What a consulting statement of work should pin down
What a consulting engagement letter or statement of work should settle before work starts, and how both sides can sign it and keep the signed copy.
By Achekam · · 5 min read · For Consulting businesses in South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya
A consulting dispute is often less about whether the work was good than about whether it was the work that was agreed. The client expected an implementation plan and received a diagnostic report. The firm expected two rounds of comments and got six. Nobody wrote down who would supply the data, so the team waited a month for it and the client still expected the original deadline.
A statement of work, or an engagement letter that does the same job, prevents those arguments by putting the shared understanding on paper before anyone starts. It protects the client as much as the consultancy, and a well-drafted one can be the first sign to a client that it has hired the right firm.
Clients are entitled to ask more of their advisers
Over four decades ago, Arthur N. Turner argued in the Harvard Business Review that clients need a better understanding of what consulting assignments can accomplish, and should ask more of their advisers, because much consulting spend pays for impractical data and poorly implemented recommendations. His article, Consulting Is More Than Giving Advice, appeared in the September-October 1982 issue.
The point still applies. A statement of work is where the client's expectations become specific enough to hold the adviser to, and where a good consultancy shows that it intends to deliver something usable rather than a report that sits on a shelf.
Scope, deliverables and milestones in plain words
Write the scope so that a manager who was not in the pitch meeting could tell whether a piece of work is in or out. That usually takes:
- Objective: the business problem the engagement is meant to solve, in one or two sentences.
- In scope: the activities the firm will carry out, the business units or sites covered and the period under review.
- Out of scope: the things the client might reasonably assume are included but are not.
- Deliverables: each document, workshop, model or system change, with its format and who receives it.
- Milestones: dates for each deliverable, and the review time the client has before it is treated as accepted.
- Client responsibilities: data, access, people and decisions the client must provide, with dates.
The last item is the easiest to leave out. Without it, a delay caused by the client looks, on paper, like the consultancy's failure.
The right level of detail
In its explanation of how a request for proposal works, covering what an RFP contains and how bids are evaluated, Investopedia warns that if requirements are too vague, bidders may not design an adequate solution, and if they are too detailed and restrictive, bidders' innovation may be limited. The same balance applies to a statement of work.
Too vague, and the firm cannot price it or the client cannot hold the firm to it. Too detailed, and every sensible change of direction during the work becomes a formal variation. A useful middle path is to fix the outcomes and deliverables firmly, describe the method in outline, and include a simple change procedure: who may request a change, who approves it, and how the fee and timeline adjust.
Investopedia also explains that an RFP typically includes a statement of work and a timeline for the winning bidder. If the engagement came from an RFP, start from the buyer's own statement of work and your proposal, and reconcile the two before signing. Any difference between them will surface later if it is not dealt with now. RFI, RFQ or RFP explains how those requests differ.
Fees, expenses, timing and ending the engagement
The commercial section should leave nothing to assumption:
- Fee basis: fixed, time-based at stated rates, or a mix, and what each covers.
- Expenses: which are recoverable, whether they carry a handling charge, and what evidence goes with them.
- Invoicing: on which milestones or dates, and the payment terms.
- Taxes: whether fees are quoted including or excluding VAT, and how any tax withheld at source by the client is dealt with.
- Ending the engagement: notice either side must give, and what is payable for work done up to that point.
- Ownership and confidentiality: who owns the deliverables and how client information is handled.
Signing it electronically and filing the signed copy
In Achekam, any document can be sent for electronic signature with signature and initials fields placed on it, signers in order or all at once, an expiry and reminders. You can send an uploaded PDF, a document composed from text blocks with merge fields, or a saved template. The logo, brand colour and company details set under Settings appear on documents composed for signature. The signing console opens from the Sign button and the dashboard rather than from the sidebar.
Because the client signs from outside the business, the envelope must be linked to a client or a CRM lead before it is sent. Set the order so the client's signatory signs first and your partner countersigns, or let both sign at once if speed matters more.
When everyone has signed, Achekam produces the signed PDF with a completion certificate listing each signer's e-mail, times, IP address and browser, and the document's fingerprint, and files it in that client's "Signed documents" folder. The signed copy then sits with the client's other records instead of in someone's inbox.
Know what the certificate says. Achekam's e-signatures are simple electronic signatures: in South Africa, the certificate cites section 13 of the Electronic Communications and Transactions Act and says they are not advanced electronic signatures. For Nigerian and Kenyan workspaces, the certificate still describes the signatures under the South African Act, whatever the workspace's country. E-signature certificates by country sets out what that means, and whether an e-mailed go-ahead binds a client covers acceptance without a signature in South Africa.
Take your most recent engagement letter and check it against the scope list and the six commercial points above; whatever is missing goes into the template before the next one is sent.
General guidance only, not advice on your own circumstances. Tax and payroll rules change: check the current position with the authority or your adviser.
