Contracts & Compliance

How it works

The mechanics of this kit, plainly — what runs and when, where the data lands, and what you look at.

• Renewal watch runs mondays · 9am and keeps the Contracts dashboard fresh. Mondays — recomputes every notice date, lists what has to be decided, flags what the register cannot answer, and warns of a filing coming due.
• What is captured lands in the Contract register dataset, which lives at Data/Contract Register in your vault — yours to open, search, and edit like any other file.
• What is captured lands in the Obligations register dataset, which lives at Data/Obligations Register in your vault — yours to open, search, and edit like any other file.
• What is captured lands in the Contracts being agreed dataset, which lives at Data/Contracts In Progress in your vault — yours to open, search, and edit like any other file.
• What is captured lands in the Counterparties dataset, which lives at Data/Counterparties in your vault — yours to open, search, and edit like any other file.
• The Contracts dashboard reads from the dataset and shows, at a glance: every contract on the register · what has to be decided · where each one stands · on the register · contracts per party · risk flags · filings and what you owe · owed to · go through your contracts · being agreed, by stage · notice periods · terms across the year · how this board works.

The wiring, in one breath: Contract capture writes to Contract register · Contract register shown by Contracts · Contracts kept fresh by Renewal watch · Renewal watch run by Hawthorn · Contract register kept current by Renewal watch · Obligations register kept current by Renewal watch · Hawthorn holds Contract capture · Contract capture writes to Counterparties · Obligations and filings writes to Obligations register · Contract to signature writes to Contracts being agreed · Renew or leave updates Contract register · Obligations register shown by Contracts · Contracts being agreed shown by Contracts · Hawthorn holds Obligations and filings · Hawthorn holds Renew or leave · Hawthorn holds Contract to signature.

Getting the most from it

A kit earns its place when it changes what you look at and what you say, not when it is installed. This is the rhythm that makes it pay.

• Seed the register in one sitting and stop when you get bored. Hawthorn offers the territory first — software and services, suppliers, premises, insurance, finance, customer agreements, contractors, partnerships, confidentiality — and then takes them one at a time. Three contracts is a working register; the ones you forgot can join later, and the board is honest either way.
• Read What has to be decided on Monday morning, after the Renewal watch has been through the register. It is soonest first and, with Filings and what you owe, it is where the board asks something of you — a contract on it is a decision to make this week, not a thing to worry about. Everything else on the board is context.
• Treat Give notice by as arithmetic, not as gospel. It is the term end minus the notice period, and Hawthorn says so every time — so before you act on one, open the contract and check it. Where either figure is missing, no date is shown at all and the contract appears under Risk flags instead, which is exactly where an unanswerable question belongs.
• Drop the contract itself into your vault when you have it. Contract capture reads the parties, the term, the renewal behaviour and the notice period straight off it, records where the copy lives, and you never have to find the PDF again to answer "how much notice do we owe them?"
• Say changes the way you would say them to a colleague — "we resigned the cleaning contract, runs to next March, sixty days' notice now" — and the row moves. That is the correction that keeps the board true between Mondays.
• When a renewal comes up, ask Hawthorn to lay it out. Renew or leave puts the cost, the term, the notice date, how the contract says notice is given, what is still owed under it and how you have said it is used side by side, keeps the brief under Contracts/Briefs/ in your vault, and leaves the choice with you. Ask which way Hawthorn leans and it says why, from the facts, with the plain line that this is a view, not legal advice, and that a lawyer or another professional is worth talking to; once you decide to leave, it drafts the notice for you to send. Once a year, Go through your contracts on the board takes you through every live contract to note what you have decided and how each is used, which is what the brief reads.
• Keep the compliance half on the same board. Ask Hawthorn what your business has to file and Obligations and filings looks each one up on the official source for where you are, names the page, and puts on the Obligations register only what you confirm; what your accountant has already told you goes on as you said it. If it cannot find the official guidance it says so and writes nothing from memory. Filings and what you owe lists them soonest first: tick one when it is done and say where the proof is, and the next one is added when it comes round.
• Point Hawthorn at a filed contract and ask what you owe under it. The fees, reports and dates the document itself states go on the Obligations register with the clause they are in; anything that needs the clause read is named and left to you or someone qualified, never interpreted.
• Tell Hawthorn about a contract you are still agreeing and Contract to signature follows it stage by stage on Contracts being agreed; Being agreed, by stage shows where each has got to, and once it is signed it joins the register with its notice date worked out. Who you deal with at each party, and where its contract says notices go, are kept on Counterparties.
• Tell Hawthorn the standing facts once: how much warning you want before a notice date, what you call each supplier, which contracts never matter. If renewal notices arrive by email, say so and switch that check on by name — nothing outside your own records is read until you do.

Make it yours

Nothing here is fixed. The pieces are ordinary agents, routines, datasets and dashboards, so anything you know about shaping those applies. Retire whatever earns nothing.

Things people usually change first

Say any of these in chat, or edit them on the kit’s page in the app.

• How much warning you want before a notice date — ninety days out of the box, said once as a standing rule or set per contract.
• What each contract and each counterparty is called: the name on the register is the word Hawthorn uses back.
• Whether the Monday watch reads email for renewal notices at all. It does not until you name that check, and it only ever looks for notices from the parties already on your register.
• When the watch runs, or pausing it and keeping the register by hand — the arithmetic is redone whenever you mention a contract either way.
• What happens to a contract that ends: mark it retired and the Monday watch stops warning about it. The row stays with its history and still counts on the board, shown as retired.
• What is on the Obligations register: only what you confirm applies goes on, and something that no longer applies is marked not needed rather than deleted, so its history stays.
• Where you are and what kind of business you run: said once, kept as a standing fact, and used every time a filing is looked up.

Your first run

Installing starts a short setup conversation — not a form. Answer roughly, correct later.

1. Adding the Kit leads with "Meet Hawthorn" rather than a first sweep, because the contracts you are bound by live in your head and in a folder — not in any account this Kit can read. Hawthorn starts from what 1Presence already knows: the contracts you have mentioned, and any signed contract or renewal letter in your vault, offered back for you to confirm, each with where it came from, so you only fill the gaps. Then one multi-select panel offers the rest of the territory, so the contract you would not have thought of gets its chance, and Hawthorn takes the ones you pick one at a time: what you call it, who it is with, roughly when the term ends, whether it renews on its own, how much notice it needs. Before it wraps up, it asks once whether there are filings, returns or licences you would like kept here too, and leaves them if not.
2. Each contract is written to the Contract register as it is agreed, not batched at the end, so stopping after three leaves you with a working register. Anything you are unsure of is left blank rather than guessed — an undated contract shows as undated, which is honest, and shows up under Risk flags rather than counting as fine.
3. Until the register has its first row there is nothing to watch, so the Renewal watch skips its Monday run and leaves one card in your 1Presence inbox in Hawthorn's voice, offering that same conversation. Whatever is still missing after that, such as a contract with no end date or a renewing one with no notice period, waits on the Kit page with a way back to Hawthorn, and Hawthorn offers it once the next time you talk. Tell it a part does not apply to you, or that you have finished setting up, and it stops asking.
4. From then on the watch runs on Monday mornings: it recomputes every notice date from the term and the notice period, works out where each contract stands against your warning window, redraws the board, and raises a card only when a notice date comes inside that window, within sixty days or within thirty, or passes, when a term ends, or when something on the Obligations register comes within the same reach or passes still to do. When a filing that comes round again is ticked off, it adds the next one.
5. Out of the box the Kit reads nothing outside your own records. Tell Hawthorn that renewal notices arrive by email and switch that check on by name, and the Monday watch will read exactly what you named — and nothing else.

Watch the first pass, then tell it what you would have done differently — that correction teaches it more than any setup could.

The essentials

Learning, preferences and run costs work the same in every kit — so they are covered once, in the Kits guide.

Living with a Kit — the Kits guide →

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