How buyers and suppliers can agree payment milestones and reduce payment fraud risk
Use one commercial record, evidence-linked milestones, and a separate verification path for any bank-detail change.
Payment milestones work best when they answer two separate questions: what evidence makes the next amount due, and how will either party know that a request to move money is genuine? Those questions matter for branded promotional products because artwork, setup, production, packing, and delivery can each create a distinct commitment. This is a procurement guide, not a LogoPress payment policy or legal, tax, banking, or insurance advice. The signed quotation or sales contract should state the terms for the particular project.
Start with the risk each side is carrying
A buyer who pays too early may have little leverage if the approved item, quantity, or delivery evidence is unclear. A supplier who funds custom materials or decoration before receiving money takes a different risk. The U.S. International Trade Administration describes international payment methods as a spectrum: cash in advance reduces non-payment risk for the exporter but is less attractive to the buyer, while open account improves buyer cash flow and increases exporter exposure. A documentary collection and a letter of credit are different bank-supported mechanisms; neither should be named casually as though it is simply an invoice deadline. Trade.gov’s overview is written for U.S. exporters, so use it as a risk framework rather than a rule for every country or transaction.
The commercial team should therefore agree the method (for example, wire, card, escrow, documentary collection, or a bank instrument where appropriate) separately from the schedule. The schedule should identify the currency, total price basis, taxes or charges that remain unresolved, and the exact project record that proves a milestone. A percentage alone is not a control.
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Milestone
Evidence to name in the contract or quote
Control question before release
Order authorization
Accepted quote, named legal entities, SKU/configuration, quantity, currency
Does the record identify the version being approved?
Pre-production release
Approved artwork/proof and any agreed sample or material approval
Is the approval traceable to the chosen configuration?
Production or shipment event
Defined production evidence or carrier handoff evidence
What document, date, and issuer make this event observable?
Destination handoff or acceptance
Agreed delivery evidence and any inspection window
Is the acceptance standard and exception route stated?
This table is a planning pattern, not a recommended percentage split. A simple, lower-risk repeat order may use fewer stages. A new supplier relationship, a high-value custom build, a multi-country shipment, or a project with long lead items may justify more evidence and a specialist trade-finance discussion. If a buyer asks for open-account terms, credit checks and a credit limit may matter more than adding vague milestone labels. If a supplier requests advance money, the buyer can ask which inputs become committed at that point and what evidence will be supplied before the next release.
Turn a milestone into a usable operating rule
For every line, record the trigger, evidence owner, reviewer, due date calculation, dispute path, and change authority. “Balance before shipment” is incomplete when it does not specify whether shipment means goods packed, collected by the carrier, loaded, or available at a named place. “Approval” is incomplete when it does not identify the proof revision, approver, and permitted production tolerance.
Use a single deal record with version control for the quote, purchase order, proof approval, payment schedule, and delivery terms. State whether partial shipments are allowed and whether a milestone follows each partial shipment. Do not let a revised pro forma invoice silently replace the commercial record: list what changed, who approved it, and whether the payment schedule changed with it. A documentary collection may exchange documents for payment, but Trade.gov notes that banks facilitate it without verifying document accuracy or guaranteeing payment; suitability depends on the relationship and transaction. Its documentary-collections guidance is explicit that the parties agree the mechanism in the sales agreement.
Treat bank-detail changes as a separate high-risk workflow
A valid milestone does not make new bank instructions valid. The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center describes business email compromise (BEC) as a scam that uses compromised or impersonated business email to cause unauthorized fund transfers. It advises a secondary channel or two-factor authentication to verify account-information changes with the intended recipient. Build that instruction into the process rather than relying on someone noticing an unusual email.
A defensible control sequence is:
Freeze the existing payee and bank details from the accepted commercial record.
Treat any change of beneficiary, account number, routing code, email address, urgency, or payment portal as an exception.
Verify the request through a known phone number or authenticated contact held before the email arrived; do not use the number or link in the request.
Document the call-back result and authorize the master-data change under the parties’ established approval process.
Send a confirmation to the previously verified contact and preserve the request, verification note, and approval with the transaction file.
The FBI’s 2023 vendor-fraud alert also warns that attackers impersonate company domains and exploit credit terms. It recommends calling a business’s main line rather than a number supplied in the email and checking that the domain belongs to the claimed business. Those checks protect both the supplier collecting a balance and the buyer paying a deposit.
A practical next step
Before the next cross-border promotional-products purchase, ask both finance teams to complete a one-page milestone sheet: commercial parties; payment method and currency; each trigger and evidence source; change authority; verified contacts; and the out-of-band method for bank-detail changes. Then test the procedure with a harmless simulated change request. If a real transfer appears fraudulent, contact the originating financial institution immediately; IC3 says prompt recall or reversal requests may reduce loss, and it provides an incident-reporting route.
Sources
Methods of Payment — International Trade Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce; accessed 2026-09-12. Scope: general U.S. exporter guidance.
Documentary Collections — International Trade Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce; accessed 2026-09-12. Scope: general trade-finance guidance.
Business Email Compromise — FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center; accessed 2026-09-12. Scope: BEC prevention and reporting.
A merchandise gift set is one possible starting point for this planning method. Review the catalogue example LP6308 for the product reference, then confirm the project-specific configuration and commercial terms.
