To track contract renewal dates, keep one list of every contract with its end date, notice period and the resulting notice deadline, give each contract an owner, and set a reminder well before each deadline, not on it. The list itself is easy to build. Keeping it complete and current is where most businesses struggle, so this article covers both.

What you need to track for every contract

A renewal date on its own is not enough. You need what it takes to act in time:

  • Counterparty and contract name, so everyone knows which one it is.
  • End of the current term. Not the start or signing date.
  • Renewal rule. Renews for twelve months, month to month, or not at all.
  • Notice period and how it is counted, for example three months before the end of the term.
  • Notice deadline, worked out from the two above. This is the date that matters.
  • How notice must be given, written letter, email to a named address or a portal.
  • Owner, the person who decides whether to renew, renegotiate or end it.
  • Annual value, so the expensive renewals get attention first.
  • Where the signed contract is, a link to the file.

Step 1: Find all of your contracts

Work through these sources, starting with the contracts that cost the most:

  1. Bank and card statements. Every recurring payment points to a contract: software, phones, leases, insurance, equipment, services.
  2. Email. Search for “agreement”, “contract”, “order form”, “terms of service”, “renewal” and “DocuSign”.
  3. Shared drives and desks. Signed PDFs, scans and paper copies.
  4. Your team. Ask each person which suppliers and clients they deal with. Contracts signed by someone who has since left are the most likely to be missing.

Start with the five contracts that would hurt most to get wrong, usually the lease, insurance, key software, phones and your biggest client. Getting those right first is more useful than a complete list that takes months.

Step 2: Work out each notice deadline

Count back from the end of the term by the notice period. In a spreadsheet, two formulas do most of the work in both Excel and Google Sheets:

  • Months: =EDATE(C2, -D2) where C2 holds the end of the term and D2 the notice period in months. EDATE keeps month ends as month ends, so December 31 less three months gives September 30.
  • Business days: =WORKDAY(C2, -D2) counts back working days and skips weekends. Add a range of holidays as a third argument if your contract excludes them.

For a single contract, the notice deadline calculator does the same, and how notice periods are counted explains the rules behind it.

Step 3: Set reminders that reach someone

Put a reminder well ahead of each notice deadline, thirty to ninety days depending on how long it takes to compare offers, and send it to the contract’s owner, not a shared inbox. A second reminder a week before the deadline is a useful backstop.

In a spreadsheet this means calendar events you create by hand, one per contract, and new ones every time a contract renews.

Why the spreadsheet goes stale

A spreadsheet works on the day it is finished. Then, usually within a few months:

  • New contracts arrive by email and nobody adds them.
  • Amendments change dates or notice periods, but the row stays the same.
  • Renewals move the end date by a year, and the calendar reminders are not recreated.
  • The person who built it leaves, and with them the knowledge of how it works.
  • Dates come from memory, not from the contract, and small errors creep in.

A spreadsheet only contains what someone types in, so it falls behind as soon as nobody has time to update it.

When to move beyond a spreadsheet

A spreadsheet is fine for a handful of contracts that one person looks after. It is worth switching when several of these are true:

  • You have more than about twenty active contracts.
  • More than one person signs or manages contracts.
  • New contracts and amendments arrive regularly by email.
  • A renewal has already slipped through.

ContractSorted is built for this stage. It reads each contract, finds the term, renewal rule and notice period with the sentence they come from, and works out the notice deadline. The contract’s owner gets a reminder ahead of each deadline and a weekly summary of what needs a decision, and the decision, renew, renegotiate or end it, is recorded. Contracts you forward by email are filed by themselves, and you can import the spreadsheet you already have.

Checklist

  • One list of every contract with end date, notice period, notice deadline, owner and value.
  • Find contracts through bank statements, email, shared drives and your team.
  • Work out deadlines with EDATE or WORKDAY, or the calculator.
  • Remind the owner well before each deadline.
  • When the list keeps going stale, let software keep it current.

How ContractSorted helps with this →