Spreadsheets
So you’re currently…
… using one or more spreadsheets to record contracts, agreements and obligations. These may link to document management systems (eg. sharepoint), reference the physical location of documents, or simply indicate whether or not a contract is in place. It is also likely that you are using the spreadsheet(s) to capture increasingly complex contract information (eg. KPIs, ‘Forward Procurement Plans’, contract manager / stakeholder / supplier contact details, risk assessment, review dates etc.).
Recommended next steps
- Ask yourself whether your existing spreadsheet(s) are working for you – they tend to have a limited lifespan, but for the moment they may still be exactly what you need
- If you delegate spreadsheet ‘administration’ to multiple persons / departments – make sure they know exactly what is expected of them, you don’t want a mess of different date formats, text values etc
- The template spreadsheet and associated guidance material developed by London Councils should help you to do this.
- Attempt to clean up the data you already have, standardising date and value formats as a minimum is worth the effort
- Again, the template spreadsheet and associated guidance material developed by London Councils should help you to do this.
- Try to run management reports on the data currently held in the spreadsheets, if this is difficult then…
- Start thinking about how to implement a database approach to contract management
Issues / Risks associated with being in this position
This is a fairly advanced situation for most Public Sector organisations. You’ve probably started to address some of the following issues associated with poor contract management.
- Lack of direct control
- Issues with multiple edit access, edit history, recording of procurement processes etc
- Difficult to record framework contracts
- Difficult to record contract extensions and variations
- No notification for key dates (eg renewal)
- Lack of strategic insight
- The information is there, but it is difficult to search and easily run management reports
- Exposure to risk
- difficult to find contract documentation
- difficult to identify off contract spend
- decision points / proper procurement approach can not be evidenced
- Missed opportunities for savings as a result of poor contract / supplier management
- Important renewal dates / deadlines missed
- Contract managers spend time on avoidable administration
- FOI response time and effort is high
Warning signs
- You find yourself adding new columns to extend the capability of the basic spreadsheet
- You colour code cells and columns, which looks good and is useful at a glance – but find you can’t run management reports on ‘coloured cells’
- More people want access (read only and edit) and this is hard to manage
- A supplier challenges a procurement decision and the spreadsheet doesn’t contain enough information to respond adequately
- Renewal dates and the opportunities to renegotiate are missed
- FOI requests become increasingly difficult to manage
- You realise some values are being entered incorrectly (values expressed as words, dates entered in different formats)
- Excel ‘helpfully’ auto-corrects things you didn’t really want corrected.
How can NIP help?
We provide a standard format for capturing basic (and detailed) contract information in a spreadsheet.
This spreadsheet is a first step towards basic spend / contract management and can also be used to upload data to any contract management system you may eventually decide to adopt.
Use this spreadsheet (and associated guidance) to help identify what information you may be missing, or as a tool to help you capture the information you need.
The spreadsheet should help you see the path forward, but it is yours to use as you see fit, you can add, edit or delete columns.
Start using any of NIPs contract / procurement management tools to gain tighter control and greater perspective. Enter contracts manually, or upload from your existing spreadsheets.
For organisations interested in basic contract management tools – take a look at our Active Contract Register.
For organisations looking for more complete ‘Procurement Lifecycle Management – take a look at our PL-cms.