Adviser selection checklist: six questions and a quote comparison
Judging whether an adviser is sound is not a matter of impression. It comes down to two things: whether what they tell you can be checked (can they point to the official basis), and whose side they are on when something goes wrong (will they put responsibility in the contract). These three sheets turn both into questions you can ask and record on the spot — and the second sheet will usually explain a quote that is three times higher than another one.
01Why take a sheet with you
The difficulty in choosing an adviser is not that you do not know what to ask. It is that you cannot hold it in your head at the time and cannot compare afterwards. After three meetings all that survives is an impression and a price — and the firm that left the best impression is often just the one that talks best.
There is a second effect: when the other side sees you working through a sheet, the way they answer changes. There is much less room to be vague.
02One job per sheet
The three sheets are not variations on the same question:
- Six questions in the meeting — tests whether they cite a basis and whether they will stand behind it. Record their actual words, not your paraphrase; whether the words contained a source, or avoided one, is obvious when you read them back.
- Quote comparison — breaks the scope into a dozen lines and has all three fill in included / not included / charged separately in the same cell. Most "three times the price" turns out, once filled in, to be "they are not doing the same work".
- Handover list — what you must get back if you do change. The item most often overlooked is the accounts and authorisations in each official system.
03Judgements you can make on the spot
Several of the tells are usable in the meeting itself:
- Be wary of anyone who guarantees approval. Tier decisions and approvals are at the authority's discretion — anything that could be guaranteed would not need approving. Conversely, someone who volunteers "I cannot guarantee that" usually has a clearer sense of where the boundary is.
- "We have connections" cannot be written into a contract, and it cannot carry any responsibility for you when something goes wrong. What genuinely shortens a timeline is work that can be written into the scope.
- Proposals to use a nominee, or to bring someone in first and change status later, share a feature: faster in the short run, with the risk left entirely on your company.
- If the quote contains no liability terms, the default is that they carry none.
04How to use it
The order matters more than the content:
- Before meeting — send sheet 2 to all three and have them price the same breakdown of work.
- In the meeting — work through sheet 1 line by line, recording their actual words and your rating there and then, not from memory afterwards.
- Before signing — confirm the contract answers three things: what the deliverables are, how rework and losses are handled, and what is out of scope.
- If you are changing — use sheet 3 to take stock, and avoid the three moments when handover is a bad idea: inside a response window for a query, with an interview already scheduled, or close to a hard deadline.
Amber cells need your judgement in the meeting or confirmation with an adviser; blank cells are yours to fill.
What is in the workbook
- Six questions to ask: each question, what a sound answer looks like, space for their actual words, and a rating you give on the spot
- Quote comparison: twelve scope lines, three firms side by side marking included / not included / charged separately, with government fees and professional fees on separate rows
- Handover list: seven things you must get back, including why each matters and who is responsible for it
- Three moments when changing adviser is a bad idea: inside a response window, with an interview scheduled, close to a hard deadline
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Common questions
- They will not fill in my quote sheet. What now?
That is itself information. Pricing a scope on a common basis is a very ordinary request; unwillingness usually means the scope was never thought through, or they would rather you could not compare. You can fall back to three lines only: what counts as finished, whether they handle what follows, and who is responsible if something is wrong.
- Does the lowest quote automatically rule itself out?
No. A low price is not the problem — a low price together with an unclear scope is. If, once sheet 2 is filled in, the scope really does cover what you need, then it is genuinely cheaper. If it turns out to be missing the classification reasoning, the follow-up on queries and the technical translation, that is not cheaper — it has left those to you.
- I have already signed and the contract says nothing. Can it be fixed?
You can negotiate an addendum, but you have less leverage than before signing. The more practical move: get the deliverables list and the items in progress confirmed in writing (email counts), so that at least "what counts as finished" has something behind it. Ongoing obligations and liability terms can be added at the next stage or on renewal.
- Will changing adviser cause offence and hurt the project?
What the authority looks at is the documents and the procedure, not who you engaged. The real risk is a gap in progress caused by an unclear handover — particularly system authorisations and unanswered queries. Take stock with sheet 3 before you change and the risk is largely contained.
Related
Sources
- General note: this toolkit is about how to choose and compare a service provider. It contains no price ranges, rates or amounts of any kind; government fees are governed by the relevant authority as currently published, and scope and liability terms by what the parties agree in writing. The discretionary character of approval decisions is as provided by the relevant authority's rules as currently published. The scope breakdown and contract terms for an individual case should be judged by our advisers against the stage the project is at; this toolkit is not legal advice.
Once the checklist has surfaced the gaps, what to do about them depends on where your project stands.
中文版 · Chinese version