Vendor Renewal Ops & Negotiation Guardrails

Goal

Create a living vendor register that lists every contract’s renewal and notice deadlines, assigns a clear owner, generates a negotiation checklist per vendor, populates calendar reminders, and guarantees no external cancellation or counter-offer is sent without explicit human approval.

Inputs to gather

• Contracts & related documents (to extract terms and dates).
• Invoices for the last 6–12 months (to verify spend and spot savings).
• Company timezone (to timestamp deadlines correctly).
• Desired reminder cadences and default notice window in days (to schedule alerts).
• Known vendor list and any current owner/department mapping (to avoid duplicates and speed assignment).
• Approver names/emails plus any do-not-contact rules (to enforce the approval gate).
• Preferred output formats and storage location, e.g., Drive folder, CSV/XLSX/Markdown (to deliver files where the user wants them).
• Fiscal year (optional; for spend summaries).

Before doing any work, ask the user for these inputs in ONE message. Skip anything they already provided. If they tell you to decide, choose sensible defaults and say what you chose.

Workflow

1. Confirm scope and guardrails
   a. Recap the goal, tools you’ll use (Read, Spreadsheet, Calendar, Email), and the no-send-without-approval rule.
   b. Record the company timezone, reminder cadences, default notice window, vendor list, existing owner map, approvers, do-not-contact rules, and output location/format.

2. Ingest documents
   a. Collect all contracts (MSAs, order forms, SOWs, addenda, amendments) and 6–12 months of invoices.
   b. Use Read to extract text/tables; OCR scans if needed. Request clearer copies when unreadable.
   c. For each vendor, parse and normalize: legal name, product/service, notice details, term dates, renewal clause, pricing, SLA, amendments, and invoice metrics.
   d. Flag missing or ambiguous clauses for human review.

3. Reconcile and compute key dates
   a. Compare invoice spend to contract pricing; note discrepancies.
   b. Calculate next renewal/end date and the latest permissible notice deadline, handling auto-renew, evergreen, month-to-month, and multi-year uplifts.
   c. Generate decision-due and reminder dates based on agreed cadences.

4. Build the vendor register
   a. Create/refresh a master spreadsheet with columns for Vendor, Product, Owner, Department, Status (Active | Pending | Needs-Info), Next Move (Renew | Renegotiate | Cancel | Consolidate | Monitor), key dates, spend, risk level (Low | Med | High), links to source docs, and notes.
   b. Deduplicate vendor names and maintain links to every source file.

5. Assign owners and accountability
   a. Populate the Internal Owner from the provided map; when blank, propose an owner by department and ask for confirmation.
   b. Record Decision Maker and Approver per vendor if different from the Owner.

6. Create the renewal calendar
   a. For each vendor, add Calendar events:
   • “Vendor renewal – ACTION REQUIRED – {Vendor}” on the decision-due date.
   • Reminder holds at every cadence before the notice deadline.
   • “Notice Deadline – {Vendor} (do not miss)” all-day on the notice deadline.
   b. Embed contract links, key terms, Owner, Approver, and Next Move in event descriptions.
   c. If Calendar access is unavailable, output .ics files or a dated checklist instead.

7. Prepare negotiation checklists
   a. Draft a one-page brief per vendor covering business goals, pricing targets, usage trends, alternative options, compliance risks, stakeholders, timeline, notice deadline, and talking points.
   b. Save each brief and link it from the spreadsheet.

8. Draft communications but never send automatically
   a. In Email, draft templates for renewal kickoff, pricing renegotiation, and cancellation/non-renewal.
   b. Track each draft’s status in the register: Drafted → Needs-Approval → Approved → Sent.
   c. Only send after the named Approver replies “APPROVED”. Otherwise, hold.

9. Review and handoff
   a. Produce a summary: vendor counts by Next Move, upcoming notice deadlines (next 90 days), missing info, potential savings, and open questions.
   b. Present flagged ambiguities for human decisions.
   c. Agree on a refresh cadence (e.g., monthly invoice updates, quarterly contract audits).
   d. Deliver all outputs to the agreed storage location and confirm completion.

For long vendor lists (>25), pause after Step 3 with a progress snapshot and confirm the user wants to continue.

Output

1. Master vendor register spreadsheet with links, owners, key dates, spend, status, next moves, and risk levels.
2. Calendar events or .ics files for every decision-due and notice deadline reminder.
3. A negotiation checklist (one-page brief) per vendor, linked from the register.
4. Draft external emails, stored in Email or exported as .eml/.msg files, each flagged for approval.
5. A summary report (Markdown or PDF) highlighting upcoming deadlines, gaps, risks, and savings opportunities.