SOW

How it works

• States the scope, exclusions, deliverables, price and timeline.
• Sits under the master agreement.
• Protects both sides from the 'I thought that was included' argument.

What can go wrong (example scenario)

A five-person engineering firm agreed verbally to “move us to Microsoft 365”. The provider migrated email. The firm expected files, printers and the old server decommissioned too. The dispute over the extra invoice ended the relationship.

How WILDCARD handles it

Projects, templated or custom, are quoted, and the quote is the statement of work: scope, exclusions, deliverables and price, in writing, before anything starts. vCIO engagements run on credits for single outputs or a retainer for ongoing work, each defined the same way.

• A dental office's practice-server replacement gets a SOW listing hardware, data migration, testing and the go-live weekend.
• A law firm's move to a new office gets a SOW covering network, phones and the cutover plan.
• A non-profit's policy set from a vCIO is scoped as a fixed list of documents and review sessions.

Example scenario: A small retailer wanted a new point-of-sale system. The SOW listed the terminals, the data to migrate, two training sessions and a go-live date, and excluded the accounting integration as a separate phase. When the owner later asked about accounting, both sides looked at the same page and agreed it was phase two, priced separately. No argument.

A question owners ask

What should I check before signing a SOW?

The exclusions, the assumptions and the acceptance criteria. Those three lines are where most disagreements start.