Their assessment has landed and it's short

The assessment arrives with the confidence of a verdict: a spreadsheet, a covering letter, and a number that ignores half your heads and discounts the rest. The message underneath is that this is what the account is worth and the fastest way to be paid is to accept it. Cash flow pressure does the rest, which is exactly what the tactic relies on.

An assessment is not a verdict, it is their opening position, answered the same way it was built: head by head. Variations stand on instructions and records, loss and expense on cause and effect, set-offs on their notices. Some deductions will be solid and some will not, and the difference between accepting their number and answering it properly is often the largest open question on the whole project.

One deadline matters before anything else: if the contract has a conclusive evidence clause, the window to challenge a certificate can be short, and missing it makes their number final for real.