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Contract review

Before anyone signs, the contract is read against your standard terms and the fallbacks you’ll accept, and each difference is marked with your wording beside it. Your legal lead starts with what’s different.

  • $12,500 fixed
  • Live in 3 to 6 weeks
  • Yours to keep
Let’s build your agent How it works
The review screen for Contract review: four items, three done, and one (Liability cap) waiting for the legal lead, who is asked: Ashgrove caps its liability at 3 months of fees, below your 12. Accept the cap?
How it works

Their contract, your terms. Any clause that differs is marked.

Here’s a typical run, step by step: what automation handles, what the agent does, and the calls that stay with your team.

The workflow for Contract review, in 5 steps. It starts with “A contract arrives” and ends with “Ready to sign, or marked”. Each step lists what automation, the agent and your team do there.
Contract reviewA typical run
Starts withA contract arrivesAshgrove Analytics sends its 22-page services agreement on its own paper, and ops wants it signed this month.
The agent: Reads all 22 pages and finds payment, renewal, termination, data, liability and indemnity, whatever each one is headed.
Automation: Picks your standard terms and fallbacks for a services agreement, and any contract you’ve signed with Ashgrove before.
~22h/mo

Step 1 of 5Read the contract

  • The agent

    Reads all 22 pages and finds payment, renewal, termination, data, liability and indemnity, whatever each one is headed.

    Every company’s paper puts the liability cap somewhere else, sometimes under a heading like “Miscellaneous”.

  • Automation

    Picks your standard terms and fallbacks for a services agreement, and any contract you’ve signed with Ashgrove before.

    Your terms are stored by contract type, so picking the right set is a lookup.

Reads
  • Contract folder
Writes
  • Review log

~22 hours a month back

The agent: Checks each clause against your standard and your fallback. Net 45 and 60 days’ notice are inside them. A 3-month liability cap is below your 12.
~20h/mo

Step 2 of 5Compare to your terms

  • The agent

    Checks each clause against your standard and your fallback. Net 45 and 60 days’ notice are inside them. A 3-month liability cap is below your 12.

    Two clauses can say the same thing in different words, or nearly the same thing with one word that matters.

Reads
  • Standard terms
Writes
  • Review log

~20 hours a month back

Where teams differNot every team has a written fallback per clause. Standard terms plus a lawyer’s judgment works too.

The agent: Comments on the liability clause with your 12-month wording beside theirs, and one line on what would change.
~10h/mo

Step 3 of 5Mark the differences

  • The agent

    Comments on the liability clause with your 12-month wording beside theirs, and one line on what would change.

    A note a busy lawyer can read in ten seconds takes writing, not a template.

Reads
  • Standard terms
Writes
  • Contract folder

~10 hours a month back

Automation: Anything past your fallback goes to the legal lead with the clause, your wording and the note. Clauses inside your terms don’t wait for anyone.
IfYour team: Accepts the 3-month cap, or sends your 12-month wording back to Ashgrove to negotiate.
~6h/mo

Step 4 of 5Decide what to accept

  • Automation

    Anything past your fallback goes to the legal lead with the clause, your wording and the note. Clauses inside your terms don’t wait for anyone.

    Your fallbacks are written down, so which clauses need a person is known.

  • Your teamIf past your fallback

    Accepts the 3-month cap, or sends your 12-month wording back to Ashgrove to negotiate.

    Accepting less protection is a risk call, and it belongs to someone who can make it.

Reads
  • Review log
Writes
  • Contract folder

~6 hours a month back

Where teams differMany teams let the owner sign small contracts alone and bring legal in above a value they set.

Automation: Saves the review and the legal lead’s decision with the contract, and tells the owner it’s cleared or gone back.
~4h/mo

Step 5 of 5File the review

  • Automation

    Saves the review and the legal lead’s decision with the contract, and tells the owner it’s cleared or gone back.

    The review belongs with the contract, so the next person to open it sees what was agreed.

Reads
  • Review log
Writes
  • Contract folder
  • Email

~4 hours a month back

Ends withReady to sign, or markedCleared for signature with the review on file, or back to Ashgrove with your wording on the one clause.
Total~62h/mo

What changes

Your legal lead starts from a short list of what differs from your terms, each clause marked with your wording, instead of from page one.

  • 3steps automated
  • 3steps for the agent
  • 1call kept with your team

Pick any step to see what happens there and why it sits in that lane.

What it could be worth

~62 hours a month back

$63,200 a year in time

For a company reviewing about 25 incoming contracts a month, at $85 an hour. We work out yours from your own volumes before you sign.

Let’s build your agent
What we customize with you

One proven agent, plugged into how you work.

Every team does this job a little differently, so we set these five with the people who do it today. We’ve done this in dozens of businesses, so we know where teams usually differ and ask about those first.

The agent

Same for every client
  • Follows the same proven steps
  • A person on every exception
  • Every decision logged
  • Tested on your past work first
  • Never agrees to a term or signs a contract

  1. Your systems

    Where the work comes in, and where the result goes.

    For this agentContracts from your inbox, CRM or contract folder, the review back to wherever the contract lives.

  2. Your rules

    The limits and exceptions it works to.

    For this agentYour standard terms, the fallbacks you’ll accept, and the clauses you never give on.

  3. Your team

    Who signs off, and who covers when they’re away.

    For this agentThe legal lead for anything past a fallback, the contract’s owner for everything inside it.

  4. Your channels

    Where your team hears from it.

    For this agentEmail or Slack to the owner, comments in the document for legal.

  5. Your output

    What it hands back, in the format you already use.

    For this agentA clause-by-clause summary, with each difference marked beside your wording.

It reviews contracts before they’re signed. Tracking what you promised afterwards is the Contract obligations agent, renewal dates are Contract renewals, and negotiating stays with your team.

What you get

The agent, and everything that keeps it working.

  • The agentRunning on your systems, under your rules.
  • The review screenWhere the exceptions land for your legal lead and whoever owns each contract.
  • Your rulebookYour limits, exceptions and who signs off, in one place, often for the first time.
  • A test reportYour past contracts, run through it and checked against the number.
  • The runbookHow it works, what to check, and what to do if it stops.
  • 30 days of tuningAfter it goes live, through a full month of your real contracts.
The number we agree

Days from a contract arriving to it being ready to sign. We measure it before we start, and again at day 30.

How we get there

Live in 3 to 6 weeks. About seven hours of your time.

We do the building. Your side: access, your standard terms, your fallback positions and a dozen recently signed contracts, and a short weekly check-in.

  1. Before kickoff

    We send the access checklist.

    You, 2 hours. Access, an owner, and your standard terms, your fallback positions and a dozen recently signed contracts.

  2. Weeks 1 to 2

    We connect your systems and set it up.

    You, 1 hour. Walk us through your rules.

  3. Weeks 2 to 4

    We test it on your past contracts.

    You, 1 hour. Review what it flagged.

  4. Weeks 3 to 6

    It runs beside your team, then goes live.

    You, 1¼ hours. Work from the review screen.

Then 30 days of tuning, with a short check-in each week, about two hours of yours. At day 30 we show you the number and hand everything over.

After it’s live

It keeps running whether or not we stay.

  • It runs in your accounts

    Your cloud, your systems, and an AI account in your name, billed by the provider at their rates.

  • Changes in the first 30 days are included

    A new rule, a changed limit, someone new signing off. That’s what tuning is for.

  • After that, your call

    Your team edits the rulebook, the care plan covers it, or a bigger change is quoted first.

Questions

About this agent.

Does it give legal advice?
No. It compares the contract with the terms you’ve already set and marks what’s different. Deciding what to accept stays with your legal lead or outside counsel.
What if a clause could be read two ways?
It doesn’t choose. It quotes the clause, says why it’s unclear and sends it to your legal lead.
Can it draft our redlines?
It can put your standard wording beside each difference. Your legal lead decides what goes back to the other side.
Our process isn’t quite like this. Will it still work?
That’s the usual case. The job looks the same in most businesses, but the details never do. We map how your team does it today, then set the rules, systems and approvals to match. That’s what most of the 3 to 6 weeks are for.
How do we agree the number?
Together, before any work starts. For this agent it’s the days from a contract arriving to it being ready to sign. We measure it before we start, and again at day 30.
What does it cost to run once it’s live?
Hosting and AI, paid straight to the providers, not through us. It usually runs 5x to 25x cheaper than doing the same work by hand, and we work out your figure from your real volumes before you sign.

Which contracts reach you on someone else’s paper?

Tell us how your team handles contracts today. We’ll show you this agent on examples like yours, and whether it fits the fixed price.

Let’s build your agentBack to Business Operations
New to Switchboard Agents? How it works, what’s included, and what it costs.
  • 3 to 6 weeksto live, then 30 days of tuning
  • $12,500fixed, per agent
  • Yours to keepno license fees
See the service
Switchboard Agents$12,500 fixed · live in 3 to 6 weeks How it works Let’s build your agent