Meetings, decisions & agreements

The client says it at the site meeting: "We'll confirm the window detail next week — don't let it hold you up." The work starts. The confirmation never comes — and when the invoice does, the answer is: "We never agreed to that." Some of the most expensive words on a project are agreed in a meeting and never written down.

What YPA does

• Takes the minutes the way you already have them — send the chair's minutes by email, drop the PDF or photos of the signed pages into WhatsApp, or record a voice note summary on your way back to site. YPA reads whatever you send, on whichever channel you send it.
• Turns the meeting into a one-page decisions summary — what was decided, who agreed it, what was promised, and by when. The summary is written in plain language, filed in your project folder the same day, and you can ask for it at any time: "send me the summary of the site meeting" — by email as a document, or as a WhatsApp message, whichever you want.
• Files every decision as a dated row on the Decisions & Agreements Log — what was decided, who agreed it, when — and gives every promise an owner and a date. "We'll confirm" becomes an item with who owes the confirmation and when it was promised. A promise without a date is a hope; with a date it's something you can see slip.
• Checks the promises every morning — confirmations that were promised and haven't arrived, agreed actions that passed their date — and puts them in your brief on WhatsApp or email, so the "we'll confirm next week" that never came shows up while it can still be fixed, not when it's a dispute.
• Keeps the original with the summary — the full minute, the photos of the signed page and the recording stay filed in your project folder next to the summary and the log. When someone says "we never agreed to that", the answer is the meeting, the minute, the message — retrievable in seconds by asking YPA "what did we agree about the windows in the 4 September meeting?" on WhatsApp or email. You choose how and when to use it.
• Drafts the confirmation for you — "As agreed on [date]: [decision]. We'll proceed on that basis unless you tell us otherwise." A short confirmation comes as a WhatsApp message; a formal version comes to your email as an attachment to open, check and send on yourself. Written confirmation turns a meeting's goodwill into a project's fact — and the draft takes thirty seconds while the memory is fresh.

How it actually runs

• A project's real instructions are decided in conversation and then performed: the window detail, the material substitution, the re-sequence, the "don't hold it up."
• Decisions happen in site meetings, on calls, and in passing WhatsApp messages — minutes get written, or they don't, and the decision lives in whoever remembers it.
• Agreed actions come with promises: "we'll confirm", "we'll send it", "we'll check" — each one a commitment with a date that lives in the air.
• When the performed work meets the invoice, the only thing that matters is whether the agreement can be shown. Memories disagree exactly when the money arrives.

Where it usually goes wrong

Where the line is

An agreement is not an instruction to change the work — that's the Variations Register's job, with its own rules about written authority. And a question is not an agreement — that's an RFI. The log sits between them: it records what was decided and promised, so decisions can feed a variation when the agreed change needs pricing, and promises feed the follow-up when they slip.

What a YPA sheet looks like

Every decision and promise goes onto the YPA Decisions & Agreements Log — one row per agreement, with who, what and when. The log is kept for you: YPA reads it out of the minutes, recordings and messages, and surfaces the un-kept promises in your morning brief.

What you can do today

• Run the meeting, make the call, answer the WhatsApp — then let the record happen: a dated line of what was agreed, by whom, and when it was promised.
• Confirm the important agreements in writing the same day — the short "as agreed" note that the other side can see and contradict.
• Give every promise a date — "we'll confirm by Thursday" is a commitment; "we'll confirm" is a wish.
• When the agreed change needs money or authority, move it to a variation — the decision is the start; the instruction is the paper.

This guide is general information, not legal advice. What makes an agreement or instruction binding comes from your signed contract and the applicable law — always check the contract before acting. YPA helps you record, track and draft; it doesn't give legal opinions.