For many small companies a large part of next year’s revenue is already under contract. The risk is not winning that revenue, but forgetting when it is up for renewal. A customer whose contract quietly expires, or who sends a cancellation one day before the notice deadline, is often a customer nobody spoke to in months. Pomio CRM recommends treating contract end dates as sales information, not as admin hidden in a folder.
What to record, and where
Three fields are enough for most teams: the contract end date, the notice period and whether the contract renews automatically. Record them once, on the customer company or on the won deal that started the contract, and keep the signed contract as the source. If one customer has several contracts with different end dates, record each one separately rather than one combined date. Make one person responsible for entering these fields when a deal is won, for example as part of the handoff after closed-won, so the dates are complete from the start instead of collected later.
Plan from the notice deadline, not the end date
The date that matters is the last day on which the customer, or you, can still change something. A contract that ends on 31 December with three months’ notice is effectively decided on 30 September. Start the renewal conversation well before that, typically two to four months ahead depending on the contract size. For contracts that renew automatically, the same applies: a customer who feels forgotten may cancel at the deadline, and a price change you want to make needs to be announced in time.
Make the renewal a deal of its own
A renewal is a sales opportunity with an amount, an owner and a likely date, so treat it as one. Create a renewal deal when the conversation should start, with the expected close date before the notice deadline and the amount you expect to renew. Keep it apart from new business, as described in tracking new and existing customer deals separately, and keep recurring revenue separate from one-off revenue, so the forecast shows how much of next quarter depends on renewals.
One owner, one task, one review
Every renewal deal needs an owner and a first task with a due date, for example “call to review the contract”. In the monthly or weekly pipeline review, look at the renewals whose notice deadline falls in the next quarter. Anything without recent contact or without a next step is the first thing to discuss, because that is where silent cancellations come from.
When it is not worth it
If you only sell one-off projects, or if your contracts run indefinitely and can be ended at any time with a short notice, a separate end date adds little. In that case a regular check on customers without recent activity does more than a date field that is never filled in.