Contractor agree.
The rest of the contract
These cover compensation events. For the communications either side of one — instructions, early warnings, defects, completion, payment and pay less notices — there is a contract communications pack: twenty-five forms for NEC3 and NEC4, main contract and subcontract.
How to use them well
Start with the Reply Periods sheet. In both registers, every date is calculated from one table of periods. Choose your contract, then check those periods against your own, including the Z clauses. Ten minutes there saves arguments later.
Fill in the yellow cells only. The grey ones are calculated. The sheets are protected so you cannot overwrite a formula by accident; there is no password, so Review > Unprotect Sheet takes it off if you want to change a formula or the layout.
Use the register as a diary, not a history. Its value is the Next action column, which tells you whose move it is. Look at it weekly.
Check your contract first
These templates follow the standard NEC3 and NEC4 forms. Most contracts of any size amend them: shortened notification periods, lengthened reply periods, deleted treated-acceptance provisions. Where yours does, type the period into the "Your contract" column on the Reply Periods sheet and every date follows from it.
What a template cannot do
A register will tell you a quotation is due on Tuesday. It cannot tell you whether the quotation is any good — whether the dividing date is right, whether the delay claimed is visible on the programme, whether the risk allowance is named and evidenced or just a percentage at the bottom. That is the checking these templates leave to you.
Or have the quotation itself reviewed.
Clause 60 reads the notification, the quotation, the programme and the records against your contract including its Z clauses, and returns a structured review in about ten minutes. Every finding is cited to its source document and labelled Fact or Inference. It is assistive: you make the call.
These templates are general guidance on the standard NEC3 and NEC4 forms. They are not legal advice and they do not account for the amendments in your contract. NEC is a registered trade mark of its owner; Clause 60 Limited is not affiliated with or endorsed by NEC.