The Van Before the Paperwork: A 72-Hour Triage for Early Starts

The van is on site. The scaffold is half up. A specialist has booked two days in the diary. Then someone asks for the purchase order number, and the room goes quiet.

This is the ghost purchase order moment: work has started, but the paperwork that authorises it does not exist. It is rarely a plot. More often it is a verbal instruction, a slow procurement queue, a supplier trying to be helpful or a project team treating a purchase order as an admin detail rather than a financial control.

The instinct is to find someone to blame. Resist it for 72 hours. The priority is to make the work visible, put a boundary around it and decide who owns the next move. Here is a calm routine.

First, separate the facts from the folklore

Before anyone drafts a stern email, write down what is actually known. Not what people think happened. Not who usually signs what. The facts.

Capture the date and time work started, who instructed it, what exactly was instructed, the agreed rate or basis of charge, the expected duration, who knew about it and what has already been delivered or installed. Add the site or project reference and the supplier or team involved. If the instruction was verbal, say so plainly. If it came by text message, keep the message.

Send that record the same day to the people who need it. Use a neutral subject line such as Record of early start – [project reference]. The tone should be documentary, not prosecutorial. You are creating a shared version of events while memories are fresh, not building a case for a tribunal.

The 72-hour routine

Treat the first 72 hours as a triage window, not a full investigation.

In the first few hours, stop any new commitments that would be hard to unwind. That means new material orders, additional subcontractor mobilisation, long-lead purchases and anything that goes beyond making the site safe or protecting property. Do not stop safety-critical work to make a point about paperwork. If people are at risk, the safety action comes first and the commercial conversation follows.

By the end of day one, notify one clear owner. In many UK organisations that will be the project manager, with finance and procurement copied in. Avoid the group email that asks everyone and therefore asks nobody. Name the person who will confirm whether the work is authorised, whether there is budget and what needs to happen next.

Within 24 hours, check the basics: has the supplier been set up on the finance system, is there a budget line, has insurance been confirmed, and does the work fall under an existing framework or call-off arrangement? These checks are dull, but they tell you whether you are regularising a purchase order or dealing with something closer to an unauthorised commitment.

By the end of day three, make a decision. Either issue the purchase order or written instruction, or stop the work and agree what will be paid for what has already been done. Leaving it in the grey zone for a fortnight is how a small early start becomes a large disagreement.

What to pause, what to keep moving

Pausing work is not the same as downing tools. The useful distinction is between reversible and irreversible commitments.

Pause the irreversible: bespoke materials, new labour beyond the original call, variations that change the scope, and anything that locks in cost for weeks. Keep moving the protective: making safe, securing the site, preventing damage and protecting the public. In a UK context, that may also mean keeping statutory inspections or safety-critical checks in place. The paperwork can catch up with the commercial side; it should not hold up an urgent safety response.

If a supplier is already on site and willing to continue, ask them to hold further chargeable work pending written confirmation. Put that request in writing and give a time for your response. A supplier who understands the pause is a short, managed step is more likely to cooperate than one who receives a vague warning about purchase orders.

The paper trail that protects everyone

A one-page early start record is usually enough. It should show the project, the supplier, the date work began, the instruction received, the work done so far, the estimated value, the person who authorised the start and the person now responsible for resolving it.

If the decision is to continue before the full purchase order is raised, issue a written instruction to proceed pending purchase order. Put a cap on the value, an expiry date and a clear description of the work covered. That document does not replace proper procurement, but it gives finance something to accrue against and gives the supplier a reasonable basis to keep going.

Finance teams often prefer certainty to speed. A capped instruction with a named owner is usually more welcome than an open-ended promise that the paperwork is in hand.

How to stop the ghost order reappearing

Ghost purchase orders are rarely caused by one rogue instruction. They grow in the gap between a fast-moving project and a slow control process.

The fix is not a louder reminder that no purchase order means no pay. That slogan is easy to say and hard to apply when a supplier has already responded to a genuine emergency. The better fix is to make the right route faster and the wrong route visible.

Publish a simple delegated authority list so people know who can approve what. Set a realistic turnaround time for low-value purchase orders. Create a pre-approved route for urgent safety work. Review open commitments weekly, not only at month end. And tell suppliers, in plain terms, who can instruct work and what to do if they are asked to start without paperwork.

Most importantly, treat the early start as a signal. If it happens once, fix the instance. If it happens repeatedly on the same job, fix the process. The ghost purchase order is not haunting you. It is telling you where the handover between delivery and control has become too slow.

A calm close

The first 72 hours are about turning an awkward surprise into a documented decision. Capture the facts, notify the right owner, pause what cannot be undone, and regularise or stop the work. Do that well and the ghost purchase order becomes a manageable exception rather than a recurring feature of the project.