Rajeev Khandelwal's project-finance context includes a familiar difference between finishing work and collecting all the money attached to it. A retained amount may be released only after additional conditions are met. The business needs to plan that second completion date, because treating the full contract value as immediately available can overstate near-term liquidity.
List the remaining release conditions
The outstanding requirement may involve defect correction, certification, records or a defined period under the agreement. A clear schedule identifies what remains and who can confirm completion. This prevents the balance from becoming a vague receivable that everyone expects to arrive eventually but nobody actively prepares to collect through the agreed process.
Preserve the evidence after demobilisation
Project teams may disperse once the main work ends, taking practical knowledge with them. The records needed for release should be gathered before that happens. A named owner can then answer questions and coordinate outstanding tasks, avoiding the cost of reconstructing evidence months later when the people involved are working elsewhere on new commitments.
Separate a timing issue from a dispute
An amount awaiting an agreed future date differs from one withheld because the counterparty rejects performance. The cash forecast should distinguish those situations. Each requires a different response: scheduling and follow-up in the first case, commercial resolution in the second. Combining them under one optimistic collection assumption makes management's choices less informed.
Include the tail in project economics
Final visits, administrative work and delayed cash all form part of the assignment's economic life. Recognising them helps a contractor price and finance future work more realistically. A strong completion process does not stop when the asset opens; it continues until the enterprise has resolved the obligations and collected the amounts its agreement supports.
