“My business partner Sam is a very enterprising person, but I cannot rely upon him at crucial junctures. I just don’t know how to deal with him.” My friend said during our walking session.
“Please tell me in detail, let us see what we can do.”
“As I said earlier, he is very sharp and a self-starter too. No prompting is needed. But he omits vital information and sensitive details while submitting the final report. And makes silly mistakes which lands me in a very embarrassing situation.”
“Can you recollect a term ‘E & OE’ used in the invoice and other important documents? We used to put it in the bottom left-hand corner of the document.”
“I think it has something to do with errors and mistakes, but I can’t recollect the full form.”
“The full form is Errors and Omissions excepted”.
“But how can you connect this to my problem?”
“I am coming to that. Though E & OE looks insignificant in value in an invoice, it is quite opposite. It shields the vendor against any incidental errors on value, quantity, specification, etc. Also, it gives legal protection to the vendor to a great extent against breach of contract claims or financial penalties. Needless to say, it should not be done with mala fide intentions.
Now, coming back to the present situation; it is very much clear that occurrence of such mistakes cannot be ruled out completely. After all, we are all ordinary mortals.
Start putting this clause in all important documents if you are not doing now. Nothing wrong with that.
From your side make sure that all important documents are thoroughly scrutinized before sending. At least a two or three levels of checking should be enforced. Make sure that your partner understands the implications of errors in important documents, as it hampers the reputation of the company.
Don’t expect perfection in everything. We can apply E & OE in real life situations also, to get peace of mind.”
