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Overview: Tracking Allowances & Contingencies in Clearstory

Stay aligned on scope and cost by managing project allowances in real time.

Clearstory’s Allowances feature helps project teams track and manage allowance- and contingency-related budget items earlier and more collaboratively — before they’re finalized in your financial system.

It’s built for General Contractors, Specialty Contractors, and Owners who want greater visibility, less manual tracking, and tighter alignment around how budgeted scope is used throughout the life of a project.

💡 What Is an Allowance?

An allowance is a placeholder in your budget for scope that is known, but not fully defined. Clearstory allows you to manage three key types of budget placeholders:

  • Allowance – Known scope, unknown cost
  • Contingency – Unknown scope, unknown cost
  • Hold – Known scope, unknown cost, used at your company's discretion

Each placeholder works the same way in Clearstory: you create a budget item, track costs against it, and monitor usage to avoid overruns. Everything is documented, visible, and collaborative—so there are no surprises later in the project.

🔐 How Visibility Works

Clearstory allows each party to see allowances from their perspective:

  • Customer Allowances are shared between you and your customer; you can allocate customer allowances to received contractor CORs, but this is only visible to you
  • Contractor Allowances are shared between you and your contractors

✅ Key Benefits

  • Real-time visibility into remaining allowance balances
  • Collaborative tracking between parties
  • Fewer surprises and cleaner closeout documentation

Less time spent manually reconciling spreadsheets