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SV DIXON LTD

Day one: the engagement letter, the templates, the approved list, the access list, the practice code — in that order and no other.

Day-one editionWhat arrives first, and in what orderThe first five weekdays

Standing column

This week in the office: a new engagement

A first week is not a normal week. It runs once, in a fixed order, and nothing in it is skipped to make a start look quicker than it is.

The office week as seven columns Seven columns, Monday to Sunday, showing how a first week in a new engagement is loaded. Monday and Friday stand tallest. Saturday and Sunday are short and pale because the desk is not staffed. The same information is written out in the list beside the strip. MON TUE WED THU FRI SAT SUN

Where scripting is available, the current weekday is flagged on the strip and in the list.

  1. MondayThe engagement letter, the session templates and the practice code are read together. Anything missing is asked for in writing before a diary is touched.
  2. TuesdayThe approved supplier list and the access list are loaded exactly as given. Neither is inferred from how the practice has been working.
  3. WednesdayThe existing filing is walked through with the practice: what is on which shelf, what is out on loan, what has no home.
  4. ThursdayOpen orders and unmatched deliveries are listed and numbered into the office sequence, with the supplier’s own references kept alongside.
  5. FridayThe first running order is printed and sent, with everything still unresolved listed at the foot of it in plain words.
  6. SaturdayNo desk cover in a first week either. Nothing is set up over a weekend.
  7. SundayNothing is handled. The second week starts from what Friday recorded.

Before the first weekday

Five things the office needs in writing

None of this is a formality. Each item below is something the office is otherwise forced to guess, and a guess made in a first week is still being corrected in the third month. The office does not open a diary, raise an order or name a file until all five are held.

Engagement letter
What the office is instructed to do, what it is not, and who at the practice may change that instruction.
Session templates
One per room per weekday: opening time, closing time, appointment length, turnaround gap.
Approved supplier list
Suppliers the practice has approved, with their own codes, and the name of whoever may add to the list.
Access list
Who may ask the office for a file, and who may authorise one leaving the office.
Practice code
Three letters, chosen with the practice, that go into every file name and every order reference from then on.

Retention periods are asked for at the same time, in writing. The office applies them arithmetically and expresses no view on their length — see retention review dates.

Sequence

The first five weekdays

  1. Read, then ask

    The letter, the templates and the code are read together on the Monday, and every gap is put in one written list rather than drip-fed by telephone over a fortnight.

  2. Load the lists as given

    The approved list and the access list are entered exactly as supplied. Where the office thinks something is missing it says so; it does not fill it in.

  3. Walk the filing

    The office and the practice go through the existing filing together. Files with no home are listed as such, and the practice decides where they belong before anything is renamed.

  4. Take on the open items

    Orders already placed and deliveries not yet matched come into the office sequence with new numbers, the supplier’s references kept alongside so nothing loses its history.

  5. Print the first running order

    Sent on the Friday, with the open holds and everything unresolved at the foot of it. That document is what the second week starts from.

Division of duties

What the practice keeps doing itself

Handing the diary and the filing to an administrative office does not hand over any judgement about the work itself. The list below is written into the engagement letter, and the office refers to it rather than improvising when it is asked to go further.

The practice decides

  • What every session is for, who staffs it, and how long an appointment should be.
  • Which suppliers are approved, and whether a substituted line is accepted.
  • How long anything is kept, and what happens when a review date arrives.
  • Who may ask for a file and who may authorise it leaving the office.
  • Everything a practitioner records, which does not come to this office at all.

The office does

  • Builds the fortnight from the templates and keeps it corrected.
  • Numbers the orders, books the goods in, matches the notes line by line.
  • Names and indexes the files and reconciles the loan sheet.
  • Writes the queries, dates them, and reports the ones still open.
  • Reports; it does not decide.

Ending

Handing an engagement back

An engagement ends on written notice either way, and the office would rather describe the handback now than at the point it is wanted. On the last weekday the office prints the standing fortnight, the file index with every shelf number, the loan sheet with anything still out, the open-order list with its numbers and ages, and the quarterly review sheets as they stand. Those five documents are the engagement.

Office access to the practice’s own system is given up the same day it is asked for, and the office confirms in writing that it has been. What the office keeps afterwards, and for how long, is set out on the office and data page — it is correspondence and order records, and nothing else.