The establishment and maintenance of a contract register that contains details of all the entity contracts is essential from an accountability perspective and also for financial management purposes.

A contract register can be maintained centrally, with staff in work areas providing details to the work areas responsible for maintaining the register of all contracts entered into. Alternatively, details can be input remotely by individual work areas. The contract register could also consist of a number of sub-registers maintained by business or geographically-based work areas that collectively represent the entity's contract register.

As well as assisting in meeting reporting responsibilities, contract registers should be used to monitor contract end dates, and opportunities to exercise contract extensions to assist entities to commence new procurements in a timely manner.

Better practice contract registers will have the following characteristics:

•  the register will contain all relevant contract details, such as start and finish dates, contractor name, contract value and duration, and be configured to be able to produce reports that can be used to meet the entities' management and reporting responsibilities89;

•  responsibility for maintaining the register will be clearly assigned to an individual(s) or work area(s);

•  formal procedures will be promulgated for maintaining the accuracy and completeness of the register. These procedures will provide for a reconciliation or cross-check between the register, the entity's financial management information system (FMIS) and AusTender (where relevant). They should also provide for a periodic quality assurance review of the register;

•  the automation, to the extent feasible, of the input of data that will limit, or eliminate the multiple input of data into different systems, and assist in improving consistency and reduce the incidence of human error;

•  the provision of links to individual contracts, subject to security and confidentiality considerations;

•  system access controls designed to ensure unauthorised staff do not have access to, and cannot amend or alter, contract details; and

•  the periodic review by internal audit or other review mechanism.

A contract register can be maintained centrally, with staff in work areas providing details to the work areas responsible for maintaining the register of all contracts entered into.

The costs and benefits of connecting the contract register to the entity's FMIS should also be considered within the context of the number, complexity and value of the agency's contracts and the importance of contracts to agency goals. The benefits of an entity linking its contract register and FMIS include:

•  enabling more accurate and efficient reporting of contracts;

•  enabling contract goods and services and actual payments to be tracked against contracts, improving an entity's ability to manage expenditure and to monitor variations and under and overspending;

•  improving visibility of existing supply and service contracts across different units; and

•  simplified monitoring of contract expiry dates.

The benefits of an entity linking its contract register and FMIS include enabling more accurate and efficient reporting of contracts.