Upload your contract

1. Who can upload, and when

The project's Owner seat or GC seat can upload, while the project is a draft, before the scope is submitted or locked. VisiPay staff accounts cannot upload a contract.

The Upload your contract button is on the project's Scope tab, next to Add Item. On a project that has a GC seat, the Owner seat does not see it: the GC adds the lines.

Each seat can upload 10 contracts a day on a project. One contract is read at a time on each project; another upload waits its turn.

You can have one contract being read at a time. If one of yours is still being read, or VisiPay is busy reading other contracts, the upload answers "VisiPay is busy reading other contracts. Try again later." or that yours is still being read, and nothing is uploaded. Try again later.

If the button answers "Contract upload is not set up yet.", contract upload is not turned on for VisiPay yet. Enter the lines with Add Item or Import from file in the meantime.

2. Upload and read, step by step

1. Open the project and choose the Scope tab.

2. Choose Upload your contract.

3. Pick the contract as a PDF. A contract package in several files can be picked together. The files together can be up to 10 MB and 300 pages.

4. Choose Upload and read. The contract is read on our server. Scanned pages are read from their images, which takes longer than pages with text.

5. When the read is done, each line it found is listed with its page and the words it was read from, highlighted.

3. Choose the lines to add

No line is ticked for you. Tick each line you want to add, change any value that was read wrong, and leave the rest unticked.

Each line is checked against its page as it appears on screen, read from a picture of the page. A line whose words or figures are in the file but not shown on the page (text that is hidden, white, transparent or cut off) is marked "Not visible on the page" and cannot be ticked or added.

Each line meets the same rules as a line imported from a file: it needs a description and a quantity greater than 0, a price is a unit price, and a line with a total but no unit price is priced by hand.

Choose Add to add the ticked lines to the scope as draft lines you can still change. If any ticked line breaks a rule, nothing is added and each reason is shown.

Adding keeps the pages used, which takes a moment. If one of your contracts is still being read, or VisiPay is busy, Add answers "VisiPay is busy reading other contracts. Try again later." or that VisiPay is still working on a contract of yours, and nothing is added. Try again later.

The GC adds the lines with their contract unit prices. No markup is added to a price read from the contract.

As the Owner, you describe the lines and the GC prices them, so no unit price is added from the contract. On a project that has a GC seat, the GC adds the lines.

If no schedule of values was found, or you want none of the lines, choose Finish without adding lines.

4. What is kept

The full contract is removed within 7 days. Only the pages your project uses are kept.

When you add the lines, the pages those lines came from are saved as one PDF with the project's documents. Each kept page is a page image: a picture of the page as it appears, highlights and filled form fields included. The text under it, which you can search and copy, is read from that picture, so it is only what is drawn on the page; text the file holds but the page does not show is never kept. Nothing else from the contract file is copied into it, so nothing a page links to comes with it. The rest of the contract is not kept.

Each kept page can take up to 3 MB and the kept PDF up to 40 MB. A page of text is kept exactly; a photograph or a scan is kept as a smaller, compressed picture. If the pages used are too large together, adding answers "The pages used are too large to keep together (over 40 MB). Add the lines from fewer pages at a time. Nothing was added."; add the lines from fewer pages at a time. If one page alone is too detailed, adding answers "A page used is too detailed to keep within 3 MB. Enter the lines from that page with Add Item. Nothing was added."

A sheet up to 17 by 22 inches is kept; one of 18 by 24 inches or larger cannot be kept as an image. Adding a line from such a page answers "A page used is too large to keep as an image. Nothing was added."; enter that line with Add Item instead.

Right after you add the lines, the kept pages may show as "Being saved" for a moment, with no View or Download yet. They are saved even if VisiPay restarts in the meantime; open them again shortly.

The Owner and the GC both read the kept pages, whoever finished the review and whenever they joined the project. Subcontractors, inspectors and lenders do not see them in the documents list, in search or as a download link: the contract's terms are between the Owner and the GC.

The project's audit trail records the original file's fingerprint (its SHA-256), its page count and the page numbers kept, and each line added records its page and the words it was read from. Anyone holding the full contract can show the kept pages came from it.

5. If the read does not work

If a file cannot be opened, the upload answers "This file could not be read." and nothing is uploaded. A damaged, password protected or unusually complex PDF is refused this way.

If the contract could not be read, nothing is added. Enter the lines with Add Item or Import from file, or upload the contract again.

A read that runs too long stops, and you enter the lines by hand.

A package of more than 300 pages is refused before it is read, and the upload answers "A contract package holds at most 300 pages. Upload the pages with the schedule of values, or split the package. Nothing was uploaded."

At most 40 schedule pages, with at most 120,000 characters of text between them, are read at once. A contract whose schedule is longer is not read in part: the read stops before anything is proposed and answers "More than 40 pages of this contract look like a schedule of values, more than can be read at once. Nothing was proposed. Upload just the schedule pages, or enter the lines with Add Item or Import from file." or "The schedule pages of this contract hold more than 120,000 characters, more than can be read at once. Nothing was proposed. Upload just the schedule pages, or enter the lines with Add Item or Import from file." A long contract whose schedule is a few pages is read as usual.

An upload is open for review for 6 days. After that its file is gone; upload the contract again.