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Give each payment event an owner
An equipment sale may involve engineering, the customer’s site team, procurement and accounts payable. The technician who sees the machine working may not be the person named to approve the payment trigger. Establish the actual roles in the agreement.
Montana’s exporter checklist treats commercial responsibilities and terms as matters to settle explicitly. Here, ELN’s focus is the evidence-to-payment handoff; it does not prescribe a technical test or create an acceptance right.
Write what will be accepted and what proves it
Fictional example: the parties choose a US$100,000 order with four payment stages. These amounts and events are invented, not standard equipment terms.
| Assumed trigger | US$ due | Evidence/authority to settle |
|---|---|---|
| Order commitment | 10,000 | Accepted order version and the advance-payment condition |
| Factory test milestone | 40,000 | Agreed test record and designated sign-off |
| Shipment milestone | 40,000 | Specified shipment evidence and invoice requirements |
| Final site acceptance | 10,000 | Defined completion evidence and authorised customer acceptance |
A completed visit may leave the last stage open
Suppose the equipment operates on site, but the buyer’s named acceptance contact is unavailable and an outstanding item has no agreed treatment. The technician’s service note alone may not meet the assumed invoicing condition.
Before scheduling the final stage, agree how to record exceptions, partial completion or a postponed test, and who can approve the resulting commercial treatment. Ask the contract checker to review any proposed substitute; do not invent a right to deem acceptance.
Test the handoff before approving the schedule
Ask management to walk one order from test evidence to acceptance, invoice submission and expected receipt. Record who supplies each item and what happens if it is rejected or delayed.
Keep the detailed milestone record beside the wider monthly cash model. A forecast date is an assumption until the required event and payment arrangements are supported.
Scope
- Commercial evidence planning only. The actual agreement, applicable law and technical/regulatory requirements control; no automatic acceptance, payment entitlement or standard milestone percentages.
Next step
Use Relationship factsheet to allocate acceptance and invoicing jobs. Keep the contract-specific milestone/evidence register and technical test records in the business’s order file.
Sources & review notes
Montana Department of Commerce
Passage, dates and research notes
official-guidance · Contracts: general terms and respective commercial duties
Selected checklist read; ELN uses it to ask about price, delivery, payment and acceptance, not to prescribe mandatory terms.
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