Why contract administration software is a governance decision, not a project size decision

The question most teams ask too late

On a lot of projects, the choice of contract administration software comes up after the contract has been awarded, if it comes up at all. The form of contract is settled, the team is mobilising, and someone eventually asks how Notifications, Instructions and Compensation Events will be managed.

At Sypro’s Knowledge Hub webinar on 3 November, Mark Forbes, Regional Director at AtkinsRéalis, set out a different approach. His team works in project management across the Buildings and Places market, administering large and complex contracts on behalf of clients as NEC4 Project Manager or contract administrator. AtkinsRéalis currently manages around £2.2bn of contract value on Sypro, with roughly 2,000 users across its portfolio, and has used Sypro for more than ten years.

His central point was simple. The decision about how a contract will be administered is a governance decision, and it should be made early and made once.

The consequences land on the client

For a consultant acting as Project Manager, poor contract administration is not an internal problem. Forbes was direct about where the consequences fall: “if I do not do my job properly, there will be financial consequences for my client.”

Those consequences take familiar forms: misunderstood entitlements, delays, rising costs, claims and, eventually, disputes. The wider industry data points the same way. The 2024 Construction Adjudication in the United Kingdom report from King’s College London and The Adjudication Society found that half of respondents cited inadequate contract management as a notable cause of disputes.

There is a reputational cost too. As Forbes put it, “you’re only ever as good as your last project”. For a business that wins repeat work from the same clients, one missed timebar or one lost notification shapes how a client judges the next appointment.

Software enforces the process. People set the tone

The most striking part of the discussion was about tone rather than technology. Forbes described contract administration software as the means of putting the project’s intended way of working into practice: “So you set the tone, and then the software enables that… enables the tone. So we’re not just using it as a tick box.”

That distinction matters. NEC4 is prescriptive. It sets out who must act, by when, and what happens if they do not. A platform can hold those timescales, flag what is overdue and keep a time stamped record of every communication. What it cannot do is decide whether the parties will work collaboratively or defensively.

Forbes was clear that the tone is set by people, at the start: “if you set the tone with it as well, and say that we are using this as a collaborative platform for us to get from A to B and deliver this asset… then the software just allows you to have the boundaries of the process.”

Sypro’s Charley Wainwright made the same point from the supplier side. The platform, in his words, “is an administration tool that helps you do your administration of the contract. It’s not going to make decisions for you. It’s not going to raise an early warning on your behalf.” The experienced professional still has to know when to notify, when to instruct and when to sign off. The software makes sure those decisions are recorded, timely and visible to every party.

Why project size is the wrong test

A common assumption is that contract administration software is for the large schemes: the new hospital, the major infrastructure programme. Sypro’s own data challenges that. Across its enterprise customers, around 95% of the projects on the platform are valued at under £3M.

Forbes explained why. A Compensation Event takes hours to understand and review whatever the size of the project. Saving time on that process saves the same time whether the contract is worth £3M or £1bn.

AtkinsRéalis has drawn the logical conclusion. In its Buildings and Places market, contract administration software is mandated wherever the business is the contract administrator, and especially on NEC contracts because of the specific mechanisms they contain. An enterprise licence removes the cost question from smaller projects entirely. As Forbes put it, “it almost takes half the decision making process away, because we can just do it.”

Standardisation without stifling

Standardisation can sound like rigidity. Forbes was careful to describe a balance. Common processes and internal governance mean the same standard of service whether a project is run from Aberdeen, Glasgow or Bristol, and teams avoid “reinventing the wheel pretty much every single time”. That consistency reduces risk, and it frees people to focus on what they do best.

There is a workforce benefit as well. People move between projects. When every project uses the same system, a Project Manager moving from one commission to the next already knows the processes and can continue without a learning curve.

The appetite for this is growing but uneven. In a live poll during the webinar, around a quarter of attendees said they already use a digital platform to standardise contract administration across their whole organisation. Most reported having processes in place, and a number said they had not yet started.

Getting into the conversation early

Choosing the platform is not always the consultant’s call. Some clients have their own systems, licences or pro formas. Forbes’s view is that a consultant still has a responsibility to bring its experience to that discussion, and that the earlier it happens, the better.

For NEC4 contracts there is a contractual reason too. Under clause 13.2, if the Scope specifies a communication system, communications only take effect when made through it. Agreeing the system before the contract is let puts that protection in place from the starting date, instead of leaving the team to retrofit it after the first missed notification.

Cash flow is part of the picture

Contract administration is often discussed in terms of risk and change, but Forbes also pointed to payment. Under NEC, the contractor’s application starts a timeline, and good administration keeps the project’s cash flow moving. “There’s no, oh, we lost your emails, so that’s an extra couple of days. It’s none of that. We stick to the timescales and we get it done. Helps every party.”

A governance decision, made once

The lesson from AtkinsRéalis is not that every organisation needs the same licence or the same software. It is that the decision about how contracts are administered belongs at portfolio level, not project by project. Made once and applied consistently, it gives every project the same auditable record, the same timescale control and the same starting tone.

Charley Wainwright summed up the case in a single question: “why wouldn’t you give yourself every opportunity to succeed?” In an industry where margins are thin and disputes are expensive, consistent contract administration is one of the few risks an organisation can fully control.