SOW process
A Statement of Work (SOW) turns a customer agreement into a defined piece of work. No work may start, and no cost may be incurred on a customer's behalf, until a SOW is signed. This page describes how a SOW is created, approved and filed.
How SOWs relate to other contracts
| Document | Purpose | ID format |
|---|---|---|
| Master Services Agreement | Commercial terms for the whole relationship | MSA-ACME |
| Statement of Work | Scope, deliverables, fees and schedule | SOW-ACME-01 |
| Amendment | Changes a clause of an earlier contract | AMD-ACME-01 |
| NDA | Confidentiality before an MSA | NDA-ACME |
Some documents refer to the MSA in the form MSA-2025-ACME; this is the same agreement. Always use the highest version of a document (the _vN suffix).
Steps
- Confirm an MSA exists. If not, ask Legal (Alice Moreno) to start one.
- Draft the SOW from the template. Include scope, deliverables, acceptance criteria, schedule, fees, assumptions and responsibilities.
- Estimate. The delivery manager reviews the estimate, see Estimation.
- Price. Follow Pricing guidelines.
- Legal review. Legal checks that the SOW fits the MSA.
- Approval. The approver depends on total value (see below).
- Send to customer for signature.
- File the signed copy in the Contracts collection, and open the project, see How we run projects.
Approval authority (POL-LEG-001)
| Total contract value | Approvers |
|---|---|
| Under $50,000 | Head of Sales |
| $50,000 to $250,000 | VP Delivery and General Counsel |
| Over $250,000 | CEO, CFO and General Counsel |
These are the authorities for the contract overall, so a SOW that takes a customer relationship over a threshold needs the higher approval.
What must be in every SOW
- Named deliverables and the acceptance process, see Deliverable acceptance. For Acme the customer has 10 business days to accept or reject each deliverable.
- Fee model: fixed fee (often invoiced against milestones) or time and materials.
- Assumptions and dependencies.
- A change control clause pointing to Handling change requests.
- Any customer-specific requirements, such as data residency (Orion Energy) or a data protection addendum (Stellar Health). See the customer pages.
Example: Acme Customer Portal Redesign
SOW-ACME-01 covers the Customer Portal Redesign for Acme Corp as a fixed fee of $145,000 invoiced against milestones. Because the value is between $50,000 and $250,000, it required approval from the VP Delivery and the General Counsel.
Contract questions
Marcus Webb (General Counsel) owns the contract approval policy; Alice Moreno handles day-to-day questions. See Who to ask.
Owner: Marcus Webb - Last updated: 2026-02-09