Confirm supplier approvals and costs before connecting tools

What this means for your practice

Confirm supplier access, costs and setup responsibilities before promising a delivery date. Obtain current terms from the actual provider and keep unanswered approval or support questions visible.

Questions to take to your supplier

Walk through access setup with the actual vendor contact. What has been confirmed, what remains undecided and who pays any separate charge? Use current terms from that vendor. A written proposal should distinguish confirmed scope from assumptions about another company's service.

Agree the working process

List every supplier action needed before implementation can proceed. Access approval, account setup, a particular subscription or a nominated administrator may belong to different organisations. Give each dependency an owner and a confirmed status, separating what is known from what has been assumed in the estimate. Ask the receiving vendor for its current terms and process rather than using another project's experience as proof. Record any recurring cost or continuing responsibility as well as initial setup.

The person approving the project needs to understand the operational commitment after launch, not only the build price. Walk through the sequence with the relevant contacts and identify which steps can run together and which wait for earlier approval. Keep unresolved items visible before promising a release date. If a dependency changes, revisit the plan and tell the business which outcome or timing is affected. This prevents a technically straightforward connection becoming a surprise procurement exercise once the development work has already started.

How to check the result

Track dependencies without an accountable owner or confirmed status.