Move your supplier contracts out of Excel when the spreadsheet stops being something you can trust: a renewal or notice date slips past, more than one person edits it, or you cannot find the signed copy behind a row. As a rule of thumb, that point comes somewhere past 20 or 30 active contracts, or as soon as different people own different contracts. Excel is still fine for a handful of contracts with one careful owner. When you outgrow it, oboloo's free-forever plan covers supplier contracts with renewal and notice alerts, and our comparison of supplier contract management software covers the paid options.
If two or three of these are true, it is time to move to a central contract repository where every contract has an owner, a signed copy and an alert.
A spreadsheet is a sensible choice if you have fewer than about 20 supplier contracts, one person owns all of them, and that person opens the sheet every month. Add a column for the last day to give notice, and put each notice date in a calendar as well.
| What Excel does well | What contract software does well | |
|---|---|---|
| Cost and set-up | Already on your laptop, ready in an hour | Free plans exist, but you need time to load your contracts |
| Flexibility | Any column, formula or pivot table you like | Set fields for dates and notice periods, so nothing gets skipped |
| Reminders | Only if someone opens the sheet or sets a calendar entry | Alerts go to the contract owner before the notice window closes |
| More than one user | Fine for a single owner | Many people working from the same record |
| Signed copies | A file path or link, which breaks when folders move | The signed copy and amendments stored with the contract |
| Finding a contract | Filter and sort | Search, and each contract sits on its supplier's record |
| Audits and due diligence | Export the sheet, then hunt for the documents | Dates and documents already together |
This is a made-up example to show the maths, not real data.
Your office cleaning contract costs $24,000 a year. It ends on 30 June and renews automatically for another 12 months unless you give three months' notice. The terms allow a 5% price rise at renewal. So the last day to give notice is 31 March.
Your spreadsheet has the end date but not the notice date. Someone spots the renewal in May, gets quotes, and finds a supplier who would do the same work for $20,000. The notice date passed in March, so the contract rolls over at $25,200 for another year.
That one missed date costs $5,200, and you keep a supplier you wanted to replace for another 12 months. To work out the notice date for any contract, use our free contract renewal timeline calculator.
If you are not ready to move, start from a template, not a blank sheet. Our free contract repository spreadsheet lets you list your contracts, assign owners and track renewal dates in one file. The free contract tracking spreadsheet is another option. Whichever you use, capture the fields from step 2 now, so moving later is quick.
oboloo is free-forever procurement software for SMEs and charities, and its contract management software is built for supplier contracts. The free plan gives you:
The free plan has unlimited users, needs no card and does not expire. oboloo does not draft or redline contracts, and it does not use AI to read dates from your PDFs, so you enter the dates yourself. If you did step 2, you already have them.
If renewals are your main worry, our guide to the best contract renewal tracking software compares tools on notice date alerts.
You stop missing notice dates, because alerts go to the contract owner in time. You can find any contract, and its final signed version, by searching instead of opening folders. For most small businesses the biggest saving is avoiding contracts that renew automatically at a higher price.
There is no fixed number. As a rule of thumb, once you pass 20 or 30 active supplier contracts, or more than one person manages them, a spreadsheet starts to slip. A business with 10 contracts that all auto-renew can need software sooner than one with 40 fixed-term contracts.
A missed notice date, several people editing one sheet, signed copies in inboxes, contracts with no owner, and audit requests that take days.
Yes, for a small number of contracts with one owner. Record the last day to give notice as well as the end date, and set a calendar reminder for each one.
Yes. oboloo is free forever for supplier contracts, with unlimited users, alerts before renewal and notice dates, and each contract linked to its supplier.
