“What’s measured is managed” is an often-repeated business saying. When it comes to contracts, many small businesses aren’t measuring enough to manage for the best results.

If your contracts process feels like a black hole where deals disappear for weeks, or you keep having the same internal debates about wording, you may have a data problem. Fortunately, you don’t need an enterprise contract management platform or a dedicated legal ops team to solve this problem. You just need to know what to track.

Here are four metrics worth paying attention to, plus some thoughts on what to do with the information you find.

Metric 1: Time to Close

What to track: How long does it take from the moment a contract comes in to the moment both sides have signed?

That sounds simple, but the value is in the details. Where exactly is the process getting stuck? A few common culprits are:

• Contracts sitting in someone’s inbox before getting routed for review

• Multiple internal stakeholders weighing in sequentially

• The same questions keep coming up: Is this IT security requirement acceptable? What commitments can we make about insurance? Have we ever agreed to this limit on liability?

• Once everyone agrees on contract terms, e-signatures somehow take another week

This isn’t about speed for its own sake; it’s about knowing ranges for when an agreement is on track to closes and when it’s getting delayed. A three-page NDA probably shouldn’t take weeks, but a multimillion-dollar services agreement deserves careful review from several managers.

If contracts are consistently slow, consider running one experiment at a time rather than trying to overhaul the whole process at once. Is it possible for any reviewers to look at the document simultaneously, instead of one after the other? Does having a pre-approved fallback for your most common redlines reduce back-and-forth? Small interventions often compound over time.

Metric 2: Cost to Close

What to track: What does it actually cost your company to get a contract signed?

Legal fees are the obvious starting point, whether you’re paying outside counsel by the hour or allocating a portion of in-house counsel’s salary. But legal is only part of the picture. Consider also:

• Time spent by subject matter experts on your delivery team who have to review scope-of-work language, produce or service commitments, or technical specs

• Management time approving specific terms or signing off on risk decisions

• Contract management tools for editing, storing, and analyzing agreements

The goal here isn’t necessarily to drive costs as low as possible. Rather, it’s to understand your return on expenses, and to identify places where you’re overpaying for repetitive or unnecessary work.

Metric 3: Most-Negotiated Clauses

What to track: Which terms consistently generate the most back-and-forth?

On the legal side, the usual suspects are representations and warranties, indemnification obligations, and limitations of liability. On the business side, pricing tends to get the most attention. Tracking which clauses get redlined most frequently, and where you ultimately land, gives you a much clearer picture of your negotiating position over time.

Are you consistently accepting the same changes? Consider adding that language to your standard template, or at least to a documented set of fallback positions. Do you have a specific term you need included no matter what, like IP protection or compliance with certain laws? That should be in your contract database too.

Recurring contract friction can signal market trends. For example, you may start hearing repeatedly that certain new AI security standards are important to potential customers. This can become an opportunity to proactively create your own standard AI wording, or at least make sure your tech expert is available to address the potential customers’ concerns.

4. Clauses That Reduce Profitability

What to track: Which contract terms are costing you money after the deal is signed?

Payment terms deserve special attention. Increasingly, 90- to 120-day payment cycles feel anachronistic. Most businesses can process payments far faster than that, and long cycles put real strain on cash flow. If you’re regularly agreeing to extended payment terms, it’s worth asking whether it’s necessary or negotiable.

Acceptance terms are another area to watch. If your contract isn’t specific about what constitutes acceptance of your goods or services — and doesn’t include a deemed-acceptance provision after a reasonable review period — that can leave the door open for delayed payments and disputes. Clear acceptance criteria, defined in the contract, protect both sides.

More broadly, look for language that creates ambiguity about who owes what and when. The passive voice can be confusing: “The software will be configured” doesn’t tell anyone who’s responsible for configuration. That kind of vagueness can result in missed handoffs, failed implementations, and the downstream revenue losses that follow.

Tracking Metrics for Fun and Profit (Mostly Profit)

Tracking contract metrics doesn’t require a sophisticated system at the outset. A shared spreadsheet, is a reasonable place to start as long as it’s maintained consistently.

Input from different functions will make the tracking even more useful over time. Legal can report on contract clauses, while Finance can flag payment delays and cost-to-close numbers. Customer success teams often have visibility into where implementation problems trace back to unclear contract language. A broader view tends to surface patterns that any single team would miss.

Reviewing the data periodically, e.g., quarterly, gives you a chance to build on what’s working and address what isn’t. Businesses that do this consistently tend to shift from reacting to counterparty demands to shaping deals proactively. Over time, that’s a real competitive advantage.

Spark + Sterling works with founders and small business owners in New York and Massachusetts on corporate and transactional matters. If you’re thinking about how to tighten up your contracts or build a more systematic approach to deal review, we’re glad to help.