The amendments have stretched our payment terms and nobody flagged it

The schedule of amendments is where standard forms stop being standard. A final date for payment pushed out, an extra condition on the due date, your notice window shortened - three lines in a schedule nobody read past page ten of, and the job's cashflow is a fortnight worse than the tender assumed, every cycle, for the duration.

These amendments are rarely hidden; they are just late in the document and dry to read, and tender-stage reviews tend to stop at the price. The amendment schedule review is the counter-habit: every change from the standard form listed, priced for what it does to cash and risk, and put in front of whoever signs - so the terms are agreed knowingly, and the worst of them negotiated while there is still leverage to do it.