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# What Happens Next

Accepting a proposal in the portal is the kickoff signal — for
both sides. Here's what happens in the hours and days right
after.

## Within a few hours — confirmation

You receive a confirmation email from your point of contact at
DMU. It typically:

- Acknowledges your acceptance and thanks you.
- Lists any **inputs we need from you** to start work (see
  below).
- Points you at the first invoice and how to pay it.

If you don't see the confirmation within one working day, reply
to the proposal email — the acceptance might not have reached
us cleanly, or our reply might be sitting in your spam folder.

## Inputs we collect

What we ask for depends on the project. A few examples:

- **For a website build.** Contact details to display (phone,
  email, address), an optional short company description, an
  optional 1-2 photos to enrich the page.
- **For brand work.** Existing logos, brand guidelines, any
  reference materials, the social-media accounts we'll be
  working with.
- **For a domain registration or transfer.** The exact name
  and TLD you want, plus (for a transfer) the auth code from
  your current registrar.

You upload these to the **shared Drive** in the portal — see
the [Drive article](../services-and-monitoring) (coming soon)
for how that works. Anything you send by email we'll also drop
into the Drive so we both work from the same set of files.

We won't start the build until we have what we need; we'll
chase you if something's missing.

## Your first invoice

Right after acceptance, we issue the **first invoice**. What it
covers depends on how your project is staged in the proposal:

- Most projects are split into **three phases** (a deposit on
  acceptance, an interim milestone, a final balance on
  delivery). Your first invoice is for the **deposit** — the
  remaining phases get their own invoices when they become
  due.
- **Smaller jobs** are sometimes billed as a single phase —
  in which case the first invoice is for the whole project.

**Recurring subscriptions** (hosting, maintenance, SEO) are
billed separately on their own cycle and **auto-charged via
Stripe** on a card you'll put on file — they're not bundled
into the project invoice and not paid the same way. See
[Subscriptions & billing](../subscriptions-and-billing) for
the recurring side.

You can find your invoices in the portal under **Invoices**,
and the project phase breakdown under **Project Payments**.
See [Payment](../payment) for how to read an invoice, the
methods we accept, and the steps for paying.

For most projects we wait for payment of the first invoice
before starting build work in earnest — the proposal terms
state the exact split.

## Delivery timeline

Every project has its own timeline — there's no single rule
that applies across all of them. The proposal you accepted
states the delivery expectations for your project specifically;
that's the document to refer back to.

What's the same across every project: the clock starts once we
have both your payment **and** the kickoff materials we asked
for, not the moment you click accept. Delaying either delays
the start.

If the timing is critical for you (a launch event, a fiscal
deadline, a campaign window), tell us during
[Discovery & brief](../brief-and-proposal/discovery-and-brief)
so we can build it into the proposal up front rather than
chasing it after acceptance.

## Ongoing communication

From this point on, your main channels are:

- **Email** — for substantive decisions and anything you want
  on the record.
- **Phone** — for quick questions; details on
  [How to reach us](../help-and-support/how-to-reach-us).
- **The portal Drive** — for shared files (briefs you send us,
  brochures and brand palettes we send you, work-in-progress
  assets).
- **The portal itself** — for the canonical view of invoices,
  service status, and active projects.

You don't have to use any one channel exclusively. Pick what
fits.