InfoTown™
Kofi's journey · Commercial · Lesson 5

Paid on accep­tance

Before you start

In the story

A wrong file name held up £400,000.

Back to the story

The right way

Week one

Kofi lines the payment plan up with the delivery milestones. Before each one he checks with Sam: what's due, has it been checked, will it pass?

Milestone 2

Sam checks the package against the client's requirements before it goes. It's accepted first time.

The forecast

Kofi's forecast moves when an acceptance date moves, not when the money fails to arrive.

Sent on the dateRejected twice, paid six weeks late, and £400,000 overdrawn.
Accepted on the dateChecked before it went, accepted first time, paid on time.
Think like Kofi

When does the money actually arrive? If payment hangs on acceptance, the delivery plan is a cash-flow forecast. Do you know what's due, and whether it'll pass?

Continue Kofi's journey

Story 6: The cost nobody booked

Bad information is costing the job a fortune. Nobody can say how much, because it's booked to everything else.
The right way, explained

The right way, explained

The town pays for parcels when they're signed for, not when they're sent. Send the wrong colour wardrobe and nobody pays until the right one arrives.

If you're the project manager

If you're the project manager

Put the information milestones in your programme next to the payment ones. A deliverable rejected the week before payment is a cash problem, not just a quality one.

In the town See it in the town: a wrong file name held up £400,000. What's the link?

Kofi's view: signed out by us, signed for by them. The money follows the second signature.

Handing over: authorise, accept, publish Parcels with S codes leave the shared table in the Site Office. They stop at the firm leading the work to be authorised, then travel to the Client Town to be accepted, and arrive on the published shelf with A codes. A dashed route sends rejected parcels back with comments. Below the road, a cupboard of parcels that stay with us never goes to the client. A strip shows S1 to S5 turning into A1, A2 and so on, one A code per work stage. SHARED TABLE AUTHORISE CLIENT TOWN ACCEPT PUBLISHED STAYS WITH US S1S2S3S4S5A1A2An Is it all here,and does it fit? Is it whatwe asked for? Shared: S4 to authorise, S5 to acceptSigned off: n is the work stage Not right? Back with comments S codesA codes
Pick a stopThe last leg

Shared

On the label
IM calls it
Watch out for

These are Information Delivery Milestones!

The dates information is due and accepted, which on many contracts is also when you get paid.

Sam's Heads Up Not every contract pays this way

InfoTown good practice: Information is delivered and accepted at agreed milestones.

On your job: Plenty of contracts pay on progress, not acceptance. Read yours. If payment does hang on acceptance, my delivery plan is Kofi's cash flow.

For the audit What the auditor will ask
  • Show me the delivery milestones, and what was accepted at each.
  • What happens when a deliverable is rejected?
For the audit What good evidence looks like
  • Delivery milestones lined up with the payment plan.
  • Acceptance and rejection records, with reasons.
From the standard
ISO 19650 Delivery milestones

ISO 19650 expects information to be delivered at agreed milestones and accepted by the client. Whether payment depends on acceptance is set by your contract.

Based on the ISO 19650 series: the ideas come from the standard; the plain-English wording, examples and advice are InfoTown's. ISO 19650 is © ISO and BSI. You'll hear the same language across the industry. Read more for free in the Information Management Initiative (IMI) Framework guidance from BSI and nima. For the full requirements, use the standard itself.