A request arrives marked urgent. The draft names one company, the purchase order names another, and nobody has attached the statement of work. Before the lawyer can review the terms, someone has to reconstruct the transaction. A good contract intake process catches those gaps early. Use this checklist to improve the requests entering your legal department, then adjust it around the questions your team actually needs answered.
Check Items as You Prepare. Your Checks Stay on This Page.
Confirm the Request Is Ready to Start
Compare the request with the draft and its attachments. Ask only for information needed to choose the review route or understand the transaction. If several questions repeatedly come back blank, test whether an ordinary requester understands them. Keep the initial submission when someone corrects an answer, so the review history remains clear.
Choose the Next Owner
The intake coordinator should apply approved routing questions and escalate uncertainty. Missing business information returns to its owner. A question about legal terms goes to counsel. Security, privacy, finance, and insurance questions follow the department’s established review path.
Test the Handoff Before Automating It
Open every attachment. Check whether the parties named in the draft match the intake record and whether the proposed work is described in the statement of work. Then look at a sample of returned requests. If employees repeatedly miss the data question, revise its wording or show an example of the information required.
Before automating the route, try a request with a missing attachment and one whose business owner has left. Both should reach a person who can resolve the issue. Count how often requests need to be returned, and which question causes the return. That gives the intake owner a concrete basis for improving the form.
Keep the Business Purpose With the Agreement
Keep the original purchase request with the signed agreement and the record of its review. The business purpose can explain why an unusual delivery date or site requirement was included. FAR 4.803 provides a public recordkeeping example by listing purchase requests and planning records among federal contract-file contents. Your private organization should use its own approved retention rules, with links between the request and the final contract.