01 What is copied off the contract
Five things, each with the clause number written next to it so you can check the copy against the original in a minute.
- Term length, and whether the term restarts or continues on renewal.
- Notice period, in days, and whether notice must be in writing.
- Renewal date, taken from the contract rather than the invoice.
- What changes on renewal, if the contract says.
- What leaving costs, named as a clause rather than a figure.
Copying is the work. A term that has been paraphrased cannot be argued from, and a clause number is what makes a one-page summary usable in a phone call.
02 What is not compared
Whether a supplier is any good is yours to judge. You know who answers the phone on a Saturday and this office does not.
So quality is not scored, relationships are not rated, and no supplier is recommended. There is no list of preferred names anywhere in the file.
Value is not judged either. The sheet records what each contract says it costs to stay and what it says it costs to leave, and stops there.
03 The notice-date sheet
The arithmetic is one subtraction. Renewal date minus notice period is the last day you can give notice. Do it for each contract, then put the dates in order.
The sheet below does that subtraction in days and prints every step. Type over the example figures with your own.
04 Renewal that happens by itself
Most small-business contracts renew unless somebody writes in. Nothing arrives to warn you, because the renewal is the default and the default needs no letter.
So the notice date, not the renewal date, is the date that goes in the diary. The renewal date is already too late to be useful.
Where a contract requires notice in writing, the sheet says which address it goes to, copied off the clause. A notice given on the phone to the person who sells to you is not notice.
05 What the comparison sheet looks like
One side of A4, landscape, a column to each contract. Rows in a fixed order: term, notice, renewal date, last day to give notice, what changes on renewal, cost of leaving, clause numbers.
At the foot, the notice dates again in date order, earliest first. That strip is the part people photograph and keep on a phone.
The sheet carries the date it was copied and the version of the contract it was copied from. A comparison without those two facts is a comparison of something, and nobody can tell what.
06 When a supplier is left alone
A contract inside its notice window is left alone and marked as such. There is nothing to decide until the next window opens, and inviting a decision early wastes your morning.
A supplier who also holds a routine gets a sheet, not a column. Whoever books the van service holds a routine; the garage holds a contract. Those are two different rows and they go in two different places, one on the routines ledger and one here.
Where you have no copy of a contract at all, that is written down as the finding. Chasing the copy is a job for you or for the supplier, and it is named in the engagement so it does not get lost.