NCRs

A Non-Conformance Record (often called a non-conformance report) is a formal, reviewed quality record — used when an issue is significant enough to need explicit management approval and certification, not just a normal defect close-out.

NCRs are deliberately separate from defects. Defects are the day-to-day capture-and-close loop. NCRs are the slower, heavier-weight quality process — typically governed by an ISO 9001 quality system or a project quality plan.

Where to find them

Open a project and choose NCRs on the project overview. The register lists every NCR on the project, newest first, with its number, status, location, the company it concerns and its due date. It shows open NCRs by default; switch the status filter to see closed ones. You can filter by company, search by number, title or location, then Export CSV or Export PDF to download the rows you are looking at.

NCRs are numbered per project: NCR-001, NCR-002 and so on.

Raising an NCR

Choose Raise NCR and fill in:

→Start from a template (optional) — fills in the title, what doesn't conform and the actions from one of your company's templates (see Templates below). Change anything before you save.
→Title — a short name for the problem.
→What doesn't conform — what was found, and the requirement it fails (a drawing, a spec clause, a standard).
→Location (optional) — anywhere in the project's location tree.
→Issued to (optional) — the company the NCR concerns, from your address book. This is a record only: the company is not notified and cannot see the NCR.
→Due (optional) — when corrective action is due. Open NCRs past this date show as overdue.

The NCR starts as a draft. On its page you then add the root cause, the corrective action (what will put this one right) and the preventive action (what will stop it happening again), and attach photos.

From a defect, a checklist or a form

You can also raise an NCR from the thing that found the problem:

→A defect — on the defect's page, open the ⋯ menu and choose Raise NCR….
→A QA checklist — a question answered No has a Raise NCR button.
→A filed company form — the form's result page has a Raise NCR button.

The NCR opens with that item's details filled in (its text, and its location where it has one), and stays linked to it. Its page shows Raised from with a link back, and its history starts "Raised the NCR from" the defect, checklist or form. An NCR is raised from one item at most, on the same project.

Templates

Company admins keep a set of NCR templates in Settings › NCR templates, for the non-conformances that come up again and again. Each has a name, the NCR title, what doesn't conform, and optionally a corrective and a preventive action. Picking one when you raise an NCR fills those fields in. The NCR's page names the template it started from. Editing or deleting a template later leaves the text of NCRs already raised from it as it is.

PDFs

→On an NCR's page, Download PDF prints the whole record: its details, what doesn't conform, the root cause and the actions, any dispute, up to 20 photos, and the full history.
→On the register, Export PDF prints the rows you are looking at (the same status, company and search filters), with a count of how many are open, overdue and disputed.

A PDF is prepared in the background and appears in Reports when it is ready. Only the person who asked for it can download it.

The lifecycle

NCRs move through seven states:

01Draft — being written up.
02Submitted — sent for management review.
03Under review — being assessed by a manager.
04Approved — accepted as a genuine NCR. Corrective action proceeds.
05Rejected — sent back. Can be redrafted and re-submitted, or closed.
06Certified — corrective action is complete and verified.
07Closed — the record is finalised. Terminal state: a closed NCR can't be edited, moved or disputed.

The happy path is draft → submitted → under review → approved → certified → closed. The rejection path loops back: rejected → draft for a re-submission, or rejected → closed if the NCR is being abandoned.

An NCR's page shows only the moves your role allows, and asks you to confirm each one.

Disputes

Anyone working on an NCR can mark it disputed and say why, for example when the company it concerns disagrees with the finding. A disputed NCR is flagged in the register until someone resolves the dispute. The reason stays on the record after it is resolved.

History

Every NCR keeps a history of what happened to it and who did it: raised, each status move, each edit (naming the fields that changed), disputes and their resolution, and photos added. Nothing in the history can be edited.

Role gates

NCRs use the same app roles as defects, but the transition matrix is tighter:

→Trades, tenants and clients have zero NCR involvement. They can't raise, transition, or even see them — NCRs are a quality-management record, not a field-capture one.
→Users can draft and submit NCRs (and send a rejected one back to draft) but can't take any further action. A user sees the NCRs on the projects they are a member of.
→Managers drive the review path — they move NCRs through submitted → under review → approved/rejected, can certify approved NCRs, and can close certified ones.
→Company admins have the widest authority, including closing directly from approved or rejected.

The NCR screens are open to company admins, managers and users.

NCRs vs defects

The two registers cover different needs. A rough guide:

→Use a defect when the issue is captured on site, assigned to a trade, fixed, and signed off. Most quality issues are defects.
→Use an NCR when the issue requires formal review by management, when corrective action will be tracked separately from the fix itself, or when the project quality plan mandates an NCR for issues of that type or severity.

You can have both for the same physical problem — a defect for the on-site fix, and an NCR for the process review. Each has its own lifecycle and its own audit trail.