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Solution · Sales & marketingThe renewal conversation starts 60 days before the contract ends, not a quarter after
Service contracts renewed before they lapse
A robot watches the end dates of all service contracts: 60 days ahead it sends the client an extension proposal on current terms, 30 days ahead a reminder, and silence becomes the owner’s conversation while the client is still a client. Recurring revenue stops leaking away quietly.
Executive summary
Service contracts have end dates written in a binder and in PDFs; nobody watches them, so they lapse quietly, and the firm finds out when the transfer stops coming or the client calls with a breakdown “outside the contract”.
The register holds all contracts with dates and rates; the robot starts a renewal sequence 60 days before the end, reminds at 30, and escalates silence to the owner with full context.
Contracts stop lapsing unnoticed, renewals carry current rates instead of prices from three years ago, and the owner sees recurring revenue and its leaks in one report.
the contract register in SharePoint; renewal proposals by email; escalations and the report in Microsoft Teams
Business problem
The most valuable revenue nobody watches
A service contract is the best kind of revenue a service firm has: repeatable, predictable, with a client who already trusted you once. Winning it once cost a quote, negotiations and a first year of building trust. And yet in most small firms its retention has no process at all: the contract sits in a binder and simply ends.
Lapsing is quiet by nature. The client does not call to announce his contract has ended; he usually knows it as poorly as you do. The transfer stops coming and nobody links that to the date in clause three. The truth surfaces at a breakdown: the client calls as always, and the firm discovers it has been servicing him free for half a year, or that the “contract” has not existed for ages.
The second leak is subtler: contracts renewed by silence, at rates from three years ago. Travel and parts costs have risen, the rate stands still, and nobody has the courage or the occasion to open the indexation conversation, because the only moment suited to it, the end of the term, passes unnoticed.
Across a firm with dozens or a hundred contracts this is a double loss: contracts that lapsed in silence, and contracts running on terms from another era. Both grow every year, and neither shows in any report, because a contract register with dates simply does not exist.
How it works today
Below is what the work looks like before anything is automated.
- PersonContracts sit in a binder and PDFs; nobody watches the end dates
- Risk of errorA contract lapses quietly; the transfer stops coming and nobody makes the link
- WaitingThe truth surfaces at a breakdown: the firm has serviced without a contract for half a year
- Risk of errorRenewals by silence run on rates from three years ago
- PersonThe indexation conversation has no natural moment, so it never begins
- Risk of errorRecurring revenue and its leaks show in no report
Why the current process costs more than it appears
The bill that never shows up in a budget.
- Keeping a client costs a fraction of winning a new one; a contract lapsed in silence gives that capital away.
- Servicing “on old memory” without a contract is work with no basis and no revenue, discovered after the fact.
- Every year on an unindexed rate is a few percent of margin less, multiplied by all the contracts.
- A client nobody asked about renewal feels exactly how it looks: unimportant.
Cost of inaction
The first row counts only contracts that lapsed because nobody got in touch; not those the client consciously terminated. In practice, after the register is built, the line between the two turns out to have been an illusion: most “terminations” were silence on both sides.
The second row is a cautious few percent a year of difference between the current and the historical rate; the indexation conversation at renewal is natural, the same conversation mid-term is a row.
A model organisation with realistic proportions – the numbers exist so you can run the same maths on your own data; they are not a client result.
A firm servicing air conditioning and heat pumps in business premises: around 140 service contracts averaging €1,300 a year, Microsoft 365.
Contracts in a binder and PDFs on a drive; end dates inside clauses; no register.
A dozen or so contracts lapse quietly each year; some clients serviced “on old memory”; some rates untouched for years.
The owner knows neither the recurring revenue total nor the list of contracts ending this quarter.
The register is built once from the binder and PDFs; the robot watches the dates: 60 days before the end the client receives an extension proposal at current rates, at 30 days a reminder, and silence reaches the owner as a conversation to have, with the contract and payment history at hand.
In the modelled case quiet lapses all but vanish, and most renewals go through at an updated rate. Model numbers, not the firm’s records.
Proposed solution
We start by building the register once: we gather the contracts from the binder and the drive, write down clients, scopes, rates and end dates. It is a day of work that pays back immediately, because the writing-down alone usually surfaces long-lapsed contracts and service running with no basis.
From then on the robot manages the dates. Sixty days before the end the client receives a polite extension proposal: the scope as before, the rate updated per your policy, a draft annex attached. At thirty days, a reminder. Replies return to the owner; silence becomes an item on a short conversation list, with full context: how long a client, what he pays, how he pays, what you service.
The owner sees in Teams what he never saw: the recurring revenue total, contracts ending within the quarter, renewals in progress and the leaks. The indexation conversation stops being a mid-term row and becomes a sentence in the renewal proposal, where it naturally belongs.
UiPath Orchestrator: the date schedule, the renewal queue, retries and an audit trail; UiPath Integration Service connectors for Microsoft Teams and Outlook 365
A contract register with dates and rates, 60/30 renewal sequences with draft annexes, escalations with context and the recurring revenue report
The register in SharePoint; proposals and annexes by email from Outlook 365; annex templates in your format
How the automated process works
- SystemThe register holds every contract: client, scope, rate, end date
- Automation60 days before the end the client gets an extension proposal with the current rate and annex
- AutomationAt 30 days a reminder goes out; replies return to the owner
- PersonSilence becomes a conversation on the owner’s list, with the client’s history at hand
- SystemA signed annex updates the register; the new end date watches itself
- PersonThe Teams report: recurring revenue, renewals in progress, leaks
Human-in-the-loop model
Automation handles
- Watching every contract’s dates and the 60/30 renewal sequences
- Proposals at current rates with draft annexes per your policy
- Escalations with context and the recurring revenue report
People decide
- The rate and indexation policy; the robot applies it, it does not set it
- Client conversations: negotiations, scopes, disputes
- Decisions on unprofitable contracts: renewal is also the moment to part ways
Before and after
Systems and integrations
The stack is short on purpose: one engine, one execution layer, one place where a person decides.
Inputs
- the contract register with dates and rates
- the rate and indexation policy
- client replies
- signed annexes
Automation layer
- UiPath Orchestrator
- UiPath Robots
- UiPath Integration Service
- UiPath Action Center
Target systems
- sent proposals and reminders with history
- the owner’s conversation list with context
- the recurring revenue report in Microsoft Teams
Human touchpoints: the conversation list and report in Microsoft Teams; a rate policy review once a year
Technologies used
the date schedule, the renewal queue, retries, a record of every proposal
Aproposal sending, escalations, reports
Athe contract register with versions, rates and renewal history
Athe draft annex generated from the register in your format
Aif you already have one, the sequences can report there too
BIllustrative economic model
Numbers you can check against your own data.
The model assumes some clients will not renew regardless, for reasons of their own; it counts only contracts lost to silence and rates untouched for lack of occasion. Volumes and values belong to the scenario; your own numbers go into the calculator alongside.
Run the maths on your data
An illustrative estimate based on your inputs. It models freed capacity, not promised savings.
Business benefits
- Contracts stop lapsing in silence; each ends with a decision, not an oversight
- Rates update at renewals, without mid-term rows
- Service “on old memory” disappears; the work always has a basis
- The owner knows the recurring revenue total and sees its leaks
- The client gets the signal that the relationship is managed, not forgotten
The management view
- Recurring revenue becomes a managed asset, not a pile of PDFs with unknown fates
- Every contract’s history is complete: proposals, replies, annexes, rates
- The firm’s valuation grows with documented repeatable revenue; every bank conversation shows it
Board-level KPIs
contracts renewed before the deadline · quiet lapses · the average rate against policy · total recurring revenue · time from proposal to signature
Security and governance
The automation has exactly the permissions it needs. Not one more.
- The robot works on contract data: client, scope, rates, dates; the contracts’ content stays in your archive
- Every proposal and reply has a record: what, when, to whom
- The rate policy is versioned; the robot applies it, the owner changes it
- Register access by role; rates are seen by those meant to see them
- Data stays in your Microsoft 365 tenant; the robots run in the EU region of UiPath Automation Cloud
Why now
Service costs have jumped; every contract on a three-year-old rate subsidises the travel.
Repeatable revenue is now the most valuable line in any firm’s valuation; it is worth seeing and guarding.
Competitors call your clients regularly; the only thing that beats them is your renewal proposal arriving on time.
Relevant executive roles
Stops losing clients to silence, and sees his recurring revenue in numbers for the first time
Has a register and sequences instead of a binder and a guilty conscience
Gets the proposal on time and the certainty that the service he relies on will not end by oversight
Common questions and objections
Exactly: when you remind them. The whole problem sits in the word “when”, because manual reminding happens when someone has time, which is too late or never. The sequence does exactly what you do, only always and 60 days ahead, when the conversation is calm and the client has not yet grown used to life without the contract.
What provokes departures is silence, and a rate raised suddenly, mid-term, after a breakdown. Indexation announced in the renewal proposal, with a rationale and notice, is a standard business clients know from every supplier. And the rate decision is always yours; the robot applies the policy you set, including a zero one.
All the more reason for a register: an email arrangement also has a scope, a rate and an approximate review date, and its “lapsing” is even quieter than a contract’s. The register treats both kinds the same; only the attachment to the proposal differs.
When this is not the right solution
- A dozen contracts the owner knows by heart: a calendar with reminders suffices
- Purely one-off services with no recurring element: there is nothing to renew
- Expecting the automation to negotiate the rate: the robot sends the proposal, a human leads the conversation
A question for the next management meeting
How many of our service contracts end within the next 90 days, and who intends to do something about it?
Implementation approach
Scope without ambiguity, before anything is signed.
We deliver
- The one-off build of the contract register from the binder and the drive
- 60/30 renewal sequences with proposals and draft annexes
- Escalations to the owner with full client context
- The recurring revenue report and the quarter’s expiring contracts
- Two weeks of parallel running and a rate policy review
We need from you
- The contracts from the binder and drive, for one day of joint writing-down
- Your rate and indexation policy, however simple
- Your annex template and permission to send proposals from your mailbox
Stages
Discovery
How many contracts, where they sit, how many have already lapsed quietly
Register
The one-off writing-down: clients, scopes, rates, end dates
Rules
The rate policy, the proposal wording, the 60/30 rhythm, the escalation path
Build
Sequences, template annexes, escalations, the report
Go-live
The first sequences on live contracts; a review after the quarter
A quick win. The largest piece is the one-off writing-down of the contracts; the sequences and report run on the Microsoft 365 you already have.
A Friday breakdown at a client who “has a contract”. The contract lapsed in March. You have serviced him free for half a year, and you just found out.
Count your contracts and send us the number with the average yearly value. We return the arithmetic: how much revenue hangs on dates nobody watches, and what your renewal proposal would look like.
Check which contracts expire this quarterThe neighbouring process usually has the same problem
The quote went out on Tuesday. The customer waited for a call that never came, and ordered elsewhere.
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See the solution Legal & complianceCompany deadlines watched: policies, inspections, check-upsThe autoclave, the extinguishers, the liability policy and staff check-ups expire in different calendars.
See the solutionIndustries where we deploy this most oftenSmall business & services