Keeping track of reporting deadlines across government contracts
Every contract has its own reporting requirements, written in its own words. An agency with a dozen contracts can have well over a hundred dates a year, and a missed one can hold up payment or show up in monitoring.
What to look for in the contract
- Program and financial reports: monthly, quarterly or annual.
- Client data submissions to the funder’s system.
- Certificates: insurance, licenses, background checks.
- Audits and monitoring visits.
- Notices: intent to renew, option years, changes in key staff.
- Closeout: final invoice and final report after the contract ends.
Turn rules into dates
Contracts rarely give dates; they give rules. Each rule becomes a date from the period it covers:
- “15th of the month after quarter end”: for a July–September quarter, October 15.
- “30 days after month end”: 30 days after the last day of each month, so March 2 for January and March 30 for February in a non-leap year.
- “60 days before contract end”: for a June 30 end, May 1.
- “Within 45 days after the end of the contract”: once, counted from the end date.
Count each date from its own period’s end. Adding a month to the last due date drifts: 30 days after January is March 2, and a month later is April 2, but the next report, for February, is due March 30.
Keep one list
One list across every contract, sorted by what is due first, with each submission recorded (the date, and the file sent) answers the monitoring question “show me you submitted it” in seconds.
How ContractPlan helps
ContractPlan reads the reporting requirements from each signed contract, works out the due dates, lists everything due across the portfolio, and moves each one to its next date when you mark it submitted.
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