3 Alternatives to Google Sheets for Managing SaaS Contracts & Renewals

Tracking hundreds of SaaS contracts in Google Sheets falls apart as a company scales. Finance scrambles over renewal dates, notice periods, and shifting license counts while the spreadsheet sits unchanged until an auto-renew email arrives. At the same time IT hunts for SOC 2 evidence, legal digs through email threads for the final redline; late fees or surprise shelfware soon appear.

New tools on the market finally make the jump from spreadsheets far less painful. Full-scale SaaS management platforms pull in contracts and spend feeds automatically, while Notion adds context with its templated databases if you invest some setup time, and Airtable or a lightweight CLM land somewhere between the two. Each choice brings a different mix of renewal tracking, cost visibility, and workflow burden.

Compare automation depth, data freshness, and ongoing admin work, then pick the upgrade that lets you archive that fragile sheet.

Table of Contents

• Purpose-Built SaaS Management Platforms
• Notion
• Airtable or Lightweight CLM
• Conclusion
• Audit your company's SaaS usage today

Purpose-Built SaaS Management Platforms

Google Sheets buckles quickly when your SaaS stack tops a dozen line items. Tools built for the job like Vendr, Zylo, and Tropic turn every contract PDF or API feed into live data within minutes. A single upload gives everyone the same renewal calendar and notice clock, so no one is hunting through tabs the night before a price hike hits.

A quick integration pulls finance feeds, SSO activity, and vendor benchmarks into one view that exposes spend patterns.

• Total contract value rolls up by department, region, or owner.
• Cost per active user updates nightly from identity data.
• Shelfware flags appear when seats remain untouched for 30 days.
• Benchmark gaps highlight where you pay above peer averages.
• Auto-renew timers count down based on notice clauses.

The dashboard shifts the conversation from hunting for a contract to discussing the risks and savings, cutting review time in half.

Security reviews, redlines, and budget checks stop bouncing across email threads because each task now routes to the right owner inside the platform. IT receives the security questionnaire, legal gets a redline package, and finance approves dollars, with every step tagged by an SLA timer and an audit trail that satisfies internal controls. If someone stalls, the system nudges Slack, email, or its own inbox until the work moves, trimming last-minute renewal chaos.

Forrester estimates nearly 30 percent of SaaS spend is wasted when renewals sit in manual trackers, so closing that gap pays off. CFOs pull automated reports straight into board decks, and compliance teams export SOC 2 evidence without pleading for screenshots. After the initial integrations are live, maintenance drops to almost zero because contracts, usage, and spend refresh automatically. The outcome is predictable renewals, cleaner books, and weekends free from spreadsheet triage.

Notion

Notion turns a simple contract list into a flexible database that anyone can update. Contract PDFs drop straight into a row, and an “Owner” property shows IT, finance, or legal which team must act before renewal talks start. After adding fields for notice period, renewal term, and vendor rep, users switch between gallery, kanban, or calendar views to match how each group skims dates and tasks.

Template packs in the Notion community shave hours off setup. Search “SaaS tracker” and you’ll see ready-made properties for annual spend, security posture, and approval status. The relational database links that contract table to a vendor master, so changing a supplier’s address once updates every record. That keeps context tight, yet the numbers still have to be pasted or piped in from a spreadsheet or a card statement. Even with a formula rolling up total spend, stale inputs can hide a budget overrun until quarter close.

• Drag-and-drop file upload keeps every MSA or DPA one click from the renewal row.
• Custom views let finance sort by “contracts > $50K,” while legal filters on “needs DPA.”
• Built-in comment threads replace Slack back-and-forth about who owns the next redline.
• Reminders fire natively or through Zapier to ping a channel 30 days before notice.
• Granular permissions lock the table so only procurement can edit spend fields.

Version history stamps each edit with a date and time, handy when auditors ask who touched a price-cap clause. Workspaces export to CSV or Markdown in seconds, giving lawyers a portable archive when a deal closes or litigation looms. Still, the same human-friendly editing that makes Notion popular also limits it: the platform only knows what people remember to feed it.

Airtable or Lightweight CLM

Airtable turns a plain grid into a contract tracker you can filter. Building a “Renewals” base starts with naming fields for vendor, term, and notice period, then linking records to a shared vendor list so finance, legal, and IT pull from the same source of truth.

Relational links and formula fields handle the hard work once the base exists. A single date formula can flag anything expiring in 60 days, while Interface Designer turns that logic into a clean dashboard for team members who never touch raw rows. To keep everyone aligned, drop-down enums and conditional color coding surface high-risk clauses without digging through PDFs.

• Status: active, pending signature, negotiating
• Notice period: 30, 60, 90, or custom days
• Renewal type: auto, opt-in, evergreen
• Key files: MSA, DPA, order forms
• Owner: finance, legal, IT, vendor champion

Lightweight CLMs like Contractbook layer in native e-signature, clause libraries, and approval flows that post updates to Slack. Airtable offers similar reach through its Marketplace apps; a “Run query” button can ping OpenAI for clause summaries, and a certified partner block fires renewal reminders through Outlook. Still, every shortcut depends on the fields staying current.

Spend tracking often reveals manual gaps faster than any other process. Because card charges and ERP bills don’t sync by default, someone must copy monthly totals into the “Actual Spend” column. If that step slides, dashboards stall and teams lose sight of true cost per user. Gartner reports that 88 percent of spreadsheets contain errors, and contract bases are no exception.

Pricing lands somewhere between a spreadsheet and a heavyweight procurement suite. Airtable’s Enterprise tier runs about $15–$20 per seat, and CLM vendors charge by document volume or user roles. The pricing beats a full-blown SAP Ariba rollout, yet the hours spent chasing clean data add up quickly. Before swapping out Google Sheets, map every field that will need a human touch; that exercise often decides whether a flexible base becomes a trusted system or another forgotten tab.

Conclusion

Static spreadsheets can’t keep pace with fast-moving subscriptions and renewals today. Modern SaaS management platforms collect usage data automatically, tie each contract to its renewal date, and ping the right people, so finance and IT review the same numbers without digging through columns. Tools like Notion or Airtable improve visibility, yet someone still has to type figures and remember dates.

When you crunch the math, cost, setup work, and audit anxiety make the choice obvious. The trade-off is simple: automate once with a purpose-built platform or brace for a manual scramble every quarter. A platform that quietly gathers data, schedules renewals, and nudges stakeholders removes that chaos without extra upkeep.

Audit your company’s SaaS usage today

If you’re interested in learning more about SaaS Management, let us know. Torii’s SaaS Management Platform can help you:

• Find hidden apps: Use AI to scan your entire company for unauthorized apps. Happens in real-time and is constantly running in the background.
• Cut costs: Save money by removing unused licenses and duplicate tools.
• Implement IT automation: Automate your IT tasks to save time and reduce errors - like offboarding and onboarding automation.
• Get contract renewal alerts: Ensure you don’t miss important contract renewals.

Torii is the industry’s first all-in-one SaaS Management Platform, providing a single source of truth across Finance, IT, and Security.

Learn more by visiting Torii.