Example: an invoice €17,000 over the estimate, without the site manager’s signature

Decision card, an example

Signal

A subcontractor’s invoice for the month’s work on the third site is €17,000 over the estimate on one line item. The site manager has not signed the quantities. The morning brief showed it before payment.

Decision

Do not pay without the site manager’s signature. Check the quantities on site, not over the phone. Written down on Tuesday, owned by the site manager, review on Friday.

Action

The site manager measured the work done and checked it against the progress certificate. Part of it is not built yet, and part had been counted twice: it was already paid for in January.

Outcome

€15,500 less was paid than the invoice asked for. The crew kept working: the money for what had been built went out the same day.

Learning

The rule “no invoice without the site manager’s signature” is written down as a company decision. In a month we check how many invoices waited for a signature and whether any crew stopped work because of it.

The company is the same in all three examples: a general contractor, fourteen years in business, three sites, about twelve people in the office and about a hundred people from subcontractors’ crews on site, a few million euros a year.

How it was

Invoices from the crews came in by email. The foreman wrote “work done”, the administrator put the invoice up for payment, and the owner approved it by phone between two meetings. The site manager was supposed to check the quantities on site first. Sometimes he did. More often the invoice had already been paid by the time he got to it.

There was no rule, so there was nothing to break. The gap between what was paid and what was built turned up when the progress certificates were reconciled, months later. By then the crew could already be working for another contractor.

What the brief showed

On Tuesday the 8:00 brief had a line: a subcontractor’s invoice for the month’s work on the third site is €17,000 over the estimate on one line item, and the site manager has not signed the quantities. The question of the day: pay on the foreman’s word, or wait for the site manager to measure.

The owner chose to wait, and the decision went into a card: no payment without the site manager’s signature, the quantities checked on site, the site manager owns it, review on Friday.

What came of it

The site manager measured the work and checked it against the progress certificate. Part of it was not built yet. Part had been counted twice: it was already paid for in January. €15,500 less was paid than the invoice asked for. The money for the work done went out the same day, so the crew kept working.

After that, “no invoice without the site manager’s signature” became a company decision rather than a request. An unsigned invoice now shows up in the morning, before payment, not at reconciliation.

What I would do in your place

First look at the last three months: reconcile what was paid against the progress certificates. That shows whether there is a problem and how big it is, before any rule.

If you bring the rule in, pay for checked work the same day. Otherwise the crew hears not “we check” but “they are holding our money”.

And do not look for someone to blame for the past. There was no rule, so nobody could break it.