Contract Administrators
Prepare, interpret, maintain, review and negotiate contracts and contract variations on behalf of organisations.
Monday start, missing paperwork
You are a contract administrator at a building company, responsible for making sure suppliers and subcontractors are properly signed up before work begins. It is 9am on Friday. A paving crew is booked to start on site on Monday. Your inbox has a project manager in a hurry, a subcontractor asking for more money and a supplier waiting on a signature.
Choose what you would do. Then see what happens. There are often good reasons for each choice.
The paving crew starts Monday and the client has been told. Their insurance certificate in the system ran out last month. I am sure it is just paperwork, so can you mark it as fine and let them go?
Mark it as received in the system so the crew can start on Monday as planned
The crew starts, and nobody knows whether they are covered. If something went wrong on site, the company would be exposed and you would be the one who clicked approve.
Let them start and chase the certificate during the first week of the job
The certificate turns up on Wednesday and all is well this time. But for three days the company had people on site on trust. Chasing afterwards works until the one time it does not.
Hold the start, get a current certificate today and tell Mel why
The contractor sends the current certificate within two hours. Mel is a bit short with you but the Monday start holds. Checking the unglamorous documents is what lets everyone else get on with the work.
On site, the project manager said verbally we could add the extra driveway section. We did it last week. Here is the invoice. I assumed it was approved, as Mel said it was fine.
Pay the invoice, since he did the work in good faith, and tell Mel afterwards
Gus is happy, but you have approved a cost with no written scope behind it. The next subcontractor will expect the same, and the budget owner finds out afterwards.
Ask Mel what was agreed, then raise a written variation for Gus
Mel confirms the verbal instruction. Gus signs the variation, gets paid fairly and the paperwork matches the work. You turn a handshake into a record that protects both sides.
Tell Gus the invoice is rejected because the paperwork is missing
Gus feels cheated for work he was told to do, and he stops returning calls. The company has a relationship problem and still has the extra section built.
Our renewal is due and if you sign today I can hold the old rates. I have sent a few updated terms. Most of it is the same, so it should not need a big review. Can you sign by five?
Ask for until Tuesday, read the changed terms and check them against the old contract
Priya agrees after a pause. The review finds one change that makes the company liable for something it did not before, and you fix it. It costs a few days but saves a surprise.
Read the changes today and sign only once you are satisfied
You read it in an hour and find one clause that does not work. Priya fixes it and you sign on time. Reading carefully and quickly is a skill of its own.
Sign it now, since a good rate is on offer and the changes sound small
The rate holds, but a clause about early termination is now much tougher. Nobody notices until the company wants to change supplier next year.
How it went
By the end of the day the crew is covered, the variation is signed and the renewal has been read closely. Contract work is quiet detective work: noticing what is missing, asking for it politely and holding the line when people are in a hurry. Would you like being the person who makes sure the paper matches the plan?
This is a simplified, fictional situation to help you explore. It is not professional instruction or a test of your ability.
Case study: The renewal nobody remembered
A fictional case set in the head office of a mid-sized building company that hires many subcontractors.
The situation
Tanvir looked after supplier contracts for Ridgeline Constructions. While tidying the contract calendar one Tuesday, he saw that the agreement for the company's site-tracking software would roll over for another full term in nine days. Nobody in the business had used half of it for a year, and the notice period for ending it was longer than nine days. The renewal had been quietly missed by three different people, and the finance manager was away.
What they did
Tanvir read the clause again to be sure, then emailed the supplier asking whether they would agree to a shorter extension while the business decided. He wrote a one-page summary for the project managers covering what the software did, who used it and what the contract said. He asked them to tell him by Friday what they actually needed, and set a calendar reminder for ninety days before every contract end date.
How it turned out
The supplier agreed to a short extension. The business dropped two unused modules and kept the part people liked. Tanvir's reminder system was adopted for every contract, and the finance manager said it was the first time she had seen renewals coming rather than arriving.
What would you do?
- Why might three people all miss the same deadline?
- How would you ask a supplier for more time without sounding like you are making excuses?
- What would you want a contract calendar to show you every morning?