Two types of bonds are predefined in Costpoint: Bid and Performance.

While an insurance policy promises reimbursement if something goes wrong, a bond promises reimbursement if an agreement is not fulfilled or a promised payment is not made.

In our previous example, a bond would probably exist for the construction of the new Bigg office; if C Construction Company was unable to complete the work, the bond would cover Bigg's cost of a broken agreement for office construction.

Your contract administrator or project manager will have copies of your subcontractor's bond status. From this information, you can complete the Bonds subtask of the Subcontractor Payment Control block on the Manage Vendors screen. When you select the Required for Payment check box in the Maintain Subcontractor Bonds screen and Costpoint finds that the system date (today's date) falls within the required start date and required end date, Costpoint will not release a vendor payment unless the system date falls within the bond effective date and expiration date.

While not all fields are required, Deltek recommends that you store as much information as possible on any subcontractor bonds.