What is a contract milestone tracker?

Contracts are of course legal documents, but they’re also operational roadmaps. They spell out what organisations are expected to do according to their formal agreement. More complex, long-term agreements where there is a lot at stake require more significant monitoring of the important milestones. For this, teams can use a contract milestone tracker. 

Teams might want to monitor and act on deliverables like due dates, payment schedules, compliance checkpoints, renewal notices, or termination windows. Each of these points in time is considered a “milestone” — a moment where an action must be taken or an outcome delivered. Quite simply: the purpose of a milestone tracker is to prevent these moments from being missed. Across thousands of documents its easy for teams to be caught off-guard or totally miss contract obligations. It is important to be proactive, and reserve enough time to prepare and respond accordingly.

Why is milestone tracking important?

Missing a milestone means breaching a term, failing to invoice on time, or losing a renewal opportunity. Worse, some milestones don’t trigger automatically. Renewal windows, for instance, may require proactive notice to terminate, which, if missed, could result in automatic renewal under unfavourable terms.

Milestone tracking is therefore essential to risk mitigation. Without it, businesses leave themselves vulnerable to compliance failures and financial leakage.

How does it work in practice?

A CLM platform like Docfield allows users to tag and track milestones directly in the contract. The system then provides automated reminders, a dashboard overview, and task assignments linked to each milestone. 

What separates Docfield from other CLMs?

Docfield has built an integration with the strongest milestone tracking CLM in the market today: Birdseye. Used by enterprises like Schiphol airport to track their most complex agreement, Docfield and Birdseye have combined forces to enable full visibility on contract milestones.