00 · Getting started & orientation
This chapter gets you signed in and oriented: how to log in securely, how the app is laid out, and the handful of screens you will return to every day. If you read only one chapter first, read this one.
What Vera AI is for. Vera AI, by VendorBenchmark, helps you buy software at the right price: upload vendor proposals for expert benchmarking, run instant price checks, track your agreements and renewals, and work negotiations to a close. Everything else in this manual is a specific way of doing one of those four things.
Creating your account
Two doors into the platform, both free to start, and both reviewed by our team. Access is always granted by a person, never automatically: whichever door you use, an analyst approves the request and sets up your workspace, usually within 1 business day.
Quick request (self-serve form). On /get-started, enter your name, corporate email, and organization, and tick the Terms of Service. That files a request for review; we email you a confirmation right away, and your sign-in link and temporary password follow once an analyst approves it (usually within 1 business day). A free 30 day trial with the sample portfolio loaded is waiting when you sign in.
Guided request. Prefer to add context, or want a specific plan? Request access on /request-access and a named analyst reviews the request and sets the workspace up for you within 1 business day. It is the same review, with room for a note.
While your request is reviewed. After you confirm your email, the waiting screen says plainly that your workspace is being prepared, and it is not a locked door. One click on Explore the live demo drops you into a working demo workspace immediately: delivered benchmark reports, renewals on the clock, and the AI analyst, all on a seeded sample portfolio. The demo is shared with other visitors and nothing you do in it is saved: the session runs for 30 minutes, a countdown at the bottom of the screen shows how long is left, and at the end you are signed out and the whole demo workspace is deleted and rebuilt from scratch for the next visitor. Click anything, and keep your own contracts out of it. Your approval continues unchanged in the background: when the invitation email arrives (typically within 1 business day), sign back in with your own credentials and your real workspace opens. The waiting screen also shows the dossier our analysts are preparing from your request, a get-ready checklist, and a preview of the benchmark catalog waiting inside.
Tips
- If your company already runs Vera AI and has domain capture on, either door routes you to your team's workspace admin instead of creating a second workspace.
- Personal email domains (Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo, and the like) are not accepted; use your work address. Corporate domains of the software vendors and resellers we benchmark are declined too: the platform is licensed to software buyers only (Terms of Service, Section 2).
- Every signup includes ticking agreement to the Terms of Service: the platform is licensed to software buyers only, you register with your real identity and corporate email, and benchmark data and playbooks are confidential to your organization. Teammates tick the same box when they accept an invite or finish account setup, and accounts created before the Terms shipped are asked once at their next sign-in.
Signing in
You sign in with your work email. The screen asks for your email first, then for the credential your account uses:
How to use it
- Go to the sign-in page and enter your work email, then choose Continue.
- If two-factor authentication is on for your account, you are asked for the six-digit code from your authenticator app; that code is your sign-in, no password step. Otherwise, type your password, or choose Email me a link to get a one-time magic link instead.
- Remember this device for 30 days is ticked by default: this device stays signed in for up to 30 days. Untick it on a shared or borrowed machine and your session ends as soon as the browser closes.
Tips
- Invited by a teammate? Your invite email links to
/signup, where you set your name and password once, then land in your organization already set up. - Forgot your password? Use Reset password on the sign-in page; you will get a link to set a new one.
- Lost your authenticator? Choose Email me a link, sign in with the link, and use one of your recovery codes at the two-factor prompt.
Two-factor authentication
Two-factor authentication registers a rotating six-digit code from an authenticator app (Google Authenticator, 1Password, Authy, and the like) against your account. Once it is on, the sign-in page asks for that code in place of your password, and sign-ins that arrive another way (a magic link, single sign-on) are asked for the code at the /mfa challenge before the workspace opens. This protects your account even if your email inbox or password leaks. You turn it on and register your device in Settings › Security.
The app shell
Every screen shares the same frame: a dark navigation rail on the left, a white utility bar across the top, and your content in the middle. One behavior rides every screen: any chart, and in the playbooks any card of text, enlarges on click into a near full screen reading view, with hover tooltips giving the exact figure under the pointer (see the note in Tooling for the details).
The left rail
The rail is your main map of the product. It groups destinations by the job you are doing:
- Contracts & documents — the paper itself: proposals, agreements, clauses, and document search.
- Renewals & deals — the deal calendar: renewals, negotiations, the rider, and the watchdogs.
- Benchmarks & market — price checks, delivered reports, research, and the buyer community.
- Spend & savings — the money: portfolio analytics, spend, invoices, opportunities, and savings proof.
- Tooling — upload-driven optimizers and the vendor playbooks.
- Team & AI — tasks, approvals, and Vera, the AI analyst.
On the screen
- Recent — a section at the top of the rail listing the last four screens you visited, so the pages you actually use stay one click away in either rail mode.
- Used often — under Recent, the pages you open most over the past month, marked "pinned by usage", once you have built a real habit. It never crowds out the fixed navigation.
- Your views — the saved list filters you return to, each with a live count. Owners can share a view with the whole organization; a shared view carries a Shared marker, is pinned in everyone's Your views rail, and stays owner-managed, so a teammate cannot rename, unshare, or delete it.
- Group headers — click one to fold or unfold it. Your folds are remembered per device. Until you fold something yourself, your workspace preset (or the role you picked in the getting-started course) decides which groups start open.
- Core vs full rail — by default the rail shows the 15 core destinations, every group keeping its flagships. The rest live in the More catalog and the command palette, so the rail stays short. You can switch to the full rail from the control at the foot of the rail; your workspace preset sets the starting tier until you choose. Throughout this manual, a section whose destination sits outside the core rail carries a "via More or Ctrl/⌘ K" marker on its Where line, so you know not to hunt for it in the short rail.
- "N more" rows (full rail) — even the full rail no longer lists everything at once. Each group leads with the destinations a buying team uses weekly, about 30 across the rail, and folds its long tail behind a quiet N more row at the foot of the group. One press opens that group's tail, the choice is remembered per group, and the page you are on always stays visible even when it lives in the tail. Hover the row to see exactly which pages it holds.
- Workspace summary (foot of rail) — your organization and your role are always shown here, so you know which tenant you are in. Your workspace preset appears underneath with a Change link back to the picker.
- Collapse button — narrows the rail to icons only when you want more room.
- On the phone — the menu button opens the same rail as a drawer. Groups collapse and expand there exactly like on the desktop, share the same remembered folds, and honor the same N more rows, so the drawer opens short instead of scrolling through the whole catalog.
The top bar
The bar keeps to a handful of controls; everything less frequent lives in your account menu.
On the screen
- Breadcrumb — shows where you are (Vera AI › current view).
- Apps and Dashboard switch — the mode switch between your two homes: Apps opens the launcher, Dashboard opens the launcher with the feed beneath it, and the active mode is highlighted. It rides every screen, so either home is always one press away.
- Add to apps — on any feature page, this button adds the page to your launcher grid, so the app you use every week sits with the rest of them. To keep an app at the very front, press the star on its tile and it moves into Favourites.
- Jump to… (Ctrl/⌘ K) — the command palette. Start typing any page, tool, or vendor and jump straight to it, and now run actions from the same box too: new proposal, start a benchmark, generate a negotiation brief, start a playbook, or ask Vera, each one keystroke away. This is the fastest way to move around; you rarely need to hunt in the rail.
- Keyboard grammar — press g then a letter to jump without the palette: g d dashboard, g r renewals, g c proposals, g p portfolio, g s spend, g t tooling, g w watch, g b benchmarking. Press ? anywhere for the shortcuts overlay with every jump grouped.
- The Vera cluster (Ctrl/⌘ J) — one control with two modes: the text chip opens Vera, the AI analyst, over whatever you are looking at, and the voice segment beside it starts a spoken conversation. See Vera AI.
- The inbox — the bell opens one triage inbox folding notifications, watchtower changes, and money-critical signals into a single list, with a needs-decision filter and per-signal mute. Money items are flagged calmly, never alarmist. Team chat lives here too: the bell's badge counts unread chat along with everything else, and a pinned Team chat row at the top of the panel opens the full chat screen.
- New menu — the one place to start something: upload a proposal, add an agreement, and the other create actions.
- Refer & earn — the gold pill beside the bells. Like the platform? Invite a colleague from here: the dialog shows your personal referral code, sends up to five personal invites, and links to the Referrals page where you track who signed up and what you have earned (10% of what a referred company spends for their first 12 months).
- Light and dark switch — the moon (or sun) button beside your account chip flips the whole workspace between light and dark, on every screen, revealed as a circle of the new theme growing out from the button. The choice is your account's appearance setting: it follows you across devices and applies before first paint on your next sign-in. The three-way picker, including the System option that follows your operating system, lives in the account menu under Theme.
- Org chip and account chip — switch organization (if you belong to more than one) and open your account menu. The account menu also carries What's new, Session activity, and the help and feedback actions (Platform introduction, Refer & earn, Report a bug, Suggest a feature), each keeping its unread dot, so the bar itself stays calm.
Help and feedback (in the account menu)
- Platform introduction — reopens the short picture book of the desk (see The platform introduction) any time, it is a good way to show a new colleague around.
- Report a bug — pick how badly it hurts (blocking, annoying, or minor), describe what happened and what you expected, and send. The page you were on, your browser, viewport, and timezone are attached automatically and shown to you before sending, so nothing is captured invisibly. You get a reference code to quote in follow-ups; bugs are typically fixed within 24 hours.
- Suggest a feature — tell the product team what to build: the area it belongs to, the idea, the problem it solves, and how much it would matter to your work. Every suggestion is read, and shipped ideas are announced in What's new.
The screens you will use most
The platform introduction
A six page picture book of the desk, written for the moment it is offered: after your first verdict, not before it. It never blocks a sign-in. Your first result comes first, and the introduction waits as a link on Home until you take it or dismiss it.
The six pages
| # | Page | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Welcome | The cover, over a slow moving photographic reel |
| 2 | One desk, not one tool | What the whole desk is, with the live count of benchmark datasets your price is measured against and the number of apps reading your data |
| 3 | What the desk does with a document | Two real screens side by side, the Verdict Bar and the renewal calendar |
| 4 | Vera remembers everything | Who Vera is, what she keeps, and the Ctrl/⌘ J shortcut |
| 5 | Security is the first feature | The six controls that seal your data to your organization |
| 6 | Three doors worth opening first | The recap, then three next moves you can press |
On the screen
- Chapter rail (left) — the pages grouped by chapter. Click any page to jump; pages you have read carry a check.
- The page — the explanation on the left, and beside it either a screenshot in a browser frame, live stat tiles, or the security grid. Click any screenshot (or its Enlarge control) to view it near full screen; Escape or a click returns to the page.
- Progress bar and pager — the footer tracks where you are; Back and Next turn the pages, and the arrow keys do the same.
- Skip for now — a permanent answer: skip once and the introduction is never offered again. It stays one click away in your account menu.
- The three doors — on the last page, Load your agreements, Ask Vera something hard, and See the renewal calendar. Pressing one records the introduction exactly as the checkbox asks and takes you to that screen.
- Do not offer this again — the checkbox on the last page, ticked by default. Leave it ticked and the offer never appears again, whether you leave by a door or by Enter your workspace; untick it and Home keeps offering the introduction on a later sign-in.
How to use it
- Turn the pages with Next or the right arrow key; jump around from the chapter rail if you prefer.
- On page 3, press Enlarge on either screen to read it properly before you go there yourself.
- On the last page, decide whether Home should keep offering it, then either press one of the three doors or Enter your workspace.
- To revisit it later, open your account menu (top right) and choose Platform introduction.
Tips
- The introduction is a picture book, not a lecture: every claim on every page is something you can click into minutes later.
- The screenshots inside it are the same captures used throughout this manual, so what you see in the book is what the product actually looks like today.
The desk survey
Six quick questions that arrange your desk around your work. The survey never blocks a sign-in: it is offered once your first result is on the table (on the first verdict summary and as a link on Home) and waits until you take it. Answer once and it never repeats unless you retake it.
On the screen
- Step 1, the six questions — mark everything that applies: benchmarking, contract terms review, which vendors you are interested in (tap the chips, or type any vendor and press Add), IT cost optimization, cloud optimization, and optimization tools. The vendors you pick go on watch: they light up on your desk with live benchmark coverage and their fiscal calendars feed your alerts.
- Step 2, the three views — three previews of your navigation rail, each built live from your own answers (gold sections are the ones you lit up). Pick how the desk should treat everything else:
- Focused desk — hides what is not relevant; one press on Show all sections in the rail brings everything back.
- Relevant first — your sections lead the rail, open; the rest stays visible but folded.
- The full desk — every section open from the start; you fold what you do not need.
How to use it
- Mark your interests and vendors, then press Continue.
- Compare the three previews, press the one you want, then Continue to your workspace.
Tips
- Nothing is ever locked away: whichever view you choose, the command palette (Ctrl/⌘ K) and the More catalog always search the whole platform.
- Change your mind later from Getting started, Retake the desk survey, or just use the rail's own Show all sections.
Your home screen
Your front door since July 2026: a two panel home built around picking up where you stopped. The left panel is a navy briefing where Vera opens with what you were doing last time, one press continues it; the right panel is every app on the platform as a calm catalog, grouped by job. A brand-new account is first walked through its first verdict (see Your first verdict); after that, every sign-in opens here. The classic home this screen replaced as the landing stays one press away, rebuilt as a daily report on your estate (see The classic home screen). Choosing the dashboard as your sign-in home changes where you land, nothing else: the Apps button stays in the top bar of every screen, so this home and app mode are always one press away whichever home you picked.
On the screen
- Vera · welcome back — the letter under the gold orb says what you were last doing, in her words: the question you asked, the paper you were reading, the benchmark or decode you ran, or the contract you were working, with when. The gold button beneath continues it in one press. Nothing fresh in the last 14 days? She suggests one corner of the platform you have not tried instead, and a brand-new desk simply gets its doors.
- Your last actions — your 20 most recent runs across the platform, newest first and scrollable: every contract, SOW, and MSA decode, every Verdict Bar run, and every benchmark tool you worked in. A decode or verdict row reopens the exact saved run; a benchmark row reopens its tool. The list is yours alone and scoped to the workspace you are in. Until you have run something it shows your last four apps instead, a device-local trail that never shows a made-up suggestion.
- Saved & shared — your newest bookmarked papers and reports with a Browse all link to the full Saved page. Press the bookmark on any paper or report anywhere on the platform and it lands here.
- Workspace pulse — three live numbers at the panel's foot: contracts on file, renewals closing inside 90 days (it turns warm when something is on the clock), and unread alerts. Each is a link straight to its page.
- The catalog (right) — every app as a row: icon, name, one line of what it does, grouped under Start with a result, Negotiate, Watch the market, and Operate. The gold icons are the AI flagship doors. Typing in the search field filters the catalog live; renewals carry a live count.
- Edit apps — remove any door, add removed ones back from the Removed shelf, or press Restore default to bring the original set back. This is the same customization the classic home screen honors, and every tool's own Add to apps button in the top bar feeds the same list; pages you add that way appear under Your additions.
- Light and dark switch (bottom left) — the sun and moon capsule flips your whole account theme, the same setting as the account menu's Theme control.
- Classic home screen · Dashboard — the panel's footer links: the springboard home, and the full command view.
How to use it
- Read Vera's line. If it names the thing you came back to do, the gold button is your fastest path.
- Otherwise press a recent app, a saved item, or search the catalog and press the door.
- Shape it once: Edit apps, remove what you never use, Done. Restore default undoes everything.
Tips
- Apps open in app mode: the tool owns the screen under the navy app band, the same dress as this screen's briefing panel; press Apps or Back to apps in that band to come back here.
- Apps opened this way lead with their work, not their title: the search bar, the dropper, the ops floor, or the booking desk sits at the top, and the page title and explainers follow below it. Navigation stays put, so any tab bar a page carries is still at the top. Opened from the dashboard instead, every page keeps its familiar title-first layout.
- Rooms have links. When a tool opens a full screen room (a case file, a theatre, a workroom, the sourcing control room) the address bar carries it, so you can bookmark it or send it and the person who opens it lands in the same room, on the same document. Closing a room clears it from the address, so coming back later lands you on the page rather than reopening what you dismissed. A link to a room with nothing in it yet lands on the tool instead.
- The pulse numbers are links: a warm renewals count is usually your first stop.
The classic home screen (the Estate Report)
The screen that was the sign-in landing before July 2026, kept one press away and rebuilt in July 2026 as a daily report on your estate. Signing in now opens Your home screen, and the New home screen link in the masthead leads back there.
It reads like a report because that is what it is. The wire leads it, since the market is the only part of this screen that changed since yesterday: the lead signal gets a headline and Vera's read of it. Your workspace figures sit beneath. Every one of your apps runs down the right hand side as a directory, so nothing is hidden below the fold and any tool is one press away. Use an app, press Home in the rail (or the brand mark in the corner), and you are back here.
On the screen
- Masthead — Vera AI over Estate Report, then your organization, today's date, and who the report is prepared for. It stays put while you read: on a desktop screen the masthead never scrolls away, so the way through to your dashboard is always in the same place.
- The lead signal — the most significant thing on the wire today, with its headline, Vera's read of what it means for you, and a byline naming the category, the vendor, when it was filed, and how many of today's signals touch a vendor you actually hold. Press the headline to open it in the Wire.
- Key figures — four live numbers in a ruled band: contracts on file, renewals closing inside 90 days, unread alerts, and the number of tools on your desk. Each is a link straight to its page; the renewals figure turns gold when something is on the clock.
- Signals against your vendors — the rest of today's wire under the figures, each named by vendor with its category, the time it was filed, a Caution or Risk tag where one applies, and a Touches you marker on the ones that concern a vendor in your estate. Open the Wire leads to the full feed.
- The directory (right) — every app on your home screen as a ruled list, grouped under Your apps, each with what it does and a live count where one applies (Renewal calendar carries what is closing in). Every door opens in app mode: the navigation rail disappears and the tool owns the screen, with Back to apps on the left and the app's name as a gold label. The tool keeps your appearance setting, light stays light and dark stays dark. Hover any entry (or tab to it) and a small card tells you when to use that app.
- Run the introduction — the cream strip at the top of the directory starts First Light, the guided walkthrough that builds the desk around you. It is a first-days affordance, not furniture: it retires on its own once you run the introduction, or 30 days after your workspace opens, whichever comes first. Hover it and it says exactly that.
- Light and dark switch (masthead) — the sun and moon capsule flips the whole workspace between light and dark, revealed as a circle of the new theme growing out from the switch. The choice is your account's appearance setting: every app follows it, it travels across devices, and it applies before first paint on your next sign-in. The same setting lives in the account menu under Theme, alongside the System option that follows your operating system.
- Dashboard link (masthead) — a standing shortcut to the full command view.
- Edit this screen — compose the directory itself: press an app to remove it, press Add apps to put any tool or page on the platform here (searchable), and Restore defaults brings the original set back. Every tool also carries an Add to apps button in its top bar.
- Choose dashboard apps — flip the directory into a picker, highlight the apps you want, and your dashboard carries exactly that clean set as a Your apps band. No customization means all of them; a Change link on the dashboard band leads back here.
- Apps and Dashboard switch (top bar) — every screen carries the mode switch in the top bar: Apps opens this screen, Dashboard opens the full command view, and the active mode is highlighted. Either one can be your sign-in home.
- What about security? — a control at the foot of the directory that opens the security answers in a popup right here: tenant isolation, file handling, the AI data flow, deletion, sign-in security, and SOC 2 status, taken word for word from the full security FAQ. A button inside opens all 60 answers in a new tab, so you never lose your place.
- The two minute tour — a quiet line under the report opens the desk as a short staged show in a centered dialog: thirteen stops over labeled sample figures showing how a contract becomes a verdict, the benchmark opening as a case file in the workroom, two order forms on one stage with AI redlines at the exact clause, the negotiation playbook, a cited answer typed live by Vera, the renewal radar counting down to each notice deadline, a worked case the desk runs end to end, the standing agent roster coming on duty, an interactive reel of the toolkit's headline screens with real product captures, the executive brief that leaves the building, and the ground rules that keep your data yours. A large Next button names the next stop, Skip tour sits top right, the progress rail up top jumps anywhere, arrow keys move between stops, Escape leaves at any point, and the final stop opens your dashboard.
- Optional follow-ups — until taken or dismissed, this screen offers the platform introduction and the desk survey as quiet links under the report. Links, never gates: they wait as long as you like.
- Footer choice — "Prefer the dashboard? Make it your sign-in home" turns this screen off as your landing: from then on, sign-ins go straight to the dashboard. If you have already done that, the same footer offers to make this screen your home again.
- One-time asks — the screen asks two questions, once each and never together: where money-critical alerts should reach you, and whether you want the weekly briefings by email (price list updates per vendor, vendor licensing news, the knowledge summary). Both are strictly opt-in, both stay adjustable in Settings › Notifications, and every briefing email carries a one-click unsubscribe.
- On a narrow screen — below a laptop width the report becomes a single column: masthead, the lead signal and figures, then the directory underneath as a grid. Nothing is dropped.
How to use it
- Read the lead signal and the byline. If it says signals touch your estate, that is usually your first stop.
- Check the figures: a gold renewals number means something is on the clock.
- Press the app you came to use in the directory. When you are done, press Home in the rail to come back.
- Want the full picture instead? The dashboard is in the masthead, or g d on the keyboard.
Tips
- Your very first visit looks different: before your first result, this screen is a springboard rather than a report, and the door you choose there also arranges your workspace. Once you have a first win it becomes the Estate Report described above.
- If you turn this screen off as your landing and miss it, the command palette (Ctrl/⌘ K) still finds "Home".
- Holding a document and want proof before you explore anything else? Your first verdict turns it into a defensible verdict and your first plan moves in four steps.
Your first verdict
One continuous flow from a fresh sign-in to a defensible verdict on your own document, in four visible steps: Upload, Decode, Benchmark, Plan. Under the hood it is a normal Verdict Bar run, so nothing about it is throwaway: the verdict it produces is a real one, saved with your other runs.
On the screen
- The step rail — Upload, Decode, Benchmark, and Plan across the top with a progress bar beneath. Each finished step collapses to its key result lines, so the story of your document builds as the run works.
- The dropper — drop a quote, contract, or invoice, or click to pick one. PDF or DOCX up to 30 MB, photos up to 3.5 MB. A document read as a contract saves to your workspace and joins your benchmarking queue; photos and invoice captures are read in memory and never stored.
- Or run it on a document you already have — if your organization already holds documents, the most recent ones are listed here so you can run the flow without uploading anything new.
- The kind chooser — if the run cannot tell what the document is, it stops and asks: a quote or priced offer, a contract or terms, or an invoice. Choosing costs nothing; the same file re-runs straight through the right engine.
- The summary card — once the fourth step lands: the one-line verdict, what grounded it, each step's key results, and the doors onward. Open the full verdict, benchmark the vendor, start the drafted renewal plan, or go to your desk.
- Skip to the dashboard — the top-right link out at any time; nothing here is mandatory.
How to use it
- Drop the document, or pick one from the list of documents you already have.
- Watch the steps land: Upload verifies the file and classifies it, Decode reads every clause, line, and figure, Benchmark places the deal against comparable ones and the peer corridor, and Plan drafts the first moves of your renewal plan from the matching playbook.
- If the run asks what the document is, pick the kind and it continues on the same file.
- From the summary card, open the full verdict for every figure, or follow one of the doors onward.
Tips
- A refresh mid-run resumes exactly where the run left off. The one exception: if the run stopped to ask what the document is and you reload before answering, drop the file once more, because the original never left your browser.
- Every run after your first lives in the Verdict Bar under Recent runs; this page is simply the guided first pass over the same machinery.
Related: Verdict Bar · Renewal playbook
The example report
A complete, illustrative benchmark report on a fictional Workday agreement, so you can see exactly what an analyst deliverable contains before you upload anything of your own. The Present button in its header plays the report screen by screen, from the masthead to the bottom line, which is the fastest way to show a colleague what a delivered report looks like; the show starts from the first screen on every open.
Related: Delivered reports · The benchmark report
Dashboard
Your home page, and two things only. The launcher fills the first screen: your greeting, Ask Vera, and every application one press away. One scroll down there is the feed, a single browsable stream of everything that changed in the last 30 days.
On the screen
- Your greeting — the hello on the launcher masthead, beside the Ask Vera kicker, with today's date on the right. It changes with the day and the hour.
- Ask Vera — the AI front door, directly under the greeting: ask a question about your portfolio, search every application by name, or attach a contract. Typing here also filters the application grid below, so the same field is both the question and the search.
- The applications — every app you have, grouped under gold section kickers, each as a labelled tile. A gold badge on a tile is a live count of things that need you (proposals in review, open tasks, renewals inside 90 days). Press the star at the corner of any tile to keep it under Favourites, and use the group pills across the masthead (Favourites, All, Contracts, Renewals, Benchmarks, Spend, Tools, Team) to narrow the grid. Arrow keys move through the tiles, Enter opens one.
- Your context — the rail on the right, in four tabs: Recent (the pages you last opened), Saved (research and reports you bookmarked), Wire (the newest market signals), and New (what shipped and what was published).
- The feed — one scroll down, the last 30 days in one stream: what we shipped, the research we published, and the licensing, pricing, and vendor news the market made. See below.
The feed
- Lenses — the filter row across the head: Everything, New in the product, Research, Licensing, Pricing, Vendor news. Each carries its own count for the window, so you can see what is in there before spending a click. A lens with nothing in it is not shown.
- Your vendors — a gold filter beside the lenses that narrows the feed to items touching a vendor you hold a contract with. It appears only when at least one item does.
- Filter the feed — free text search across every title, summary, and vendor in the window.
- The rows — grouped by day, newest first, each with its lens colour, the vendor, a Your estate flag where it applies, and the wire's verdict (Favorable, Caution, Risk) where the item carries one. Click any row to open it: the summary in full, the one line worth acting on (Vera's read on a market item, the "try it" on a new feature), the source where the item is a verified market signal, and a link to the item itself.
- Show more — the feed loads 25 rows at a time and tells you how many are left. At the foot, links to the complete record: every release note, the research library, and the full wire.
How to use it
- Start at the top: ask Vera a question, or press the application you came for.
- Star the four or five applications you open every day so Favourites becomes your working set.
- Scroll once to the feed and read it with the Your vendors filter on. That is the shortest version of "does anything this month affect my contracts".
- Switch to the New in the product lens when you want to catch up on what we shipped, and open a row for the one thing to try.
Tips
- The Apps and Dashboard switch in the top bar moves between this page and your home screen, either of which can be your sign-in landing.
- On a brand-new account, load sample data first so every screen has something to show while you explore. Remove it before you start entering real contracts.
Getting started (the course)
A guided tour matched to why you are here: benchmarking one contract, understanding a single contract, connecting your data sources, or running the full platform. Pick a path and tick steps off as you go; progress is saved to your account and syncs across your devices.
On the screen
- Your workspace (preset picker) — four arrangements of the same workspace: Renewal desk (one or two vendors, a renewal on the clock), Deal check (pressure-test a quote), Portfolio command (the whole estate), and Explore everything. Your pick decides which rail sections start open, whether the rail begins simple or full, which tools are pinned to your dashboard, and where the course begins. If you answered the goal question at signup, the matching preset carries a Suggested marker. A preset only changes emphasis: every feature stays available in search and the More catalog, and you can switch presets anytime here or from the foot of the rail.
- Four doors — benchmark one contract, understand a contract, connect your data, or run the full platform. Change paths anytime with Change path.
- Role and use-case questions — the full-platform path asks your role and what you want to get done, then builds a personal track from your answers.
- Progress path — the row of numbered dots shows your whole track: green dots are done, the blue one is your next step.
- Next up card — your single next step, promoted to the top with what you get out of it.
How to use it
- Check the Your desk card: if the rail does not fit how you work anymore, retake the desk survey from there.
- Pick the workspace preset that matches your situation; the sidebar and dashboard rearrange immediately.
- Pick the door that matches why you are here.
- Answer the role and use-case questions if prompted.
- Do the "Next up" step, then mark it done. Repeat down the track.
My work
Everything assigned to you personally: tasks, renewals you own, and approvals waiting on you. This is your answer to "what needs me?"
On the screen
- Queues — your open items grouped by type, so you can clear them in one sitting.
How to use it
- Open My work at the start of the day and clear each queue.
- For team-wide to-dos rather than just yours, see Tasks.
The More catalog
The full, searchable catalog of every tool and page, including everything the short rail hides. When you cannot remember where something lives, this is the place to browse or search.
How to use it
- Open More and search, or browse by group.
- Faster still: press Ctrl/⌘ K anywhere and type what you want.
Search (the card catalog)
Global search across everything the platform holds for your organization: proposals, vendors, agreements and renewals, benchmark metrics, contract clauses, tasks, and AI deliverables. The command palette answers "take me to a page"; this screen answers "find me a record".
On the screen
- The search toolbar — the field, and under it a line telling you how many cards were pulled from how many drawers. Before you type, Recently filed lists the records you last touched as chips, so the proposals you were working on are one click away rather than a blank box.
- Best match — when one record clearly answers the query, it floats above the rest with a one line, fully grounded verdict.
- Result drawers — matches grouped by type (Vendors, Proposals, Agreements & renewals, Benchmark metrics, Clauses, Tasks, AI deliverables), each row linking straight to the record. A spine rail on the left shows how many of each type matched before you scroll.
How to use it
- Press Ctrl/⌘ K, type your term, and choose the search row; or open the Instant search door on Home.
- Open the group that matches what you are hunting: a clause term lands in Clauses, a vendor name in Vendors and Proposals.
- Nothing filed under your term? Try a vendor name, a contract title, or a clause term like "auto renewal" or "liability".
Tips
- For full-text search inside the documents themselves, use Document search; this screen searches the records the platform keeps about them.
Related: Document search · The More catalog
Migration Studio
Migration Studio brings an entire contract estate onto the platform in one guided run. Use it once, at the start, when you have hundreds or thousands of agreements to bring across. For a handful of documents use Upload a proposal, and for a folder you want read and filed straight away use Your Archive.
The part worth understanding before you begin: everything a migration loads is held in staging. While the run is in progress it is invisible to the rest of the platform. No renewal alert fires, no digest counts it, and no agent reads it. Your estate becomes real only when you sign it off.
Every step opens in the same frame, so nothing moves under you between them: a masthead across the top carrying the run's live figures, a numbered rail beneath it running Scope, Survey, Transfer, Register, Sign off, and a column down the side holding your plan, the quality bar you are measured against, and where the documents currently sit. The rail marks the step you are in and walks back to any step you have finished.
The walkthrough below follows one migration from the first question to go live. Every screenshot is from a real run; click any of them in the online manual to enlarge.
Before you begin
- You need the owner role in your organization, because a run writes thousands of records. Ask an owner to start the migration; they can hand you the work afterwards.
- Migration Studio is switched on per organization. If the account menu does not show it, ask your VendorBenchmark contact to enable it.
- Gather two things: the top folder of your contract archive (the whole tree, subfolders and all), and your contract register if one exists (the master spreadsheet, CSV or XLSX). The register is optional; documents alone still produce a portfolio.
Step 1 · Answer the six scoping questions
Open Migration Studio from the account menu or Ctrl/⌘ K. The run starts with six questions about your estate: roughly how many agreements you hold, roughly what you spend a year, which vendors matter most, where the documents live today, who owns your contract register, and the date you need this useful by. Rough numbers are fine. They are what the run is reconciled against at the end, so an honest guess beats a blank.
Press Generate the plan. Nothing you load is visible anywhere else on the platform until you sign it off at the very end.
Step 2 · Read your plan and the quality bar
The plan is generated from your answers rather than fixed, so a 300 document estate does not get the same schedule as a 5,000 document one. Each phase carries a date range, counted in working days from today. Under it sits the quality bar: the completeness, exception rate, and spend variance this run will be measured against. Both are yours to challenge before anything moves, and both stay in the column beside you for the rest of the run rather than scrolling away.
Step 3 · Survey the folder, on your own machine
Press Choose your contract folder and select the top folder of your archive. Include everything; we filter. The survey runs entirely in your browser: no file leaves your machine, which is why you can run it as many times as you like. It reports the files found and their total size, how many we can read (PDF and DOCX), every file type we cannot read named rather than silently dropped, how many look like duplicates, how many are over the 40 MB limit, and the biggest folders. Folder names become the first guess at each contract's vendor, so an archive filed as vendor then year needs far less correcting later.
Step 4 · Start the transfer
Press Start the transfer. Files go straight from your machine to encrypted storage, six at a time, and the console keeps a live count: transferred, remaining, duplicates skipped, and anything that could not transfer, each with its reason. Pause and resume whenever you like, or close the tab entirely; the work list is held on our side. If you return in a new tab, press Re-pick the folder so the browser can find your files again, and Re-queue stalled files if a previous run was interrupted mid-upload.
When the queue empties while you are watching, the studio moves you on to the register by itself. Open a run whose transfer finished earlier and it does the opposite: it holds on the result, so you read what was transferred, what was skipped as a duplicate and what could not be taken, and move on with Continue to the register when you have.
Step 5 · Map your contract register
When the transfer completes, upload your register (or press Skip the register). Each of its columns is shown with three real values from your own file, what we think the column means, and how sure we are. Change anything that is wrong. If nothing in a date column proves whether 01/04/2024 means 1 April or 4 January, the column is flagged and the dry run stays locked until you choose, because guessing moves every date in your register by up to eleven months.
Press Dry run to see what your mapping would do: how many contracts would be created, how many updated, and how many rows cannot be used with the reason for each, all computed without writing anything. The panel beside it shows what your first rows become, so you read your own data as we understood it. Rejected rows download as a CSV you can fix and upload again. When it reads right, press Apply mapping, then Continue to reconciliation.
Step 6 · Read the documents
Press Start reading. Each document is opened and read for the terms it states: vendor, dates, values, seats, notice. Reading runs in the background and continues after you close the tab; a large estate takes several passes over hours, and the counters keep score: read, waiting, could not be read. A document is read for what it says, not for what the contract ends up saying, which is why an amendment that changes only the notice period leaves every other term standing.
Step 7 · Decide the reconciliation proposals
Press Run reconciliation. Every judgement the machine made is a proposal waiting for you, grouped by kind: vendors that look like the same company, documents that are byte-identical duplicates, and agreements that supersede one another. Each carries the evidence it was based on and a confidence, and you accept or reject it with one click. This is also where binding happens: a master agreement and its amendments become one contract, whose terms in force are computed across the whole stack, newest document winning on each term separately, ordered by signature date.
Then clear What needs a person: everything the machine could not settle, sorted by annual value so the top of the list is what matters. Resolve each line or waive it; a scan with no text layer, for example, is reported as needing OCR rather than silently filed as a contract with no terms.
Step 8 · Compute the scorecard and go live
Press Compute on the scorecard. Every line is computed from your stored data and measured against the bar you set in step 1: completeness, exceptions, and your reported spend reconciled against what was found, with every part of any gap named. A line that misses the bar can be waived, but the written reason you give is stored with the acceptance record.
Then the one irreversible button. Go live promotes the whole estate out of staging in a single transaction: your contracts become visible everywhere on the platform, renewal tracking switches on, and the acceptance is written to your audit log with the scorecard attached. Until you press it, nothing here has fired an alert, sent an email, or been seen by anyone outside this run.
Tips
- Duplicates are detected by content, not by file name, so re-exporting the same archive twice is safe. Identical documents are counted and skipped, never imported twice. Two order forms with the same name a week apart are two real order forms, and we leave them alone.
- Only PDF and DOCX are imported, and each file must be under 40 MB. Everything else is reported in the survey so you know what was left behind.
- A browser cannot remember your files across a reload. The work list survives, but re-picking the folder is what lets a new tab carry on uploading.
- A column headed something like Contract Value is read as the total over the term, not the annual figure, and divided by the term to get the annual value. If it is already annual, map it to Annual value instead.
- Columns we do not recognise are kept on the contract as custom fields, exactly as you wrote them. Nothing in your register is thrown away.
- Binding is what makes a renewal date correct. A master agreement often says the term ends years before the amendment that extended it, and only the bound contract shows the real date. Binding is reversible: move a document to a different contract at any time and the terms in force recompute immediately.
- Overlapping agreements with one vendor are never proposed as superseded, because enterprises legitimately run several at once.
Related: Your Archive · Upload a proposal · Plans, allowances & limits
What's new
Release notes in two levels: curated highlights in the journal, and the full changelog of every small change behind the Full changelog button in the header. The latest release leads as a full-width plate, older releases group by month, and on large screens a month index on the left jumps to any month. Each entry links to the feature it describes and closes with a Try it line: one concrete first move to make with the feature, the control to press or the document to drop. The full changelog reads as a full width ledger: each ship day holds its date and change count in a left rail, with every change on one line showing its category, title, and detail, and a summary band on top counts the changes, ship days, and areas covered.
Next: Chapter 01 · Contracts & renewals
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