Chapter 2. Redline reads it · Step 4 of 15
A short interview
Some things that decide whether a contract is safe aren't in the contract: your margin, how tight the schedule really is, what the GC promised on the phone, what you can't give up. Redline asks for those, and only those. Everything the document already answered is skipped, with a receipt.
Live screen
This contract answered 9 questions. Redline asks 13.
This is the interview the portal builds for the sample contract, right after the facts were confirmed. Answer it, skip around, go back: it behaves exactly as it does in a real review.
Skipped, because the contract already said:
- Disputes / governing lawcontract p. 4
- GC / counterpartycontract p. 1
- Exposurecontract p. 2
- Payment & cash flowcontract p. 2
- Payment & cash flowcontract p. 2
- Liquidated damagescontract p. 3
- Warrantycontract p. 4
- Change managementcontract
- Contract chain / incorporated documentscontract p. 1
The contract answered 9 questions on its own. Only 13 left that only you can answer.
The job & your bid
The contract can't tell us what you priced or what the field looks like. Only you can.
If the job starts when this contract says, can you hit the schedule with the crew you priced?
No document can answer this. It's your field reality, and it drives the delay and LD findings.
Roughly what margin is priced into this job?
With liquidated damages on this contract, margin is what turns a daily rate into days-to-erase-profit.
What payment terms did you quote on this job?
We check the contract's payment language against what you actually bid. A silent stretch from net-30 to net-90 is a cash-flow finding.
What's the biggest assumption in your price that isn't written anywhere?
The estimate's unwritten assumptions are where money is lost. Naming one turns it into a finding.
Where the answers go
Answers change the review, not just the paperwork
- 1
Your margin turns clauses into days and dollars
With a 10% margin on this job, $2,000 a day in liquidated damages erases the profit on day 94. Without the margin, Redline can only show the daily rate. - 2
Your worries reorder the findings
Say the schedule is tight and the LDs worry you, and those findings move to the top of the list you work through. - 3
Your non-negotiables become walk-away items
Write "The contingent payment clause must come out" and the pay-if-paid findings are marked as must-change before signing, ahead of everything you could live with. - 4
Your GC history is remembered
After a few reviews with the same GC, the interview pre-fills what you told it last time, for you to confirm instead of retype.