Bank Loan Milestones: Sync Your Gantt to Inspection Dates

How does a Thai bank construction loan draw schedule work?

Most Thai owner-built residential and commercial projects are funded through a construction draw loan from a commercial bank such as Kasikorn, SCB, Bangkok Bank, or GHB. Unlike a term loan paid in full at signing, a construction loan releases funds in tranches tied to verified on-site milestones. A typical residential draw schedule has four to six disbursement stages: land-clearing and pile foundation, structural frame up to roof slab, rough MEP and exterior envelope, near-completion of interiors, and final handover condition. Before the bank releases each tranche, an inspector visits the site — sometimes the bank's own engineer, sometimes a third-party appraisal firm — to verify that the milestone conditions are met. A contractor who plans without knowing the exact milestone criteria can complete the structural frame, call for a bank inspection, and fail because the roof waterproofing was not included in the bank's definition of "structure complete." Understanding the draw schedule before breaking ground is not optional — it directly controls when cash reaches the project.

Why does the bank draw schedule affect the contractor's cash flow?

The owner pays the contractor from the funds the bank releases, not from their own pocket. If the bank inspection is delayed or the milestone is not met, the owner cannot pay the contractor on time — and the contractor is left floating labour and material costs until the next disbursement. For a Thai SME contractor running a two or three million baht residential project, a three-week delay in one bank draw can mean using personal funds or delaying the next subcontractor payment. The contractor is rarely a party to the bank agreement, but they are the one who bears the cash-flow risk when milestones are missed. This makes the bank's disbursement schedule one of the most important inputs to the Gantt plan — not a detail to be discovered after signing the contract.

How do you add bank draw milestones to the Gantt planning view?

Before building the Gantt, request a copy of the bank's disbursement schedule from the owner. Most Thai banks provide a one-page summary of milestone conditions and approximate tranche amounts when the loan is approved. Take each milestone and create a zero-duration milestone task in the Gantt planning view in SiteBoard. Name it clearly — "Draw 2: Structural Frame Inspection" — and link it as a dependency on the last task that must be complete before the inspection. This makes the inspection date visible on the timeline and forces every task that feeds into it to appear as a predecessor. When a task slips, you see immediately whether it puts a bank inspection milestone at risk, giving you time to recover before the inspector visits. Without this, the inspection date exists only in the owner's loan paperwork, invisible to the site team.

What buffer should you add before each bank inspection milestone?

Thai bank inspectors typically need three to five working days' notice to schedule a site visit. A construction-loan inspector visits at a scheduled appointment — the contractor cannot call the day before and expect the bank to send someone out. Add a four-day buffer task before each bank milestone on the Gantt: one day to complete any final work the bank's criteria require, one day for the foreman to walk the site and verify every condition, and two days to cover the inspector's scheduling gap. A site that finishes the structural frame on the same day as the planned inspection date will miss the tranche by at least a week — two weeks if the bank is busy. For a project with five draw stages, that recurring mistake can push the final completion date by a month or more.

A worked example: a 3.2 million baht home in Nonthaburi

Khun Wichai, a contractor building a single-storey home in Nonthaburi for a client financing through Kasikorn Bank, received the five-tranche disbursement schedule at contract signing. Before entering any tasks into SiteBoard, he placed five milestone tasks on the Gantt at dates matching the owner's loan targets and built the work phases backward from each milestone, accounting for realistic durations and subcontractor lead times. The structural frame milestone was set for week ten. By week eight, the on-site progress update for the roof beam task showed seventy percent complete — still on track. The four-day pre-inspection buffer let Wichai call the Kasikorn inspector on day nine and conduct the visit on day eleven. The tranche was released four days later. Without the milestone visible in the Gantt, he estimated he would have called the bank on day ten and waited up to two weeks for a slot.

How does the owner sharing link help prepare the owner before each bank inspection?

Bank inspectors sometimes speak with the owner as well as the contractor during the site visit. An owner who follows the Gantt in real time through the owner sharing link arrives at each inspection knowing exactly what milestone is being assessed and which tasks are already complete. This avoids the common situation where an owner tells the bank inspector that work is "almost done" when two tasks are still incomplete — a statement that can cause a failed inspection and a rescheduled visit. Before each milestone, prompt the owner to review the milestone task in the sharing link. If on-site progress updates show everything flagged as complete, the owner can state that with confidence. If one item is still in progress, both parties know in advance rather than discovering it at the site visit.

What happens when a bank inspection fails and the tranche is delayed?

A failed inspection means the tranche is withheld until the site re-qualifies. The contractor should add a task note to the milestone in SiteBoard specifying which criteria the inspector cited, set a revised target date, and update downstream tasks to reflect the delay in the owner's payment. Notify the owner that the revised disbursement timeline affects the next payment cycle. For contractors managing subcontractor payment terms, a failed bank inspection often triggers a cascade: the electrical subcontractor cannot be paid until the draw arrives, which delays the fit-out phase, which pushes the next milestone. Treating a failed inspection as a one-off problem misses the knock-on effect. Mapping the revised dates on the Gantt makes that cascade visible, and visibility is the first step in managing it.

FAQ: Should the bank disbursement schedule drive the Gantt or the other way around?

The disbursement dates should inform the Gantt but never override logical construction sequencing. If the bank's target date for the structural frame milestone is week ten but the construction sequence realistically puts the frame at week twelve, the right response is to renegotiate the draw schedule before breaking ground — not to plan an unrealistic week-ten finish. Building a Gantt to match what the bank wants rather than what the site can achieve leads to failed inspections and a worse outcome for everyone. The correct use of the bank schedule is as a constraint that reveals whether the owner's financing timeline is aligned with realistic construction duration, surfacing any misalignment early while it can still be addressed through direct conversation.

FAQ: What documents should the contractor file after each passed bank inspection?

After each bank inspection, collect and file three items: the inspector's visit report or pass certificate, the bank's disbursement confirmation for that tranche, and the on-site progress updates from SiteBoard that document the work completed for the milestone. Together these create a per-stage record of what was inspected, what was verified, and what was paid. If the owner later disputes the quality of work completed at a specific stage, the bank pass certificate is strong evidence that an independent inspector verified completion at that milestone date. Organise digital copies by draw stage and store them alongside the project's Gantt export and photo records. This file is typically needed at final accounts and sometimes re-emerges if a warranty claim arises during the defects period.

FAQ: How do you handle a bank that uses different milestone criteria than expected?

Different banks and loan products can have subtly different milestone definitions. One bank's criteria for "structure complete" may include the roof waterproofing membrane while another counts only the structural frame. Before planning the first task, review the bank's detailed milestone checklist — not the loan summary — and map each condition onto a specific task in the Gantt. If a condition is ambiguous, ask the bank officer to clarify it in writing before work begins. A contractor who discovers mid-build that the bank requires something extra for a milestone must choose between delaying the inspection or doing unplanned rework. Front-loading the milestone review takes an hour and prevents weeks of disruption — the same discipline as requesting final drawings before a trade starts.