WHAT DOES A CONTRACT ADMINISTRATOR DO?

Published: September 20, 2024 - The Contract Administrator is responsible for developing, interpreting, reviewing, negotiating, and managing contracts, as well as ensuring compliance with KPIs and contractual terms. This role includes the management of contractual risks, and variations, and the maintenance of contract documentation, along with performing rate calculations and responding to contract-related queries. Additionally, the administrator supports the financial oversight of projects by preparing cost reports, managing subcontractor payments, and attending progress meetings to ensure optimal financial outcomes.

A Review of Professional Skills and Functions for Contract Administrator

1. Contract Administrator Duties

  • Communication Management: Managing the communications between and actions due by both parties to each other, including scheduling meetings.
  • Change Order Coordination: Coordinate the change order process and all requests for change orders in relation to the contractual obligations, including ensuring application of all contractual terms.
  • Supplier Performance Monitoring: Monitor, document, and report on supplier performances, including managing supplier performance improvement plans for the work.
  • Procurement Management: Manage the compliant procurement of all goods and/or services for all HWP sites to support project work.
  • Project Documentation Management: Establish and maintain systems for archiving, tracking, and updating project materials, schedule meetings and conference calls, prepare materials for meetings, and keep minutes of meetings.
  • Reporting and Presentation Preparation: Prepare activity reports, presentations, market updates, and support business plans.
  • Project Workload Management: Manage a high volume of assigned project workload in a timely, accurate, and consistent manner.
  • Contract Review Technique: Establish and follow a technique to perform and complete contract reviews.
  • Process Improvement: Read, think through, and revise processes and procedures
  • Vendor Documentation Management: Establish and maintain a vendor documentation database.
  • Order Processing Management: Manage the funnel of incoming orders and supplier agreements, identifying support required to complete processing in accordance with company policies, rules, and regulations.
  • Contract Terms Review: Review detailed contract terms and conditions and identify differences with established terms and conditions.
  • Supplier Communication: Communicate with suppliers and customers regarding variances with standard terms and conditions in writing and verbally.
  • Negotiation Skills: Negotiate with suppliers and customers to reach an agreement suitable for legal and business requirements.

2. Contract Administrator Details

  • Contract Compliance Review: Contract review for compliance with Cardtronics policies and network guidelines and regulations.
  • Contract Data Entry: Enter contractual data into internal systems in order to activate or update ATMs for processing transactions.
  • Settlement Profile Management: Enter/update and validate daily and monthly settlement/account profiles for customers based on contractual obligations.
  • Accounts Payable/Receivable Management: Enter/update accounts payable and receivable customer profiles in ORACLE.
  • Order Validation: Review orders from Sales to validate that terms and conditions are met.
  • Contractual Data Scanning: Scan all relevant contractual data into internal systems.
  • Physical File Management: Create a physical file and store it according to internal policy.
  • Contract Change Updates: Update all contractual changes in internal systems.
  • Settlement Reconciliation Support: Assist customers with settlement reconciliation questions.
  • Sales Team Collaboration: Work with the sales team and distributors to ensure compliance with Cardtronics policies and network guidelines and regulations.
  • Web Application Maintenance: Ensure that all network web applications are kept up to date.

3. Contract Administrator Responsibilities

  • Contract Administration Support: Contract administration support for the project.
  • Coordination and Preparation: Assists with the coordination, preparation, and administration of the paperwork for negotiation, execution, and monitoring/compliance of contracts for the project.
  • Approval Process Coordination: Coordinate the approval process and obtain signatures.
  • Contract Document Drafting: Under the direction of the manager, draft contract documents and change orders with all applicable forms and requirements.
  • Project Requirement Confirmation: Work closely with the project team to confirm overall project requirements are being achieved with respect to contract management.
  • Form Assistance: Assist with forms such as Request for Sublet and Certificate for Federal Aid.
  • Agreement Tracking: Update logs and follow up with subs/suppliers regarding agreements.
  • Agreement Documentation Management: Expedite, document, and track all agreements from start to finish.
  • Administrative Management: Administrative management of paperwork and dates.
  • Subcontractor Form Collection: Collect subcontractor forms.
  • Contract Document Review: Review contractual documents to ensure adherence to company policy, government specifications and requirements, and conformance to master agreements.
  • Contract Negotiation: Negotiate contract terms from proposal stage to contract close-out in accordance with relevant laws, regulations, and company policies.
  • Contractual Advisory: Advise management of contractual rights and obligations and provide interpretation of terms and conditions.

4. Contract Administrator Job Summary

  • File Management: Maintains original hard copy files onsite for all contracts for the project.
  • Correspondence Drafting: Drafts correspondence for assigned contracts.
  • Editing and Proofreading: Edits and proofreads contracts.
  • Document Scanning: Scans subcontracts, service, and purchase agreements to the Project Server.
  • Insurance Log Maintenance: Maintains an insurance log to ensure all subcontractors and vendors maintain valid insurance certificates that meet the owner requirements.
  • Collaboration with Accounting: Works closely with the Accounting/Financial Department.
  • Payment Terms Verification: Verifies change of payment terms.
  • Approval Process Coordination: Coordinate the approval process, obtaining signatures, and scanning to the database.
  • Bid Team Collaboration: Works closely with the bid team.
  • Bid Documentation Gathering: Under the direction of the manager, gathers documentation for bids and submits it to other employees for review and approval.
  • Bid Development: Develops bid documentation and comparative matrices.
  • Senior Personnel Interaction: Interacts with senior internal and external personnel on significant matters often requiring coordination between organizations.
  • Contract Negotiation and Administration: Negotiates and administers various contracts, including cost-reimbursable, time and materials, firm fixed price, and multiple task order contracts.
  • Agreement Preparation: Prepares non-disclosure agreements (NDAs), teaming agreements, and proprietary information agreements.
  • Proposal Compliance: Ensures proposal and pricing compliance on various multiple and single award contract types.

5. Contract Administrator Accountabilities

  • Documentation Preparation: Preparing and updating the documentation in order to prepare the contracts.
  • Contract Solutions Assistance: Assist the Contracts Manager in finding solutions for contract changes and claims.
  • Contract Negotiation: Negotiate contract conditions with clients.
  • Contract Drafting and Advisory: Draft and advise on contract conditions with the technical office and subcontractors.
  • Contract Support: Support the Contracts and Project Manager in all contract-related issues.
  • Commercial Advice: Provide advice to project staff on commercial and contractual matters, including reviewing and drafting correspondence.
  • Final Account Management: Oversee, prepare, submit, and negotiate project final accounts.
  • Tender Commercial Vetting: Conduct commercial vetting of subcontractor tenders and contracts.
  • Valuation Certification: Certify subcontractor monthly valuations and final accounts.
  • Process Adherence: Ensure that business commercial and contractual processes are adhered to at the project level.
  • Budget Preparation Assistance: Assist in the preparation and adherence to project purchasing targeting and costing budgets.
  • Contract Administration: Perform contract administration and implement policies for claims, terminations, suspensions, expansions, and variations.
  • Award Administration: Post awards, administer contracts, and monitor consultants' and contractors' performance and conformance to commercial terms.
  • Contract Variation Evaluation: Evaluate and administer contract variations.

6. Contract Administrator Functions

  • Order Entry Execution: Execute order entry within Siebel and complete order entry forms within SFDC for all deals, collaborating with sales reps and sales management when needed.
  • Contract Compliance Assurance: Ensure compliance of client contracts with internal business, finance, and sales policies.
  • Contract Audit Execution: Audit and execute signed contracts against the contract order in Forrester CRM for all deals, including complex nonstandard deals.
  • Order Accuracy Verification: Audit that there is an accurate Siebel order created and a completed order entry form for every signed agreement.
  • Order Alignment Ensuring: Ensure alignment between completed SFDC and submitted order requests, signed contracts, and Siebel orders.
  • Issue Resolution: Answer questions and requests and resolve issues from sales representatives and internal constituents about the order entry process, contracts, and contracts-related policies and procedures.
  • Document Retention Maintenance: Maintain document retention within SFDC.
  • DocuSign Support: Provide dedicated DocuSign support to global sales.
  • Policy Enforcement: Follow established instructions for routine work and detailed instructions on new assignments to enforce internal business, finance, and sales policies.
  • Sales Rep Setup: Set up new sales reps within Incent for proper compensation calculations.
  • Quota Change Assistance: Assist with quota changes.
  • Bonus Calculation Assistance: Assist with bonus calculations and load them into Incent.
  • Bookings Credit Adjustment Assistance: Assist with bookings credit adjustments.
  • Ad Hoc Reporting: Run ad hoc reporting monthly and quarterly.

7. Contract Administrator Job Description

  • Contract Preparation Support: Assist the company’s Legal department in the preparation, review, and organization of a variety of contracts using existing contracting standards and templates.
  • Contract Flow Tracking: Work with other members of the Legal team to track contract flow, renewals, termination dates, and key contract milestones.
  • Process Monitoring: Understand where contracts are in the process to ensure they are moving forward and completed in a timely manner with appropriate sign-off and communication to third parties.
  • Contracts Database Management: Manage the company’s contracts database.
  • Contract Request Organization: Organize and track new contract request records and other documentation.
  • Internal Training Assistance: Assist with internal training and user requests, interacting with IT and Purchasing on a quarterly basis to update vendors in the database.
  • Process Enhancement Suggestions: Based on prior experience, suggest enhancements to the contract process to streamline activities.
  • Procedures and Policies Development: Develop and implement procedures and policies.
  • Purchase Requisition Submission: Submit Purchase Requisitions for the Legal team into the purchase requisition system.
  • Task Management: Manage other assignments and tasks.
  • Sales Document Review and Reporting: Review, evaluate, load, analyze, maintain, and report on various types of sales-related documents (i.e., contracts, price agreements).
  • Contract Document Evaluation: Review the complete package of contract documents to determine terms and work with functional owners to confirm details of the contract for proper categorization into the contracts database.
  • Centralized File Maintenance: Maintain centralized contract files and a centralized database of reviewed and negotiated agreements.

8. Contract Administrator Overview

  • Contract Administration Leadership: Leading contract administration for assigned projects.
  • Contract Formulation: Formulating and issuing construction contracts of medium to large size scope.
  • Tenderer Pre-qualification: Pre-qualifying and preparing lists of tenderers.
  • Tender Evaluation: Receiving and evaluating tenders.
  • Contractor Interviewing: Interviewing contractors and potential contractors and making appropriate recommendations.
  • Recommendation Preparation: Preparing summaries and letters of recommendation.
  • Client Communication: Communicating with clients to secure approvals in accordance with established procedures.
  • Contract and Tender Document Preparation: Preparing contracts and tender documents.
  • Contract Administration: Posting awards, administering contracts, and monitoring contractors' performance and conformance to commercial terms.
  • Progress Billing Approval: Approving progress billings.
  • Interdepartmental Interaction: Interacting with engineering and construction departments to comply with terms, revisions, and amendments.
  • Contract Settlement Participation: Participating in contract termination, claims, or dispute settlements according to delegated authority.
  • Close-out Review Conducting: Conducting close-out reviews and processing back-charges.
  • Project Team Supervision: Supervising a small project team comprised of the company or JV staff.

9. Contract Administrator Details and Accountabilities

  • Rebate Maintenance: Maintains existing rebates in direct and indirect modules.
  • Director Communication: Communicates directly with the Director of Pricing and Contracts & Chargebacks to ensure accurate initial rebate setup.
  • Contract Expiration Notification: Provides notification to the Pricing Team on contracts due to expire.
  • Discrepancy Reconciliation: Works with Finance to reconcile discrepancies between rebates issued and customer debit amounts.
  • Customer Service Collaboration: Works closely with Customer Service to ensure correct pricing is loaded into the ERP system.
  • Indirect Contract Setup: Sets up new indirect contracts in Model N.
  • Class of Trade Identification: Works with wholesalers to properly identify Class of Trade for specific contract setup.
  • Pricing Maintenance in SAP: Loads and maintains pricing in SAP.
  • Pricing Maintenance in Model N: Loads and maintains pricing in Model N.
  • Contract Update Distribution: Sends pricing contract updates to wholesalers/distributors daily via EDI and email.
  • Rebate Offer Interpretation: Interprets rebate offers and creates these offers in the pricing module.
  • Government Pricing Management: Manages quarterly Government Pricing updates including PHS, FSS, etc.
  • Data Extraction and Manipulation: Extracts data from various databases using Business Intelligence tools and manipulates data using advanced Excel features such as VLOOKUP, Pivot Tables, etc.

10. Contract Administrator Tasks

  • Master Data Administration: Administration of Bunge’s master data (create and/or change data).
  • Contract Administration: Administration of contracts and documents related to contracts concluded by Bunge (goods, transportation, storage, non-commodity, etc.).
  • Document Status Follow-up: Follow up on document status, reports, and document flow fulfillment as per internal procedures and regulations.
  • Periodic Reporting: Perform periodic reports and send them to the stakeholders.
  • Document Filing and Archiving: File and archive relevant documents (digitally and/or physically).
  • Physical Correspondence Management: Manage physical correspondence for contracts and documents related to contracts.
  • Exception Handling: Handle exceptions generated, perform root cause analysis to resolve current issues, and act proactively to avert potential future issues.
  • Audit Support: Provide all information, documents, and reports for audits, taking steps as per the corrective action plan drafted by the manager.
  • Compliance Assurance: Ensure compliance with the company’s work health and safety policies, standards, and procedures.
  • Process Improvement Support: Support Practical Process Improvement (PPI) methodology and participate in initiatives.
  • Contract Settlement Leadership: Spearheaded contract termination, claims, or dispute settlements according to delegated authority.
  • Project Issue Management: Manage projects' contractual issues, including third parties, from the commencement of contractual arrangements until settlement and final discharge of obligations.

11. Contract Administrator Roles

  • Contract Repository Maintenance: Assist in the creation and maintenance of the contract repository, templates, and processes.
  • Collaborative Contract Review: Work collaboratively with internal Criteria team members to complete contract reviews in a timely manner.
  • Contract Status Monitoring: Monitor the status of contract review and execution, including supporting the approval and signature process.
  • MSA and NDA Preparation: Prepare, create, and execute MSAs and NDAs in accordance with Criteria Corps standards, policies, and procedures.
  • Documentation Accuracy Assurance: Ensure legally binding documentation is correct prior to being sent to customers.
  • Legal Partnership: Partner with Legal to complete redlines and negotiations.
  • File Organization: Update and organize Legal and other administrative files.
  • Customer Service Provision: Work under general supervision to provide satisfactory and quality customer service.
  • Customer Information Collection: Obtain customers' names, addresses, billing information, product numbers, and specifications of items to be purchased, and enter this information on order forms.
  • Basic Inquiry Response: Answer basic customer inquiries on product availability, maintenance, and the status of orders.
  • Complaint Resolution: Resolve basic customer service or billing complaints.
  • Customer Interaction Record Maintenance: Maintain records of customer interactions or transactions, recording details of inquiries, complaints, or comments, as well as actions taken.

12. Contract Administrator Additional Details

  • Contract Development and Management: Developing, interpreting, reviewing, negotiating, and managing contracts.
  • Contractual Risk Management: Managing and minimizing contractual risk.
  • Contract Variation Management: Managing contract variations and ensuring timely review and approval of other contract matters.
  • Rate Calculation: Performing contract rate calculations.
  • Commercial Support Provision: Providing commercial support to Executives, Project Managers, and functional support teams on critical aspects of contractual terms, including KPIs.
  • Contractual Records Maintenance: Maintaining contractual records and documentation.
  • Contract Query Response: Responding to contract queries.
  • Process Improvement Identification: Identifying opportunities to enhance and improve the quality of the contract administration processes.
  • Cost Management Administration: Preparing and administering the day-to-day cost management of subcontractors and suppliers' contracts.
  • Claims Assessment: Assessing claims and reviewing variations with a view to maximizing Sydney Metro's financial position.
  • Cost Reporting Preparation: Preparing cost-to-date reports and accruals as per the monthly reporting requirements.
  • Forecasting Assistance: Preparing and assisting the wider team with forecasting requirements.
  • Monthly Report Preparation: Assisting with the preparation of the commercial section of monthly cost reports for the respective area, including status on subcontracts, subcontract variations, claims, and progress claims.
  • Payment Management: Managing monthly payments in accordance with the Security of Payment Act and the requirements of the respective subcontracts.
  • Subcontractor Meeting Attendance: Attending subcontractor progress meetings.

13. Contract Administrator Essential Functions

  • Vendor Pricing Administration: Administer and control all aspects of vendor/customer pricing programs in the client VPT system.
  • Pricing Discrepancy Investigation: Proof, troubleshoot, and investigate pricing discrepancies on rebated items.
  • Pricing System Control: Administer and control relevant aspects of the client Pricing System as it relates to customer distribution/sales agreements.
  • Documentation Imaging: Image all pricing support and other documentation received from vendors, brokers, and customers.
  • Pricing Audit Assistance: Assist with pricing audits submitted monthly or periodically by customers.
  • Issue Correction: Investigate pricing issues and make corrections when audit issues are found to be legitimate.
  • Rebate Pricing Administration: Administer deviated/rebate pricing programs in the Vendor Payment Tracking (VPT) system.
  • Collaboration with Stakeholders: Work closely with National Account Managers, vendors, brokers, customers, and Purchasing personnel to set up, maintain, report on, and settle all pricing allowance and guaranteed cost programs.
  • Program Pricing Management: Administer Program Pricing and order guide programs for customers.
  • Pricing Troubleshooting: Interact with National Account Managers, divisional personnel, brokers, vendors, and customers to troubleshoot instances of inaccurate or inconsistent customer pricing caused by rebate maintenance or setup.
  • Documentation Quality Challenge: Challenge the adequacy, form, and content of all submitted documentation from vendors, customers, National Account Managers, or other parties before processing.
  • Contract Image Support: Provide image support for all contracts, rebates, purchasing contracts, and correspondence from internal and external parties for later retrieval.
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