For AI agents: a documentation index is available at https://docs.coverbase.com/llms.txt. This page is also available in markdown by appending .md to the URL.
This guide is part of the User Guides collection. It covers a contract from the first request to the filing of the signed copy. For the screens you work in afterwards, see the Contracts workspace guide. For the DocuSign connection itself, see the DocuSign integration guide.
Contracts that predate this flow are unaffected. Every historical and bulk-imported contract sits in Draft and stays there. Nothing about a draft implies it is unsigned. If you are migrating a back catalog, keep using bulk import; it does not route anything through approvals.
The four stages
1
Raise the request
From the vendor’s Contracts tab, click New Contract. Fill in what you know and attach the draft agreement.
2
Confirm the metadata
Coverbase reads the draft and fills in what it can. Open the contract’s Approval section and confirm the values are right. The request cannot proceed until somebody does.
3
Approve
The request enters the approval chain your organization configured. Each approver is emailed in turn and records a decision.
4
Send for signature
Once the chain clears, the contract’s Execution section offers Send to DocuSign. The signed copy comes back and is filed on the same contract.
Raising a request
Start from the vendor, not the contracts list. The vendor’s Contracts tab already knows which vendor you mean, and it shows what else you hold with them. That is usually what tells you whether this is a new agreement or an amendment. Click New Contract and fill in:
Attach the pre-execution draft on the same screen. You can attach more documents later from the contract’s Documents section.
Starting a draft nobody is told about
Most requests are raised from a document you already have in front of you, and you can fill the record in one sitting. Some are not. When you are raising the record before the terms are settled, tick Hold for intake review on the create form.
A held contract. It cannot enter approval routing until someone releases it.
- No approver is emailed. Approval routing is what puts this record in front of other people, and it cannot start.
- It cannot be submitted for approval. The attempt is refused, not merely hidden, so the hold cannot be worked around by a direct link.
- You can still edit everything. That is the point: finish entering the terms, attach the draft, fix the dates.
Releasing says the record is ready to read, not that it is approved. It is a separate statement from confirming the metadata, which still happens afterwards. Any colleague who can edit contracts can release the hold, so a request does not stall when the person who raised it is away.
Confirming the metadata
Coverbase analyzes the attached draft and fills in the values it can read: dates, amounts, notice periods, term length. Scanned PDFs are put through OCR first, so a photographed signature page is read the same as a native one. Everything the AI writes is a draft value. It is never treated as confirmed, and a contract whose values nobody has confirmed cannot be submitted for approval. Open the contract and go to its Approval section. The Metadata sign-off card shows:- Which required values are still empty. The card lists them by name, and submission stays blocked until each has a value.
- Whether anybody has confirmed the set, and who.
The metadata sign-off card. The required values still empty are listed by name, and submission stays blocked until each has one.
Where a value came from
Each field records whether it was entered by a person or suggested by the AI. The contract’s Properties section shows the source per field. A reviewer can see which numbers a person typed and which came off the paper.The approval chain
Setting up policies
Approval policies live under Settings → Organization → Contract Approvals. Reading them needs permission to read organization settings, and editing them needs permission to change organization settings. Being able to read contracts is not enough for either: the list names every approver and every value threshold in your organization, and it is not tied to any one contract. Until there is at least one policy, the page says so, and every contract submitted for approval is approved on the spot with no approver.
A brand-new organization. Nothing routes contracts yet, so the page says what that means.
The policy editor. Two rungs: the business owner, then the security group.
Two configured policies. The default covers everything; the second only covers high-value master agreements and sends automatically.
Editing a policy does not change an approval already running. A contract copies each step’s name and approver when it is submitted. Changing the policy afterwards does not change a decision already recorded.
How a chain is chosen
Your organization configures approval policies. Each policy has conditions and an ordered list of steps. When you submit, Coverbase picks the policy that fits, most specific first: a policy naming your contract’s type beats one that names none, and among equals the higher value floor wins. Default breaks whatever tie is left. You cannot choose the policy yourself. Submission takes no arguments, and the conditions above are the only thing that decides. Otherwise a requester could pick the shortest chain.How steps work
Each step names who decides:- A named person. That user, and nobody else.
- A user group. Any active member of the group may decide, and Coverbase records which one did.
- The contract owner or the vendor owner. Resolved when you submit, from whoever holds that role at that moment.
Every policy needs at least one step. A policy that matches contracts and then approves all of them has the same effect as no policy, while looking in settings like routing is configured. The editor will not save one.A step that resolves to nobody refuses the whole submission. Coverbase does not skip the step and run the rest, because a chain missing a rung still reports itself as approved. Two ways a step reaches nobody:
- The policy asks for the contract owner or the vendor owner, and there is none.
- The policy names a user group that has no active members. An empty group would open a step that nobody can approve and that sends no mail, leaving the request stuck until somebody withdrew it.
Submitting
From the Approval section, click Submit for approval. The button appears only when the metadata is confirmed and no required value is empty. Coverbase emails the approvers on the first step. Later steps are emailed as the chain reaches them, so nobody is asked before it is their turn.Deciding
An approver opens the contract’s Approval section and sees Approve and Reject on the step waiting on them. The buttons appear only for the person being asked, so an approver who is not on this step sees the chain but no controls.Approving does not require permission to edit the contract. An approver is frequently somebody who would never otherwise edit a contract record, such as a finance reviewer signing off on spend. Being named on the step is what authorizes the decision.
An approval chain mid-flight. Legal has cleared, the CFO is being asked, and the decide buttons appear only on the step waiting on the reader.
Withdrawing
The requester can click Withdraw while a request is in approval. The open steps are canceled and the contract returns to draft.Who gets emailed
Date-based reminders, such as an approaching expiry or notice deadline, are configured separately. See Contract dates and reminders.
Sending for signature
Once the chain clears, the contract’s Execution section offers Send to DocuSign. Before then the button is disabled and the section says why. You need a connected DocuSign account. See connecting DocuSign if you have not done that. On Send to DocuSign you choose:- The document to send. Only a document already attached to this contract can be sent. This is the approved draft, not a fresh upload.
- Recipients, each with a name, an email, a role, and an order.
- Subject and message for the DocuSign email.
The send dialog. Until you connect a DocuSign account the primary action is Connect DocuSign rather than Send.
Order controls routing. Recipients sharing an order are asked together. Increasing orders are asked one after another, which is how you route the counterparty first and your own signatory second.
Sending automatically
A policy with Send for signature on approval sends the agreement as soon as its last approver signs off, with nobody at a screen. Coverbase needs to know who signs before the approval finishes. While the contract is still moving through its chain, Execution → Set up automatic send asks the same questions the Send dialog asks: which document, who signs, in what order, and who is copied.
The automatic send editor. Same questions as the manual send, asked while there is still somebody to answer them.
The contract is still in approval, and this is what will go out when it clears.
Whoever last saved the plan is who it is sent as. Anybody who can edit the contract can change the recipient list, and doing so also moves the send to their own Docusign account. Nobody can send an agreement under somebody else’s name.
A send that does not go out never undoes an approval. If DocuSign is unreachable, or the plan author’s connection has lapsed, the contract stays approved and the plan stays on it. The Execution section says the automatic send did not go out, and Send to DocuSign remains available to send it by hand. The one exception is a send that got as far as DocuSign and lost its answer, covered under When a send loses its answer.
Approved, with a plan and nothing out. The automatic send did not run, and the manual one is still available.
Tracking the envelope
The Execution section shows every DocuSign envelope raised on this contract, each recipient’s state, and when the status was last read from DocuSign.
Every ending but Completed returns the contract to approved. It is ready to send again without anybody editing a record by hand.
An envelope out for signature. Each party carries its own state, and the order column shows who is asked when.
When a send loses its answer
Very occasionally a send reaches DocuSign and the reply never comes back. Coverbase cannot tell that apart from DocuSign refusing the send outright, so it assumes the riskier of the two: the envelope may be out there with your signers. The contract is held as sent for signature, the envelope shows as failed, and the Execution section explains what happened instead of offering Sync status, which has nothing to ask about.
A send Docusign never confirmed. Abandon send replaces Sync status, because there is nothing to sync.
1
Nothing is there
Choose Abandon send on the envelope. The contract returns to approved and can be sent again. The button appears once: an envelope that has already been abandoned shows no action, so a second click cannot free a contract whose retry is out with its signers.
2
The envelope is there
Leave it. It is a real envelope and it will report its own status. If you do not want it signed, void it in DocuSign and choose Sync status so Coverbase picks the void up, which returns the contract to approved.
The executed copy
When an envelope completes, Coverbase downloads the signed PDF and the DocuSign certificate of completion and attaches both to the contract. The unsigned draft is kept rather than replaced. The record still shows what was sent out.
A completed envelope whose returned paper does not match the approved draft. The contract's metadata is held rather than overwritten.
The vendor’s contract overview
The vendor’s Contracts tab shows every contract you hold with that vendor in one list, with the title, type, status, value, dates, renewal, notice deadline, owner, and the parent agreement. Above the list:- Committed value across active contracts. Contracts that bill on usage are counted at their committed floor and reported separately, because a usage forecast added to signed commitments would give a total that is part estimate.
- Needs attention. Contracts with a notice deadline or expiry inside the next ninety days, soonest first, plus any whose required details are still incomplete. An overdue notice deadline is shown in red and stays in the list.
The needs-attention panel on a vendor's Contracts tab. Overdue in red, approaching in amber, incomplete details in gray.
Related
DocuSign integration
Connecting your account, anchor tags, and what lives in your DocuSign tenant.
Contracts workspace
The list page and the contract record you work in afterwards.
Contract dates and reminders
Notice windows, renewal deadlines, and who gets reminded.
Reviews and approvals
How approvals work elsewhere in Coverbase.