How to draw up a contract for the development of a site without closing intermediate acts of work performed?

Question

Project management

There was a non-core task to find contractors for the development of the site. Contractors were found, but died out at the stage of negotiating the contract. The amount is large, and the work described in the TOR is divided into several stages and their stage-by-stage payment is implied.

But the position of our management is: we are ready to pay in stages, but we are not ready to close intermediate acts of work performed. Close ready at the very end when accepting the final stage. Thus, the management wants to protect itself from a situation where contractors complete 80% of the work and do not want to work further, and as a result, we will pay a lot of money, but we will not get the finished result.

The performers rightly tense up, because, if I understand the legal aspect of this issue correctly, we can pay money in stages without closing the acts, but change our minds at the final stage and return all the money to ourselves in court. Thus, contractors will spend a lot of time on work and end up with nothing.

Question for knowledgeable people, is there any practice of developing sites without closing intermediate acts, where both parties can protect themselves from the above risks as much as possible?

Answer 1

Is there any practice of developing websites without closing intermediate acts, where both parties can protect themselves from the above risks as much as possible?

- no, and you will not find such contractors who will agree to make a site without intermediate acts, unless it is a one-day company, registered as a bum, who is paid 5000 rubles a month for being the founder and who does not care about your acts, because You can't get anything back from him anyway.

Answer 2

It means to do it within the framework of one contract, and to carry out the intermediate payment as an advance payment. But this is possible only with a one-time advance payment. If you still need a number of floors, you can’t get away from individual orders, otherwise how will you argue about the fulfillment of obligations in full for a certain stage?
Well, or break it down into fictitious stages, without which you can’t solve the problem: deploying an experimental site, putting it into commercial operation, and submitting documentation.

Answer 3

yes - you don’t pay, but they don’t, everyone stays the same
otherwise - there is always a risk “until you finish all the Wishlist, I won’t pay” (and I won’t pay at all, but I won’t tell you yet), b-m experienced developers in everyone went through this in their career, so ...
competent PM and risk management (budget for 3 - and this is the easiest so far)

Answer 4

But the position of our management is: we are ready to pay in stages, but we are not ready to close intermediate acts of work performed.

Yeah. The situation is reversed, now I’m just sitting and waiting for the payment of the last stage from three customers at once. Fortunately, all the previous ones are closed by acts. Therefore, I can simply spit on these remnants to complete the work without delivery due to non-payment and go quietly to look for adequate customers.
Ps in this way you weed out adequate developers and run the risk of running into those who simply have nowhere to go. Since under such conditions, normal developers will pass by. The situation is like with wild NDAs, I am adequate, I have been working for 7 years, but I never sign an NDA.

Answer 5

The problem is that you are trying to apply a "low" uncertainty approach to jobs with very high uncertainty (for you, and presumably for your contractors).
Use agile and plan your work in such a way that each stage of your project could be the final one.
A viable product should happen after the first stage, and not after the tenth - 10 times faster, and 10 times cheaper. In the second increment, you will add some more functionality. In the third - a little more. But each stage should be a fully completed product, after the delivery of which it is not too painful to leave.
At the same time, you still need to have a vision from the very beginning in which direction you are developing your site - for all 10 iterations ahead.

Answer 6

plan the work in such a way that each stage of your project could be the final one

I agree with vilinyh . In this case, the customer must have a person who is able to manage the development and be immersed in the topic. Unfortunately, this is rare in my experience.
At the moment, we have to help clients arrange work with contractors, because they can neither write technical specifications nor accept work. Sometimes it is possible to reduce the budget for tasks to 50-60% of the original budget - if the specification is written correctly, the programmer spends less time deciphering the customer's idea, which means it will take less time to implement.
From experience, I can recommend not to skimp on:

• task elaboration
  
• creation of a competent technical task
  
• fixing the conditions for accepting work
  

Unfortunately, the situation described by you takes place, including for companies that have a name and reputation in the market. Your position is to defend, this is a strategy that has been personally tested. Look better, there are companies that work the way you need, including payment after testing and acceptance of work.