MSP renewal alerts and signing checklist for year-end 2026

Key takeaways

• Set renewal reminders now. A December 31 renewal hits its 30-day mark on December 1, its 15-day mark on December 16 and its 7-day mark on December 24. Thanksgiving week opens Monday, November 23, and signatures slow from there.
• Check who gets the reminder. XClause sends to your team by default; switch each year-end agreement to the client or both before the first mark fires.
• Get paperwork out before November 20: new SOWs, amendments for changed device counts, and any new version that carries a new rate.
• January invoices come from signed SOWs. Sign in December, and the first invoice drafts itself from the line items.

Why the last two weeks of November matter

Every MSP has a cluster of agreements that renew on December 31 or January 1. Their reminder marks fall in the two worst weeks of the year for getting a reply: the 30-day mark the week after Thanksgiving, the 15-day mark in the middle of December, and the 7-day mark on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day.

The fix is not to send more reminders in December. It is to do the setup in the two weeks before Thanksgiving, while the people who sign things are at their desks. Here is the order I would do it in. The same page comes back next season with new dates.

The dates

XClause checks every signed agreement once a day at 08:00 UTC and sends each mark once. The 90 and 60 day marks for a December 31 renewal have already passed by the time you read this, which is why the rest of the list is about the three that remain.

The checklist

1. List every agreement renewing between December 15 and January 31

Open the contracts list. Every row shows its renewal or end date, and the Expiring soon filter lists everything renewing or ending in the next 60 days. From mid-November that reaches into the second week of January; anything renewing late January you find by sorting on the date.

What you are looking for: agreements with no renewal date at all. A contract uploaded from elsewhere has the date you confirmed on import; a contract built in the standard form has whatever you entered. A blank date gets no reminder.

2. Check the reminder marks and the recipients

Open each year-end agreement and look at two settings. The marks: contracts you imported default to all five (90, 60, 30, 15 and 7 days), but contracts built in the standard contract form use your account default, which ships as a single reminder at 30 days. The recipients: the default is your team only. If you want the client to see the renewal coming, set it to client or both now, before December 1.

Reminders can also post to Slack or Microsoft Teams, which is useful in a week when nobody is reading email.

3. Decide the price before the reminder goes out

A reminder that says "renews in 30 days" is only useful if you already know whether the rate changes. Open the SOW and read the rate escalation clause the client signed: the higher of CPI or 5% by default, a fixed percentage, no increase, or wording of your own. That clause is contract language. XClause never raises an invoice amount on its own, so if the rate moves, you either edit the next invoice to match the clause or send a new version of the SOW with the new rate.

If you are re-pricing, send the new version in the week of November 16. A new version copies the SOW into an editable draft, still attached to the client, and supersedes the original when it is signed.

4. Clean up device counts while you are in there

Clients grow between signings. On a signed SOW, changing the count of a service already in it updates the SOW and records a version. Adding a service, or removing one, creates an amendment the client has to sign. If a client added a dozen workstations in September, the amendment is a December signature you want in before Thanksgiving, not after.

5. Send everything that needs a signature by November 20

Signing in XClause does not need an account or an app. The signer gets an emailed link verified with a six-digit code sent to the same inbox, or signs in the client portal if you have it on for them. The executed PDF carries a certificate of completion, and a SHA-256 hash of the file is stored so a copy produced later can be checked against it.

Send by Friday, November 20, and you have a full working week to chase. When a signature stalls, use Resend on the contract in the contracts list; the signer gets the same request again.

6. Set up January invoicing in December, not January

For every SOW signed this month, decide how its first invoice gets made. One action on the signed SOW drafts the invoice from its line items, one line per managed unit at the agreed count and rate, with one-time charges on their own lines. Or switch invoice generation on for the SOW and XClause drafts it the moment the last signature lands. Mark it recurring and the next one drafts each period.

Two switches stay off until you turn them on: emailing the invoice to the client automatically, and syncing it to QuickBooks Online, Xero or FreshBooks (on Pro). Decide both before the first January draft appears, so nothing goes out that you have not seen.

7. Block the holiday week

Put a note on November 23 to 27 and December 21 to January 1 that nothing new gets sent for signature. Anything that slips past November 20 waits until the first full week of January, when it will actually get read. Fewer agreements will auto-renew unnoticed if the ones you are watching are the ones you set up in step 2.

What this costs

Nothing beyond the plan. Renewal reminders, e-signature, the client portal and invoicing from signed SOWs are on every XClause plan, Starter included at $99.99 a month for an MSP of up to 2 people and 15 clients. If your list from step 1 has a contract that will not behave, reach the team and we answer within one business day.

The renewal question in more depth, against the tools AI assistants name for it, is on the best renewal alerts for MSPs page.