AI for reviewing statements of work

Your master agreement with a supplier probably got weeks of attention. The statement of work under it often gets an afternoon, and it's the document that says what you're buying this time.

A PMI article in PM Network, Statement of work: the foundation for delivering successful service projects, uses the PMBOK Guide's definition of an SOW: "a narrative description of products or services to be supplied under contract." NIGP, the public procurement institute, says in its best practice on scope of work versus statement of work that an SOW "details performance expectations and deliverables." Put plainly, the SOW is where the deliverables, the dates, the fees and the assumptions are written down.

Why SOWs get a lighter review than the master agreement

SOWs come in a lot more often than master agreements. They can show up in your queue as a six-page Word file with a request to sign by Friday because the MSA is "already done."

So the review can turn into a skim of the price and the dates. The parts that can cost you later are in the middle: an assumptions section that puts work back on your team, acceptance wording that treats silence as approval, a fee table that doesn't match the rate card attached to the master agreement.

Checking those by hand means keeping the MSA open next to the SOW and going back and forth. Do that for thirty SOWs a month and it's an easy step to skip. The supplier side has the same problem in reverse, which is why we wrote about how consulting firms check SOWs against a signed MSA.

How goHeather reviews an SOW

You upload the SOW and it shows up in your contract list. Open it and click Review with AI. It doesn't ask you anything first. It reads the document and comes back with a setup card it has already filled in: a scope line for the review, both parties with your side preselected, the governing law it found in the document, and a review depth.

The depth is a four-level setting: Existential, Issues, Warnings, Everything. It defaults to Issues.

Two parts of that card matter for an SOW. The first is the reference documents drop zone. goHeather reads what it's given, so if you upload the SOW by itself, the master agreement isn't part of the review. Add the signed MSA and the rate card there, as PDF or Word files, and they are. The second is the playbook, which is optional and defaults to "No playbook".

Then you click Run full review. It takes a few minutes. The work runs on the server, so you can start it and come back.

What comes back

The review opens in two panels. Findings are on the left, grouped High, Med and Low. The SOW is on the right in a full Word-style editor.

Each finding is named for the problem it found. One real example: "Execution block drafting defect in SOW." Open a finding and you get the original clause with its section number and exact text, a suggested redline, a plain-English note on why the wording is a problem and which side it hurts, and the actions: Flag, Add to playbook, Dismiss, Apply redline.

Under the findings there's a Deal Abstract. It's a memo that lists the facts of the deal: parties, term, fees, payment terms, notice requirements, key obligations. On a real consulting agreement it ran to about ninety bullets, down to the hourly rate, the SOW cap and the named person invoices go to for approval. It downloads as a Word file.

The playbook decides what gets flagged

Without a playbook, the review is general. The app labels it "No playbook - general law", and it knows nothing about what your organization accepts on payment terms or acceptance periods.

A playbook is a numbered list of rules. Each rule holds your primary position, your fallback positions, the deviations you won't accept, and guidance notes. That's where your standard for SOWs gets written down once.

One MSA in our own account, reviewed against five different playbooks, came back with 17, 16, 8, 8 and 8 findings. And when you make a call on a finding that you'd make the same way every time, Add to playbook turns it into a rule for the next SOW.

Where the software stops

A general chat tool like Claude or ChatGPT will read an SOW you paste in and answer questions about it. It doesn't hold your playbook, tie findings to section numbers, or track which findings a person has decided.

goHeather has limits too. Findings are proposals, and nothing changes in the SOW until you apply a redline yourself. The suggested redline is drafting language, and what you accept is still your call. It won't tell you whether the timeline is realistic or the price is fair.

It does track what's been decided. The review shows how many findings are still open, and you can't keep chatting until you accept or dismiss each one. That's what goHeather's AI contract review software gives you: every SOW read against your own rules, and against the master agreement when you attach it, with a person deciding every finding.

This is legal information, not legal advice; consult a lawyer for legal advice.