Contract Execution & Milestone Payments

When a contract is created in Tahua, it goes through a review and signing process before any milestone payments can be made. Here's how the full process works.

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Stage 1 — Drafting and reviewing the contract

1. Admin X drafts the contract in Tahua.

2. Admin Y reviews the contract. If it isn't correct, it's sent back to Admin X to be revised and the review process starts again.

3. Once the contract is approved, it's sent to the RP (Responsible Party) to sign.

4. A second check occurs after the RP signs. If anything isn't correct at this point, it's again returned to Admin X for revision.

5. Once everything looks good, both Contract Signatories sign the contract.

6. The contract is marked as executed in Tahua.

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Stage 2 — Accepting milestones and processing payment

Once the contract is executed, the milestone payment process can begin.

1. The admin reviews and accepts all milestone deliverables tied to the contract.

2. A Payment Batch is created in Tahua and the milestone is assigned to it.

3. The admin exports the Batch Payment file from Tahua.

4. Finance imports the batch into the banking system.

5. The Bank processes the payments to recipients.

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Stage 3 — Reconciliation in Xero

This stage runs in parallel with Stage 2 once the contract is executed.

1. A Contact is created in Xero for the recipient.

2. A Bill is created for each milestone, with the correct Tracking Option applied. See How are Funding Categories tracked in Xero? for how these Tracking Options are created and kept up to date.

3. Xero imports payment info from Bank Feeds once the Bank has processed the payments.

4. Finance reconciles the payment against the Bill in Xero.

5. The payment is recorded against the milestone in Tahua and the process is complete.

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Note: No milestone payments can be initiated until the contract has been fully executed and all milestone deliverables have been accepted by the admin.

For milestones that aren't tied to a Contract, see Milestone Payments Using a Xero Integration instead.