how to configure hubspot to manage annual renewal of licenses and contracts that increase in cost each year
Great question, and definitely one that comes up for ops and finance teams managing vendor relationships at scale!
There are a few ways to configure this in HubSpot depending on how your team is set up; deals with recurring line items, workflows to trigger renewal reminders, and custom properties to track escalating costs are all solid starting points.
Tagging a few of our top contributors who’ve tackled similar workflows to share their experiences: @CateDuarte @Bryantworks @eburnaman would love to hear how you all have approached this! 
In the meantime, it might help to share a bit more about your current setup. Are you managing renewals through Deals, Quotes, or a connected CPQ tool?
Cassie, Community Manager
Sorry for the lack of info - am new to the community and was trying to figure out how it works 
We have a number of pipelines set up - 1 is for annual renewals which we have each customers renewal in there as a Deal with a target close date. We use this for FY pipeline value reporting.
At the moment all the contract info is stored on the Deal but it makes more sense for the key contract info to be on the company and then a Deal created automatically when the current FY Deal closes - is this how HS is supposed to work? The staff member that set up HS initially did not really know what he was doing and used some company properties. We store info on future renewals in a spreadsheet and we want to move this into HS
Looking for best practices to manage annual license renewals within HS.
Using Company properties for long-term contract details and creating a new Deal for each renewal is generally a cleaner approach since it preserves your renewal history. You can then use workflows to automatically create the next renewal Deal with the updated close date and notify the owner. We use a similar setup for recurring agreements, and it has been much easier to manage than keeping everything in a spreadsheet.
Hi @ashley.thomas
One approach I’ve seen work well is to manage renewals with a combination of custom properties, workflows, and a dedicated renewal pipeline.
I’d create properties for the renewal date, current contract value, expected renewal amount, and any planned price increase. Then use a workflow to remind the account owner or even create a renewal deal 60 to 90 days before the contract expires.
If the annual increase follows a fixed percentage, you could automate that with a custom calculation or integration. If it varies by customer, it’s usually better to review and update the renewal amount before sending the quote.
Are your price increases the same for every customer, or do they change depending on the contract? That would help determine the best setup.