I guess this would never apply to anything as costly as a B787, but we used to get a lot of orders at the year end from people using up their budget before it evaporated. After the previous management had lost several orders (Sorry, we can't deliver before the year end), I arranged to have several machines all crated up and ready for their delivery address labels each March. If the rules are funny-peculiar, you may as well take (sane) advantage of them.