Renewing an expired contract
Back to index You are here because A contract of yours reads Approval expired , or you got the email with the subject "Contract approval expired: ..." , and nothing is posting. That is the system...
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You are here because
A contract of yours reads Approval expired, or you got the email with the subject "Contract approval expired: ...", and nothing is posting.
That is the system working. Now you renew it.
Two paths, and the system picks the right one for you
Which path you get depends on whether the contract has an end date. You do not have to work this out. The button on the row tells you.
| Your contract | Row button | What renewing means |
|---|---|---|
| Has an end date (dated, or "After N occurrences") | Extend term | Push the end date out. That is a new term, so it needs a new approval. |
| Has no end date (open-ended) | Re-submit | The 12-month clock ran out. Ask for another 12 months. |
Path 1: Extend the term (dated contracts)
- Go to Accounting, then Expenses, then the Scheduled tab.
- Find the red row with the Approval expired badge. (If you came from the email, the link scrolls you straight to it and highlights it.)
- Click Extend term. This opens the contract editor.
- The editor opens with the situation on the record: it tells you the approval lapsed and that generation is paused.
- Change the End date to the new end of the term. This is the whole change. You can also revise the frequency, the interval, or the term shape at the same time if the renewal genuinely changed.
- Press Save and submit for approval.
That is it. The button label is not decoration: saving here submits the contract for a fresh approval. It does not just quietly save a new date.
Path 2: Re-submit for approval (open-ended contracts)
- Same place: Scheduled tab.
- Find the row. Click Re-submit. (Or click the Approval expired badge to expand the row first and read the notice, then use Re-submit for approval inside it. Same destination.)
- The editor opens. You do not have to change anything. The contract is fine. It is the approval that lapsed.
- Press Save and submit for approval.
The 12-month clock restarts from the day the new approval lands.
From the email: the open-ended expiry email's button is Re-submit for approval, and it opens the renewal editor for you directly. One click from the inbox to the form.
What happens next: the full chain runs again
Renewal is not a rubber stamp. When you submit, the contract goes through:
- The full staff approval chain, from step one. Every approver who had to sign off originally signs off again.
- The board, if the amount is at or above the board escalation floor.
Nothing is skipped. Nothing is shortened. Approvers see the commitment: the contract type, the cadence, the term you are proposing, the occurrences remaining, and the total committed amount you are asking them to re-commit to. See What approvers see.
While the approval is in flight:
- The contract's badge reads Re-approval required · Renewal.
- The Next run fact reads Generation paused or Next run held for approval.
- No occurrences post.
When the approval lands, the badge flips to Approved · covers recurring and generation resumes automatically. The next run is computed forward from today. It does not backfill the occurrences you missed while it was paused. If you need those, enter them as one-off expenses.
If the renewal is rejected
This is a real state, and it is deliberately not the same as "expired".
The row's badge reads Renewal rejected, and the primary button reads Revise.
Open it and the editor shows you the rejection on the record:
Renewal rejected: revise and re-submit
This renewal was declined at the amount submitted. The schedule stays paused: it will not fall back to "Approval expired." Revise the amount, cadence, or term, then re-submit for a fresh vote.
Underneath that you get:
- Rejected by, showing who declined it and when. If the board declined it, this shows the board rather than a single name, because a board vote has no single actor.
- Reason on file, if a reason was recorded. A staff rejection usually carries one. A board vote does not record a free-text reason, so on a board rejection this section simply does not appear. It is not hidden and it is not blank: an absent reason is stated by its absence rather than filled in with a guess.
- The Frequency and Term facts, so you can see what was rejected.
Do not just press save again. A rejected renewal that is re-submitted unchanged will be rejected again. Change something real: the amount (negotiate the vendor down), the cadence, or the term. Then Save and submit for approval.
A rejected renewal does not fall back to "expired" and it does not silently resume. It sits paused until a human revises it and it clears a vote.
An important distinction
There is a third state that looks similar in the list but is not the same thing:
"Approval rejected" (rather than "Renewal rejected") means a different kind of re-approval was voted down. Not a renewal, but an amendment (somebody changed the price) or a contract-type change (somebody flipped FIXED to VARIABLE or back).
The fix is the same: Revise, change something, re-submit. But the cause is different, so read the badge. The system tracks the real reason the approval was re-armed, so it can tell you truthfully which one you are looking at.
What if I do not want to renew it?
Then do not. Delete the schedule from the Scheduled tab.
Delete recurring schedule? This deactivates the schedule (soft delete). Previously generated expenses keep their history and are unaffected.
This is a deactivation, not a destruction. Everything the contract already posted stays exactly where it is, in the books, with its history intact. What stops is the future.
What the system records
The re-arming of the approval is written to the audit trail with its reason, so a renewal is distinguishable from an amendment from a contract-type flip. The rejection, if there is one, is recorded with who rejected it and when. The eventual approval, and the resumption of generation, are recorded too.