The renewal nobody noticed
A client's three-year managed contract ended last month. The PSA agreement had an end date, so it quietly stopped billing, and finance noticed a month later. Nobody had spoken to the client about renewal. The contract had a notice period, and the client's new finance director had been talking to another provider for weeks.
On another client, the contract rolled over automatically on the old terms, including a per-user fee set years ago, before the security stack you now include became standard. The contract had a review clause that nobody used.
Why renewals are handled late
Contract terms live in signed PDFs. The PSA has an agreement with dates, but it is a billing object, not a sales pipeline, and it does not know about notice periods or review clauses.
- Notice periods run backwards from the end date and are never diarised.
- Auto-renewal and review clauses differ by contract version.
- Account managers track renewals in their own calendars, if at all.
- Effort and margin figures are not gathered before the conversation.
- Signed renewals are not always reflected in PSA agreement dates.
What late renewals cost
| Missed step | Effect |
|---|---|
| Notice date passed unnoticed | No chance to renew before the client decides |
| Review clause not used | Old pricing rolls on for another term |
| Agreement ended silently | Billing stops and service continues unpaid |
| No figures at renewal | Weak negotiating position |
| Terms not updated in PSA | Billing and contract disagree |
What your contracts allow at renewal is set by their wording and your adviser. The pipeline makes sure the dates are known and used.
The renewals pipeline we build
- A contract register per client: start date, term, end date, notice period, auto-renewal, review or uplift clause, and a link to the signed contract, entered once from your contracts.
- Calculated key dates: notice deadline, review window and end date, shown on a pipeline board.
- A renewal review started automatically a set time before the notice deadline, assigned to the account manager.
- A renewal pack gathering the client's ticket volume, effort, margin and satisfaction over the term, from your PSA and other sources.
- Proposal and approval tracking, with the signed renewal attached and the PSA agreement updated with new dates and pricing once a person confirms.
- Alerts for any PSA agreement with an end date that has no matching renewal in progress.
Renewal season, planned
Every Monday, the directors see a board of contracts in their renewal window: which are under review, which have proposals out, which are signed. The account manager for the client whose notice date is next quarter already has the renewal pack: tickets, time and margin over three years, the security tools added along the way, and the client's satisfaction trend. They book the conversation well before notice could be given.
When the renewal is signed, the PSA agreement is updated through the pipeline, so billing continues on the new terms without a gap. Auto-renewing contracts are reviewed too, so the review clause is used when it should be.
For contracts that are not renewed, the pipeline hands over to your offboarding process with the end date known in good time, rather than a surprise email.
Consider the client whose contract started on a per-user fee before the current security stack existed. The renewal pack shows the tools added over the term, what each now costs you per user, and the effort trend. The account manager can explain the proposed change in plain terms, with the client's own figures, rather than presenting a new price with no reasoning. Whether the client accepts is their decision, but they have had a fair conversation well before any notice date.
Is your renewal process like this?
- You have learned a contract ended because billing stopped.
- Notice periods are not diarised anywhere.
- Review and uplift clauses go unused.
- Renewal conversations start without effort or margin figures.
- PSA agreement dates do not match signed contracts.