The task
A contract stops being read the moment it is signed, which is also the moment its obligations start running. Configure an agent to pull the recurring duties out of the executed document into a register with dates, so the quarterly report nobody remembered promising has an owner before it is late.
What you provide
The signed contract
The executed agreement with its schedules. Agreement MS-31 commits to a quarterly service report and a named escalation contact.
Your obligation categories
The types you track: reporting, service levels, payment milestones, notification duties, audit rights and renewal mechanics.
Your owner list
The teams or roles that own each category, so the register produces an assignment rather than an orphaned list.
Give the agent a clear brief
Use these instructions as a starting point, alongside your approved sources and permissions.
Extract every obligation that recurs or falls due on a date, quoting the clause. Record what is owed, by whom, to whom and when, and state the frequency where one is specified. Assign the supplied owner for the category. Report an obligation with no stated deadline as undated rather than inventing one. Do not diarize entries in a live calendar, notify an owner or take any action on an obligation.
How the work comes together
Read the executed document
Work from the signed version including schedules and any executed variation. Obligations added by a later amendment are the ones most often missing from a register.
Extract the duties
Capture what is owed, the direction, the frequency and the trigger. A duty triggered by an event rather than a date still belongs in the register, marked as triggered.
Assign and date
Apply your owner list and calculate the next date where the contract allows it. Anything the contract leaves undated is recorded as undated, which is itself a finding.
Illustrative example · fictional data
What the signature actually committed to
An illustrative register built from a fictional managed-services agreement with a quarterly reporting duty.
| Obligation | Source and timing | Owner |
|---|---|---|
| Quarterly service report to the customer | MS-31 §7.2 · next due at quarter end | Delivery lead |
| Notify within 24 hours of a security incident | MS-31 §12.4 · triggered, no fixed date | Security |
| Annual audit right, 30 days’ notice | MS-31 Sch.3 · no anniversary stated | Contract manager, date to confirm |
The third row is the useful one. The contract grants a right without fixing the date it runs from, and a person has to decide that before it can be tracked.
The human review
A contract manager confirms the register and owns what happens next. The playbook produces a reading of the document; it does not create reminders, notify anyone or discharge an obligation.
Set it up for your team
Include amendments
Supply the signed agreement together with every executed variation. A register built from the original document is wrong in exactly the places that were negotiated hardest.
Fix your categories and owners
Agree the obligation types you track and the role that owns each, so registers from different contracts can sit in one list.
Decide where the register lives
Choose the destination and the identifiers it needs. A register nobody reviews is the same as no register.
Check the result before scaling
Build a register for a contract your team already tracks by hand and compare them. Count missed obligations and wrongly dated ones, and check that every entry quotes a clause you can find.
Keep the data in the right place
An obligation register concentrates your commercial commitments and service commitments into one readable list, which makes it more sensitive than any single contract. A local deployment keeps it inside your network.
Explore deployment optionsQuestions & answers
Will it set reminders for us?
No. It produces a dated register. Diarizing entries and notifying owners belong to systems that already hold your team’s calendars and permissions.
What about obligations with no date?
They are recorded as undated or triggered, with the clause quoted. Inventing a date would make the register look complete while being wrong.
Does it cover schedules and amendments?
Only if you supply them, and you should. Obligations added by a later variation are the ones most often missing from a hand-built register.