They are tests to confirm that your payment card account is active and has the funds available to complete your transactions. Authorization holds are removed by your financial institution shortly after your purchase clears. The time it takes to remove authorization requests varies by financial institution.
These are to be found primarily in the contract documents. The term contract documents is uniformly used in all AIA standard form agreements to designate the group of documents that comprise the construction contract between the owner and contractor. The terms contract documents and contract may be used interchangeably.
A BPA is an agreement (NOT a contract) between the Government and a contractor that sets the stage for the Government to buy items quickly. All the conditions of sale are negotiated when the BPA is initially established, but contract formation does not occur until each individual call or order is placed.