Costs and pricing
Evidence to keep for each multilingual social budget line
A multilingual social budget an auditor can follow: eight cost layers, the buyer-owned fields and the evidence to retain for every row of the register.
What to take away
- An auditable multilingual social budget is a cost registerone row per layer, with buyer-owned fields and the evidence behind each.
- Eight layers cover the work, from source readiness to assurance, remediation and exit.
- Every row carries a dated, sourced and owned piece of evidence. A row without it stays blank.
- Public framework schedules show which service elements exist. They never give an England price.
- No amounts appear here. The register records where each amount will come from.
Why an auditor wants a register, not a total
A single total shows what was spent but not who decided it or which document backs it. A register answers both, row by row. That is the difference between a budget someone can follow and one they must simply trust.
Keep each layer separate, so one changed assumption does not move the other rows. A new language labour rate then leaves the media row and the exit row alone, and the auditor can see exactly which line moved and why.
The eight-layer register and its evidence
Each layer has fields the buyer owns and evidence the buyer keeps. The fields say what was decided, and the evidence proves it was decided that way.
| Cost layer | Buyer-owned fields | Evidence to retain |
|---|---|---|
| Source readiness | audience task, approved claim, source owner | signed brief, rights note |
| Licence and usage | edition, seats, usage unit | dated quote, usage export |
| Language labour | task type, source unit, target variety, revision rule | supplier schedule, delivery logs |
| Independent review | language, subject or regulated-claim scope | competence record, sign-off |
| Creative and accessibility | artwork, captions, layout, assistive testing | target assets, defect record |
| Research and participation | recruitment, consent, withdrawal | protocol, payment record |
| Media and publishing | spend, buying fee, monitoring | account record, change log |
| Assurance, remediation and exit | privacy, advertising, IP, corrections, export | issue log, reserve basis, deletion record |
Cost layers and evidence
Cost layer
- Discovery and source readiness
- signed brief, source evidence, rights record
- Licence and usage
- dated quote, order form, usage export
- Language labour
- supplier schedule, time and delivery logs
- Independent review
- competence record, scope, finding, sign-off
- Creative and accessibility
- source and target assets, defect record
- Research and participation
- approved protocol, participant materials, payment record
- Media and publishing
- client-owned account record, invoices, placement logs
- Assurance
- named reviewer, issue
Evidence to retain
- Discovery and source readiness
- Licence and usage
- Language labour
- Independent review
- Creative and accessibility
- Research and participation
- Media and publishing
- Assurance
Items that never reach a first quote still need a row. The hidden costs article lists them layer by layer, so each can be given an owner before it surprises anyone.
Collect the evidence in the order it appears
Evidence is easiest to gather at the moment it is created. Chasing a supplier for a delivery log long after release rarely works, so the register follows the life of the project.
- Before any supplier is contacted, file the signed brief and the rights note.
- When quotes arrive, file the dated quote and the usage export.
- During delivery, keep the supplier schedule and delivery logs.
- After review, file the competence record and the sign-off.
- After testing, keep the target assets and the defect record.
- At close, file the issue log, the reserve basis and the deletion record.
Prices for each layer are worked through in the layer-by-layer cost guide. The register only proves where the numbers came from.
Example: one row filled in as far as the evidence allows
A supplier can only price what is defined, so each row starts from one written project unit. Take a two-variety campaign across four channels. The language labour row would read: task type [localisation], approved source [one article], target variety [buyer-declared], complexity [regulated claim] and revision rule [two rounds].
Leave the amount blank until a dated quote arrives. The evidence column then holds the supplier schedule and the delivery logs, so the amount, once entered, can be traced to a document.
A blank register with VAT and exit lines already built in sits in the multilingual social budget template.
What public frameworks can and cannot evidence
The Government Commercial Agency's current Language Services agreement separates translation and support, managed services, interpreting, transcription and technology. It publishes its own pricing, security, continuity and exit schedules.
Those schedules show the service elements exist, but they are not an England market average and must not be copied by a private buyer. Framework schedules are the closest public evidence for service structure.
The Institute of Translation and Interpreting and the Association of Translation Companies are places to ask what comparable evidence exists for your language pair. ONS census data can size a language community, though it does not set a price.
Keep the VAT statement with the invoice
Whatever the supplier's invoice says about VAT belongs in the evidence column beside the amount. The treatment itself is a decision for a qualified reviewer, not for the budget owner.
The place of supply rules in HMRC VAT Notice 741A set one general rule for supplies to business customers and another for supplies to consumers. The notice does not settle liability or recoverability for your project. A named accountant and VAT specialist should approve each treatment.
Checklist before the register is signed off
- Every cost row has an owner, its buyer-owned fields and a named piece of evidence.
- Amounts without a dated quote are still blank.
- Items missing from the first quote have their own rows.
- The supplier's VAT statement sits beside each invoice.
- A reserve basis and a deletion record are planned for close.
- Monitoring uses fixed key metrics, not platform reports alone.
Common questions
Does this article give England cost figures?
No, deliberately. The register records where each amount will come from, so the budget is built from dated quotes and your own evidence.
What if a row has no evidence yet?
Leave the amount blank until a dated quote arrives. A row with fields but no amount still shows the auditor what is missing.
Who approves the VAT treatment?
A named accountant and VAT specialist. HMRC guidance explains how supplier location and customer status affect where a service is supplied, but it does not decide liability or recoverability for one project.
How many revision rounds should the budget fund?
Enough for language review, subject review and accessibility fixes, plus a correction reserve for post-release changes.
In this guide
- How to sense-check a multilingual social marketing quoteThis multilingual social marketing cost guide covers quote units, rate benchmarks and keeping unpriced costs, VAT and cash timing visible.
- Comparing multilingual marketing pricing structures on risk, not on one invoice lineCompare multilingual marketing charging structures on one England project unit, with risk allocation, complete scope, blank prices and no cheapest claim.
- A blank multilingual social campaign budget with quote, VAT and closure controlsUse a blank multilingual social campaign budget template with placeholder cost rows, VAT and quote fields, approval gates, sensitivity checks and closure controls.
- Working out the return on multilingual social spend with blank formulas and stated doubtEvaluate multilingual social return by separating monitoring, attribution and causal evidence, with full costs, blank formulas and stated uncertainty.
- The multilingual marketing costs that rarely make it onto the first quoteReview eight non-ranked multilingual marketing cost categories using current UK evidence, buyer-owned amounts, explicit exclusions and no concealment claim.
