Where is the cash-flow risk hiding?
In the payment schedule, the milestone table, the abatement regime, and the set-off clause. Not in the cover letter. A 30-day term on page 8 with a 90-day practical effect in schedule 7 is the 90. Believe the schedule that pays you.
Security of payment carve-outs try to contract out of the statutory regime. That flag is on the list of fifteen. If you would be funding the client through a dispute, treat it as a risk fail until legal has said you will not.
When are payment terms a no-bid?
When mobilisation is long and unpaid, and the firm cannot carry it. When milestones are in the buyer’s gift. When abatement is uncapped and you have not sized it. When set-off lets a fight on another job starve this one. Size the downside against the firm, not the fee. A bad year is a different call from a bad month.
Facilities contracts that run four years on a thin margin are a different animal from a six-week advisory piece. The same clause, a different firm. Question 12 on the twelve questions is that sentence.
What about panels and call-offs?
The ugly terms often live in the head agreement, not in the RFQ that arrives six months later. Read the deed before you celebrate the seat. Call-offs inherit it. Membership is not a standing yes on payment any more than it is on fit. Bid/no-bid for panels is the longer arithmetic.
Rate files that lock you for four years at a number you cannot deliver at are a risk fail even if the refresh response is easy. Price the work you will actually win.
What should the room do today?
Pull the schedule. Pull the abatement. Pull set-off. Put them on the gate page in one line each. If finance has not seen them, this axis is unfinished. Unfinished is a review with a date, not a draft.
Do not leave this to the pricing pass in week three. By then the zombie is walking. Cash-flow is a day-one read, next to liability, because both decide whether winning is a prize.