Vendor Management Board with Contract Tracking

Overview

Vendor contracts slip through the cracks constantly. Renewals auto-trigger because nobody set a reminder. Spend creeps past budget because the numbers live in a spreadsheet nobody checks. And procurement has no idea what the operational team has committed to.

This template puts vendor management on one board with automatic alerts. Formula columns track days until renewal and spend against budget. Threshold triggers fire before contracts expire or budgets are exceeded. And a connected procurement board stays in sync so finance always knows what is happening.

Who This Template Is For

• Operations managers overseeing multiple vendor relationships
• Procurement teams tracking contracts, renewals, and purchase orders
• Finance teams monitoring vendor spend against budgets
• IT managers managing SaaS subscriptions and service contracts
• Office managers handling facilities, supplies, and service provider contracts

Board Structure

Groups

• Active Contracts — current vendor agreements
• Renewal Due — contracts expiring within 60 days
• Under Review — contracts being evaluated for renewal or replacement
• Expired / Cancelled — past contracts (retain for audit purposes)

Columns

Setting Up the Automations

Automation 1: Renewal Warning at 60 Days

This uses the Formula Column Threshold Trigger.

What it does: When the Days Until Renewal formula drops below 60, the automation fires. This gives you two months to evaluate the contract, negotiate terms, or find alternatives.

How to set it up:

1. Open the Automations Centre on your Vendor board
2. Search for Community Cookbook recipes
3. Select: When a numeric formula column goes above or below a number
4. Choose the Days Until Renewal column
5. Set threshold to: below 60
6. Set action to: change Contract Status to Renewal Due and notify the Owner

Set up a second trigger at 30 days for urgent notifications, and a third at 7 days for final warning escalation to management.

Automation 2: Budget Overspend Alerts

This uses the Formula Column Threshold Trigger (second instance).

What it does: When Budget Utilisation % exceeds 90%, the automation fires. This catches spend creep before you go over contract limits.

How to set it up:

1. Select: When a numeric formula column goes above or below a number
2. Choose the Budget Utilisation % column
3. Set threshold to: above 90
4. Set action to: notify the Owner and finance team

Automation 3: Spend Change Logging

This uses the Formula Column Change Trigger.

What it does: When the Annual Spend formula recalculates (because Monthly Spend was updated), the trigger fires. Use it to log the change or update the procurement board.

How to set it up:

1. Select: When a formula column's calculated value changes
2. Choose the Annual Spend column
3. Set action to: update the Last Modified date or create a log entry

Automation 4: Sync with Procurement

This uses the Update Status in Connected Board.

What it does: When a contract status changes to "Renewal Due" or "Under Review", the connected item on the Procurement board updates automatically. Procurement knows a contract needs attention without anyone sending an email.

How to set it up:

1. Select: When a status changes here, update the matching item in a connected board
2. Set trigger status to Renewal Due
3. Set target status on Procurement board to Review Needed
4. Activate

Tips and Variations

• SaaS subscription tracker: For IT teams, add columns for "Number of Licenses", "Cost Per License", and "Active Users". Use formulas to calculate cost per active user and identify underutilised subscriptions.
• Vendor scorecard: Add Rating columns (1-5) for Quality, Communication, Value, and Reliability. Calculate an overall vendor score with a formula. Review scores at contract renewal time.
• Auto-archive: Use a native monday.com automation to move items to the Expired group when Contract End passes today's date.
• Approval workflow: On the Procurement board, add subitems for approval steps (Budget Holder, Finance, Legal). Use the All Subitems trigger to auto-approve when all sign off.
• Multi-year contracts: For contracts longer than one year, add a "Next Review Date" column separate from Contract End. Use the threshold trigger on this column instead.

What You Will Need

• A monday.com account (Standard plan or above)
• Community Cookbook installed from the monday.com marketplace
• About 20 minutes for initial setup

Frequently Asked Questions

How does the Days Until Renewal formula work?+

Can I track multiple contracts with the same vendor?+

What if I want different renewal warning periods for different contracts?+