Contract completeness checks

Flowtly Editorial Team4 min

Flowtly checks every contract for the details that make it useful for planning, and labels the ones that are still missing. A contract with an outstanding check stays in the tidy-up list, so the gaps are visible from the list itself rather than only on opening each record.

A label is a prompt, not a block. The contract keeps working — it can still be edited, linked to a budget and invoiced against — while a check is outstanding.

What is checked

A contract can carry any of these labels:

  • Missing contract document — no signed file is attached.
  • Missing counterparty — the other party is not recorded.
  • Missing project — the contract is not linked to a project.
  • Missing payment schedule — the contract has no payment schedule lines.
  • Missing total amount — no total value is recorded.
  • Missing start/end dates — the term is not stated.

A contract with none of them shows No issues.

Declaring that a check does not apply

Some contracts can never satisfy a check, however long they sit in the list. A supplier engaged by click-through acceptance of published terms produces no signed PDF by design; an organisation-wide cost belongs to no single project; work billed on actuals has no instalments to schedule. Left alone, contracts like these stay in the tidy-up list permanently, and a list that always has items in it is a list nobody reads.

Checks that do not apply, in the contract's Details, is where you say so. Three declarations are available:

  • This contract will never have a signed document — for click-through acceptance of published terms, a verbal arrangement, or an executed copy that stays in an external signing platform.
  • This contract will never belong to a project — for an organisation-wide cost such as a bank data feed, an office sublease or general outsourcing.
  • This contract will never have a payment schedule — for time and materials billed on actuals, or a one-off already settled in full.

Once declared, the contract stops being labelled for that check and leaves the tidy-up list on that count. The declaration can be withdrawn again at any time.

"Never" is not "not yet"

Tick a box only when the contract genuinely will never have the thing. If the document is simply not uploaded yet, or the schedule is one you have still to enter, leave the box clear and the contract in the list until it is done. The declarations say something permanent about the agreement; they are not a way to clear a label you would rather deal with later.

Each declaration appears only when the check it answers is currently failing, or when the declaration has already been made — so a contract that already has a project is not offered a box about projects, and a box you have ticked stays on screen to be untickable.

Cyclic contracts

A contract marked cyclic is not checked for a payment schedule at all, so it is never labelled for one. The payment-schedule declaration therefore changes nothing on a cyclic contract, and is not offered unless it was already set.

Example use cases

  • A supplier working under published general terms accepted by click-through, where no signed file will ever exist to attach.
  • An organisation-wide cost such as a bank data feed or an office sublease, which belongs to no single project.
  • Time-and-materials work billed on actuals, where instalments are never scheduled in advance.
  • Clearing the tidy-up list down to the contracts that genuinely still need work, so the remaining labels are worth acting on.

Connection map

Refers toUses upDerived fromPart of
Documented hereDocumented elsewhere
invoice billed to counterparty. invoice taxed by tax-group. cost spends against budget. cost owed to counterparty. bank-transaction reconciled to invoice. bank-connection imports bank-transaction. contract schedules payment-schedule-line. payment-schedule-line invoiced as invoice. contract agreed with counterparty. contract attached to budget. budget raises budget-alert. budget covers project. counterparty defaults to budget. counterparty defaults to project. invoice billed from project. project linked to budget. lead becomes counterparty. deal sold to counterparty.billed totaxed byspends againstowed toreconciled toimportsschedulesinvoiced asagreed withattached toraisescoversdefaults todefaults tobilled fromlinked tobecomessold toIInvoice — A sales document issued to a client: line items, dates, tax. It is created, reviewed, previewed and then sent.InvoiceCCounterparty — The other side of a financial document — a client billed, or a supplier owed.CounterpartyTTax group — The tax treatment applied to a line, so rates are set once rather than per document.Tax groupCCost — Money the organisation owes or has spent, tracked against a budget.CostBBudget — The financial envelope an engagement is measured against — what was planned, versus what has actually been spent.BudgetBBank transaction — A movement on a connected bank account. Matching it to an invoice or a cost is what makes the books agree with the bank.Bank transactionBBank connection — The consented link to one bank that transactions arrive through. It can stop working on its own — a consent expires or is withdrawn — so it reports whether it is still working.Bank connectionCContract — The financial terms of an engagement: a structured set of payment schedule lines, in one direction or the other.ContractPPayment schedule line — One dated amount on a contract, in a direction — money owed to a supplier, or due from a client.Payment schedule lineBBudget alert — A notice that a budget has gone off plan - spending over the planned amount, or a margin below the one that was planned. It is raised by a daily check rather than by anyone asking for it.Budget alertPProject — The core organizational unit for a business initiative, client engagement or internal work. Everything tracked — time, cost, invoicing, profitability — hangs off one.ProjectPProspect — A company you are working but that is not a customer yet. It sits at New, Contacted or Qualified, and everything done to it is logged against it.ProspectDDeal — A sale in progress: a customer, an amount, and the stage it has reached. It cannot exist without a customer, and its stage is never blank.Deal

Related terms