How to track contracts in a spreadsheet (and when it breaks)
A spreadsheet is a legitimate contract tracker at small scale — if you build it completely and maintain it religiously. Here's the whole system, including the parts most sheets skip, and the honest signals that you've outgrown it.
Updated
The columns that matter
Title, counterparty, type, location (if multi-site), status, effective date, end date, renewal type (auto-renew / manual / evergreen / fixed-end), renewal term, notice period in days, notice deadline, cost and frequency, owner, and where the document lives. The columns everyone skips — renewal type, notice period, notice deadline — are the ones that prevent expensive surprises.
The notice-deadline column should be a formula, not a typed value: end date minus notice days. Our free template (keeptrackofstuff.com/compare/spreadsheets) has it prebuilt.
The ritual that keeps it alive
The sheet is only as good as its maintenance ritual: every new contract gets a row the day it's signed; every amendment updates its row the day it's executed; one named person reviews the notice-deadline column monthly and calendars anything inside 120 days. Skip the ritual for a quarter and the sheet becomes confident-looking fiction.
The three signals you've outgrown it
One: volume — past ten or so active agreements, entry and review discipline decays. Two: auto-renewals — a sheet can't email you, and auto-renewal risk is precisely about not looking. Three: multiple readers — once others rely on the data, silent staleness becomes an organizational lie rather than a personal one.
Graduating doesn't mean enterprise software. Keep Track of Stuff does the same job with the data extracted from the documents themselves (cited to the page), deadlines computed, and alerts sent — from $19/month.
Frequently asked questions
What formula computes a notice deadline in Excel or Google Sheets?
If end date is in G2 and notice days in J2: =G2-J2. Format as a date, then conditionally format the column to highlight dates within 90 days of TODAY().
Keep reading
Put your contracts somewhere that reads them.
14-day free trial · No card required · From $19/mo