An average business has anywhere between 20,000 and 40,000 contracts. With such huge volumes of information, it’s easy to miss out on important dates related to contract renewals and terminations. 

These misses can result in huge losses for a business. A survey by KPMG highlighted the “value leakage” emerging from deficient document governance, leading to contracts losing anywhere between 17%-40% of their original value.

Fortunately, a simple fix is using a contract reminder software that can track important dates, details, and deadlines and notify you when a contract is reaching its expiry. 

Why is it difficult to keep track of contract deadlines?

Do you guys remember the TV series "Suits"? Harvey Specter, the hotshot attorney, always had a way of keeping his cases under control, no matter how complex they were. But what about the contracts that his law firm had to manage?

Managing contracts is complex by nature, and it can be especially challenging for legal professionals who are already swamped with other tasks. Each contract has different requirements, dates, and processes, and keeping track of all of them manually can be overwhelming.

To make things worse, many businesses still rely on outdated methods like Excel spreadsheets or email inboxes to manage their contracts. And let's face it, none of us want to spend our time digging through spreadsheets or sorting through emails looking for important dates. It's time-consuming and takes away from more valuable work.

This can lead to missed deadlines and costly mistakes.

But don't worry, you don't need to be a hotshot attorney like Harvey Specter to manage your contracts effectively. With contract reminder software, you can automate contract tracking and stay on top of all your critical deadlines. This means you can focus on more strategic work and leave the administrative tasks to the software.

3 Benefits of Contract Reminder Software

Besides saving time and structuring workflows, a good contract reminder software offers the following advantages:

Organize work better

• Planning your daily tasks becomes much more manageable with the help of a contract reminder software. Let’s say four contracts are due for renewal in two weeks, and three of them need approvals from external folks. Simply setting up a reminder three weeks ahead will help you prioritize which contracts to get started on that day, which ones should go for approval the next day, and so on
• You get increased visibility into the task pipeline, making it easier to identify potential bottlenecks, such as an expected delay in approvals because the stakeholders are not available

Plug revenue leaks

• For many types of contracts, such as purchase orders, SaaS contracts, etc., missing a deadline or a renewal date comes with a very heavy price tag. A contract reminder software will ensure you never miss a deadline
• Renewals are also the perfect opportunities for organizations to reset prices, negotiate services or upsell products. Simply by setting a reminder for renewals, you can allow yourself plenty of time to prepare for such negotiations

Avoid contract errors

• With notifications ahead of time, you will not be rushing reviews or working under tight timelines to prepare contracts. You will have more time to do multiple reviews if needed and minimize chances of missed details or errors in the contract.

The Types of Contract Reminder Software

Contract reminder software can be broadly classified into two categories—general purpose and purpose-built. 

General Purpose Contract Reminder Software

#1 Spreadsheets

Spreadsheets are super versatile, so it isn’t surprising that they can be used effectively to manage your contracts as well. In fact, we have created a free template to help you manage your contract lifecycle end-to-end. You can download it right here. 

As an added bonus, on MS Excel, you can add reminders to important dates or key details. There is a simple 4-minute tutorial on YouTube. 

It gets even better with Google Sheets, as you can send reminders directly to your email. Here's how.

Step-by-step guide using Google Sheets to set reminders for contracts:

1. Open Google Sheets: Go to the Google Sheets website and sign in to your Google account.
2. Create a new sheet: Click on the "+ New" button on the left-hand side of the screen and select "Google Sheets" from the dropdown menu.
3. Add column headers: Add column headers for each piece of information you want to track. For example, you might have columns for "Contract Name," "Expiration Date," "Renewal Date," "Reminder Date," and "Status."
4. Enter contract information: Enter the information for each contract in the appropriate rows and columns.
5. Add a reminder date column: Add a new column for "Reminder Date." In this column, enter the date you want to be reminded about each contract.
6. Create a conditional formatting rule: Highlight the "Reminder Date" column, click on the "Format" menu, and select "Conditional formatting."
7. Choose "Date is" as the format rule: Under "Format rules," select "Date is" from the dropdown menu.
8. Set the condition: Set the condition to "on or before" and enter "=TODAY()" in the value box. This will highlight any cells in the "Reminder Date" column that are on or before the current date.
9. Add a filter view: Click on the "Data" menu and select "Filter views" > "Create new filter view." This will allow you to filter the data in your sheet to show only the contracts with upcoming reminders.
10. Name the filter view: Name the filter view something like "Upcoming Reminders" and click "OK."
11. Filter the sheet: Click on the "Filter views" dropdown menu and select your newly created filter view. This will filter the sheet to show only the contracts with upcoming reminders.
12. Set up email notifications: Click on the "Tools" menu and select "Script editor." Paste the following code into the editor:

function sendEmail() {
 var sheet = SpreadsheetApp.getActiveSheet();
 var startRow = 2;
 var numRows = sheet.getLastRow() - 1;
 var dataRange = sheet.getRange(startRow, 1, numRows, 5)
 var data = dataRange.getValues();
 var today = new Date();
 
 for (var i = 0; i < data.length; ++i) {
   var row = data[i];
   var reminderDate = new Date(row[3]);
   if (reminderDate < today) {
     var emailAddress = "your-email@example.com";
     var subject = "Contract Reminder: " + row[0];
     var message = "This is a reminder that your contract \"" + row[0] + "\" is due for renewal on " + row[2] + ".";
     MailApp.sendEmail(emailAddress, subject, message);
     sheet.getRange(startRow + i, 5).setValue("Reminder Sent");
   }
 }
}

13. Save the script: Click on "File" > "Save" to save the script.
14. Set up a trigger: Click on "Edit" > "Current project's triggers" to set up a trigger. Click on the "+ Add Trigger" button, set the function to "sendEmail," and set the event type to "Time-driven" > "Day timer" > "Midnight to 1am." This will send the reminder emails every day at midnight.
15. Test the script: Click on "Run" > "sendEmail" to test the script. You should receive an email for any contracts with a reminder date on or before the current date.

You should now have a Google Sheets document that includes a list of your contracts and a way to filter them based on upcoming reminders. You should also have a script set up to send you an email reminder each day for any contracts with upcoming reminders.

#2 Kanban Boards

Kanban boards are predominantly used to track tasks, but a nifty feature is that they can also notify you on both status changes and due dates for tasks.

There are many (free) Kanban board tools that you can try out for setting up contract reminders—Asana, Trello, Notion, etc.

Example, on Notion, you can see the column that says ‘Due for renewal.’ These are the contracts that need to be reviewed/negotiated on quickly.

If you notice here, there’s a ‘Renewal Date’ property, for which you can set custom reminders.

You can play around with Kanban boards and customize them the way you want, which is honestly the best thing about them!

#3 Calendars and Calendar Plug-Ins

Probably the most time-consuming of the lot to set up, calendars still might work as a replacement for contract reminder software.

Here’s what it looks like to set up a reminder on Google Calendar.

Note: ‘Reminder’ on Google Calendar does NOT send you an email notification. You will only receive a push notification on your mobile device. If you want email notifications to be configured, then I suggest setting up an upcoming renewal as an event instead.

You can try this with whatever calendar app you use as well.

Some other Chrome plugins you can use for the same effect are Remind Me, Pi Reminder, etc.

#4 Email Add-Ons

Email add-ons, such as Boomerang and Streak CRM, can bring up the entire email thread up to the top of your inbox as a reminder. This will add context on top of the reminder, which can help you prepare better.

Purpose-Built Contract Reminder Software

The second kind of contract reminder software are platforms such as SpotDraft that specialize in end-to-end contract management. These purpose-built tools have custom-made features to remind you about your contract deadlines.

Here’s what an email reminder looks like on SpotDraft:

SpotDraft will also give you reminders on the dashboard about an upcoming renewal date.

SpotDraft allows you to track various important dates, details, and deadlines automatically.

Reminders are proactively sent to the relevant stakeholders to notify them whenever a contract is expiring or due for renewal.

You can also templatize your highest volume contracts, including a client renewal agreement.

When a client contract is up for renewal, you can fill in the questionnaire associated with the renewal template and send it out to the client for review and signature.

Also Read: Contract Renewal Process: Strategy + Best Practices

Track Renewals, Reminders, & Approvals With SpotDraft

With your teams rapidly scaling and contracts firmly growing, keeping track of contract renewals may become more challenging than ever. You may benefit from automated renewal reminders to avoid hiccups and surprises and build healthy customer relationships.

‍SpotDraft offers teams a separate negotiation window before the actual renewal. It gives your team extra time to ensure the deal provides a competitive advantage. Try out a demo.