Contract Spreadsheet or CLM? Run a Handover Test Before Buying
By Anirudh Menon, Viaclause editor
Use the same find, explain, act, restrict and recover tasks to compare your current setup with a CLM pilot, without inventing a contract-count threshold.
AI-generated editorial illustration by Viaclause. People and setting are fictional.
Decide whether to replace your contract spreadsheet by testing the work it must support. Can another authorized person find the current agreement, explain a changed date and complete the next action when the usual owner is away? A contract count alone does not answer those questions.
Use the CLM rollout operating agreement to assign ownership and test the handoffs around this task.
This guide proposes a small operational test for procurement and legal operations. It can produce three reasonable decisions: keep the present setup, improve its controls, or test a contract lifecycle management system (CLM). It is not a product ranking or a claim that every team needs a new platform.
Test the setup you actually have
A spreadsheet can be part of a shared system with document storage, access controls and an action tracker. Assess the whole arrangement. Do not assume that using Excel means there is no change history: Microsoft documents a Show Changes feature identifying edits and previous cell values.
Equally, do not assume that one feature supplies every record you need. Microsoft's Show Changes guidance lists exclusions and conditions that can leave gaps or clear the pane. It distinguishes that pane from Version History. Verify your team's applications and storage configuration with IT rather than promise an audit capability from a product name.
Run a contract handover test
Choose a small set of authorized records that exercises different problems: an amended agreement, an upcoming decision, a restricted document and an item whose usual owner is unavailable. The set is a diagnostic sample, not a statistically representative audit. Use synthetic records if access restrictions make a rehearsal more appropriate.
For each task below, set the business requirement before testing. Record the result, the evidence and any help required. Do not choose a time target after seeing the result.
- Find: retrieve the signed agreement and relevant amendments from the register entry. Record missing files and ambiguous versions.
- Explain: trace one important field, such as a notice deadline, to its source and the reason for its latest change.
- Act: identify the next decision, its owner and escalation route. Show where completion is recorded.
- Restrict: have IT verify that an authorized reviewer can access the required material and an unauthorized test role cannot. Do not broaden access to make the demonstration pass.
- Recover: in a safe test copy, demonstrate how the team would recover from an accidental change. Confirm the recovery route with IT before touching a live record.
Use a result record with these fields: task, agreed requirement, actual outcome, evidence link, people consulted, minutes of active effort, unresolved issue, proposed fix, fix owner and retest date. Keep “not tested” separate from “passed.”
Separate missing information from a tool limitation
Hypothetical example: the test reviewer finds the agreement in four minutes but needs a colleague to locate an amendment. The renewal field has a date, yet nobody can show which clause supplied it. The action reminder worked, but it went to an employee who has left.
Those findings identify three different jobs: link the amendment, verify the date and replace the owner. A new interface would not itself establish the missing contractual fact. Assign the fixes and repeat the same tasks before treating the result as evidence for a software purchase.
Suppose the facts and ownership are then correct, but maintaining permissions and reconciling updates still requires repeated manual intervention. That is a specific requirement for a pilot. Ask a candidate supplier to demonstrate the same tasks with the same permitted test records, including the exceptional case that caused the extra work.
Compare three options against the same test
Keep: the current arrangement meets the agreed requirements, including the backup-owner test. Record who will maintain it and when to reassess it.
Improve: a defined change to ownership, document links, configuration or review routines resolves the gap. Include the ongoing effort in the decision, not just the one-time cleanup.
Pilot: an important gap remains, or the effort needed to maintain the process is unacceptable to its owner. Require evidence that the proposed system resolves that gap within the quoted scope. Include setup, administration and exception handling in the comparison.
A pilot should use your acceptance criteria, not only a supplier's standard demonstration. Record failures and unanswered questions in both systems. Do not count hypothetical avoided losses as measured savings; use the CLM business-case worksheet for the financial comparison.
If migration is selected, the migration reconciliation guide covers checking what moved. If the main failure is an unowned action, start with the renewal ownership map. The test should determine the next step, rather than merely justify a purchase already chosen.
Sources
- Microsoft: Show changes that were made in a workbook, checked September 27, 2026. Supports the existence and described function of cell-change tracking; not a certification of a buyer's controls.
- Microsoft: Get help with Show Changes in Excel, checked September 27, 2026. Explains limitations, gaps, clearing conditions and the separate Version History route.