Renewals

A contract is created from the accepted quote when the deal desk confirms the win. It carries what billing and customer success need without opening the PDF:

Lines have their own dates because a customer adds a module mid-term and the co-terming question, whether the addition ends with the main agreement or runs its own year, is answered by the line dates. Each line also names the deal that sold it, so a contract grown through several expansion deals shows where every line came from.

The end date is the renewal date: the day the next term starts. The notice deadline is the end date less the notice period, and it is the last day the customer can walk away. The countdown starts from the deadline, and the renewal lead time on the contract says how many days before it the renewal opportunity opens. A contract with a ninety-day notice period and a December end has a September deadline. A customer success manager who starts the conversation in November is negotiating after the customer has decided. Auto-renew contracts still get a renewal opportunity, because the price uplift and the expansion conversation still need to happen before the customer’s window to cancel.

On the day the lead time says, the system creates an opportunity of type renewal on the account, linked to the contract in both directions. It copies annual and total value, selects the forecast amount from the owner’s quota basis, and uses the contract owner as the deal owner, and the contract moves to in renewal. From there it is an ordinary deal: buying committee rebuilt, activities logged, a quote approved through the same rules as new business, forecast category set each week, and the win validated by the deal desk.

When the renewal is won, the accepted quote creates the next contract and the old one is marked renewed. When it is lost, the old contract is marked not renewed with a churn reason, and it ends on its end date. Sales Manager checks the signed agreement and recorded notices before an agreed extension or permitted expiry. Auto-renew agreements follow their agreed renewal terms, even if the sales opportunity is still open. Terminated is reserved for a contract ended early, with the termination date and reason, so the renewal book does not count an early exit as a lost renewal.

Customer success sets renewal risk on each contract from what they see: usage where a connected product reports it, support history, a champion who left, an unanswered business review. Risk is a select so the renewal book can be sorted by it and the executive can see the at-risk value by quarter. Changing risk to high creates a task for the owner and shows on the account.

An expansion is an opportunity of type expansion on a customer account: more seats, another site, a new module. It follows the ordinary pipeline. The account plan’s whitespace field is where expansion is planned, and the plan review is where the manager asks why none of it is in the pipeline yet. Expansion sold mid-term becomes contract lines with their own dates on the existing contract, each line naming the expansion deal, or a new contract, as the deal desk decides.

• Renewals Due in 120 Days: the book by notice deadline, with value, end date, notice period, risk, owner and the status of the renewal deal.
• On each account: contracts past and present, with the renewal chain visible.
• Renewal Book report by deadline month for the manager and the executive, with at-risk value and the value not renewed by churn reason.
• Renewal opportunities in the same pipeline views as everything else, typed so they can be kept out of new business numbers.