Contracts Shouldn't Eat Your Week

The Inbox Shuffle

October 22, 2025 | Charles Ashwanden, Co-Founder & CEO

Last week, we wrote about how manual tracking holds back productivity in financial firms — and the hidden costs of running your data stack out of spreadsheets. 

This week, I want to dive into another major productivity drain: managing vendor contracts. For too many firms, contracts are scattered across inboxes, shared drives, and PDFs, forcing teams to waste hours chasing details instead of focusing on strategy. 

Let’s be honest: managing vendor agreements has turned into a full-time job at a lot of financial firms. Contracts buried in inboxes. PDFs scattered across shared drives. Renewal notices lost in someone’s folder from two years ago. 

Instead of focusing on strategy, smart teams are wasting hours just trying to track down the right document. 

Why Manual Contract Management Fails

When contracts live everywhere and nowhere, it creates three big headaches: 

• Time drain – Hours spent searching for renewal dates or license details you should have at your fingertips. 

• Missed opportunities – Auto-renew clauses sneak by, locking firms into another year of spend before anyone gets a chance to renegotiate. 

• Compliance risks – Licensing limits and restrictions are overlooked, and no one realizes until it’s too late. 

It’s not that people aren’t working hard — it’s that the system works against them. 

The Real Cost 

A COO told me recently: “Right now, we have no clear line of sight on what our contracts include or what they allow us to do. We have little choice but to accept higher levels of risk, or burn resources reviewing every line of every contract each time we get a contractual question.” 

That’s not just frustrating. It’s expensive, and it puts teams permanently on the back foot. 

A Smarter Way Forward 

This is exactly why we built the Contracts AI Module at Sidelight. 

Instead of chasing PDFs, everything lives in one central, searchable place: 

• Every agreement, order form, and addendum at your fingertips 

• AI extraction that surfaces key terms, renewal dates, financial and usage limitations automatically 

• Alerts that keep you ahead of deadlines, not scrambling after them 

• Links between contracts and actual subscriptions so compliance is crystal clear 

No more scavenger hunts. No more surprises. 

The Productivity Payoff 

The impact is immediate: 

• Hours each week given back to your team 

• Renewals negotiated from a position of strength, not panic 

• Leaders with a clear line of sight into obligations, spend, and risk 

Most importantly, it frees people up to spend time where it matters — on high-value strategy, not admin. 

Stop chasing PDFs. Book a demo with Sidelight to find out how we can help you better manage your market data and vendor contracts in a centralized solution, saving you and your team hours of wasted time.