- Have more than 1 supplier
- Show vendors that you are conscientious about prices of materials –If your project is non-profit, people could think that you are not price-conscious. They can jack up prices if so. One must be price-conscious both in fact and in appearance, since one's ability to manage finances is directly proportional to the impact of the project.
- Pay in chunks but regularly – I was warned by our host not to pay the caterer in full immediately. Instead, we were to pay, ideally, for each day of catering. The reason was that the caterer may not be used to managing the volume we required. If we paid in full the first day, it might happen that they give us fiestas for the first five days and starve us the rest of the Workcamp...
- Certain vendors need to sign receipts – No need to do this for official establishments (e.g., the hardware had their own receipts), or for vendors which receive small and regular payments (e.g., the jeepney we hired to bring us to and from the site everyday). However, it proved to be very helpful for the payments to the caterer, since the payments were not uniform (they were based on head-count which was fluctuating daily). The procedure of signing a receipt for each payment forced the vendor to understand the way I was paying them. I gladly explained to them the payment plan one night when they approached me. We avoided misunderstandings (which are always nasty when it comes to money).
Daily food expense tracker and receiptBack to the table of contents
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