GroundControl Contract Review is AI-powered document review and discrepancy detection built for mission-critical aerospace and defense manufacturing. We help you catch discrepancies from incoming purchase orders and prevent costly mistakes within minutes. This guide will walk you step-by-step through completing a contract review.

Feel free to reach out to [email protected] if you have questions, or click the blue message icon in the bottom right corner to start a conversation with us now.

Depending on your business, your account is set up in one of two versions of the application:

GroundControl Contract Review is built on AWS GovCloud and is ITAR registered. We are in the readiness phase on the FedRAMP Marketplace, and are built to handle highly sensitive information. We recommend saving a bookmark to your computer so this link is easily accessible.

During the onboarding process, an account will be generated for you and delivered to your email. Click the "SET YOUR PASSWORD" link in the onboarding email and follow the instructions to log in for the first time.

Going forward, you can return to this website and click Sign In using your email, password, and a 2FA code. The standard 6-digit 2FA code is delivered to your email. It is possible to set up 2FA with a different application — contact support if email is not accessible at your facility. If your facility is set up with an IdP login, this will be detected when you enter your email.

If you need to reset your password, click "Forgot your password?" beneath the Password input field.

💡 Entering a password too many times will result in your account being locked. Contact GroundControl Support to unlock your account.

Once you have successfully logged in, you will see the main dashboard. Here you will see a table of your company's contract reviews, key information about each one, and the ability to create a new review. Click on a row to open a review, or click "Start New Contract Review" to start a new contract review.

💡 All of your reviews are stored centrally on the dashboard, making it easy to query past contracts, quotes, and correspondence at any time.

To create a new review, select create Start New Contract Review in the top right-corner.

Alternatively, you may select “New” in the left-hand panel.

After selecting the "Start New Contract Review" option you will have the opportunity to upload your contract in PDF format only.

Once you have more than one contract uploaded to your account, then you may access previous contracts in the add PDFs from your library option.

1. Data Ingestion

Once you have uploaded your pdf, you will be navigated to the main page of contract review, where all relevant data can be read and summarized, checked against the user-inputted checklist, and finally, analyzed for discrepancies.

The first step in our contract review process is to click the Read and summarize files button below the panel showing the uploaded contract file.

Once clicked, all relevant data is automatically ingested and parsed by our AI. You will see a summary of the documents received and the key data extracted from each.

The dashboard will also auto-populate with the relevant information:

💡 The information extracted is always displayed when you click on the details tab, where you can cross-check key information, and ensure accuracy and traceability.

This is what the page would look like after the data is summarized and processed, with the details tab showing the key details analyzed.

You may add checks, against which our model will check for discrepancies, at any point in the process, before or after the summarizing is complete or even during that process.

However, the process to perform checks will occur after the data is summarized and processed.

Creating Checks: Create custom rules specific to your organization's internal processes and terms & conditions. This can be done by clicking the Add Check option.

💡 The checklist and creating checks is the most important part of contract review; the contract review is only as good as its checklist. The more detailed the checks created, the more methodical and meticulous the contract review and discrepancy tolerance.

You are also able to add any relevant context, company-specific information, or additional information for that specific review by clicking Yes on the “Anything else that is helpful to know” prompt.

You may also add any knowledge, context, and company-tailored information to the section labeled Knowledge on the left hand panel.
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This should be filled out before clicking the perform checks option, and it would include any relevant information for every review performed for your company.

This differs from the “Anything else to Know” prompt which would have relevant information just for that review, while this is information for every review for your company.

Once done adding:

You can click "Perform Checks".

Our AI organizes, reviews, and correlates all ingested data to search for findings across every line item, clause, and term.

While the review runs, you will see a progress indicator. Review time depends on the number and size of documents uploaded.

Once the review is complete, discrepancies identified in relation to the checks created will be displayed. The discrepancies are organized by each checklist item, each with cited sources so you can trace exactly where in the uploaded documents the issue originates.

💡 You can always check the sources and cited data by clicking on underlined items in discrepancies. Please note that the findings will appear before the detailed cited data and additional information appear, so it may take a short time to load the detailed data after the finding is displayed.

Each finding includes:

💡Click on any finding to expand its full detail.

For each item you can always override or change the findings based on prior context.

💡All changes are saved automatically as you work through the list.

Below is an example of a real discrepancy:

Based on the discrepancies found, the final option available is to generate an email body that will address discrepancies and their exact citations, all in one click.

When you are ready to communicate findings, click "Draft Email".

Contract Review automatically drafts a discrepancy email summarizing all rejected findings, with cited sources included so the recipient can quickly locate each issue in their own documents.

Review the generated email in the preview pane.

The email will generate a subject line and message that you may copy-to-clipboard or edit as needed.

Remember that this is just an email format, which you can easily copy-paste, but cannot send from our application.

💡 You can always add additional checks but only by running the contract review function again, after adding the additional checks required.

Setting Up Your Contract Review Checks

A guide to configuring checks in GroundControl Contract Review to catch the discrepancies that matter most to your organization.

The more specific your checks are, the more useful your review results will be.

This guide walks through some of the key categories of checks to configure in Contract Review, and what to include in each one.

Pricing & Commercial Terms

Configure checks that compare line item pricing and payment terms directly against your accepted quotation. At a minimum, your checks should verify that unit prices match your quote exactly on every line, that payment terms (Net 30, Net 45, etc.) have not changed, and that no new clauses such as retainage, early payment deductions, or liquidated damages have been introduced without prior agreement.

💡 Even small unit price differences compound quickly on high-volume lines. We recommend configuring a check for any price variance, no matter how minor.

Set up checks that flag any delivery date that falls earlier than the lead time stated in your quotation, as well as any change to delivery terms (FOB Origin vs. FOB Destination, for example). You should also configure a check for the introduction of liquidated damages clauses that were not present in your quote which represent unpriced risk that must be resolved before acceptance.

Configure checks that verify every part number and drawing revision on the PO matches the revision you quoted against. A single revision letter change can mean entirely different tolerances, materials, or processes.

💡 If your organization holds a controlled copy of customer drawings, use that revision as the baseline for this check rather than the revision stated in your quotation.

Add checks for quality requirements that were not included in the scope of your quotation. Common examples include First Article Inspection (FAI) per AS9102, additional non-destructive testing methods, customer source inspection, or specific Certificate of Conformance formats. Any quality requirement that adds labor, inspection time, or third-party costs should be flagged automatically if it was not in your quoted scope.

Configure checks for DFARS and FAR clauses that appear in the PO but were not present in your original quotation. Key clauses to watch for include DFARS 252.225-7001 (Buy American), DFARS 252.246-7007 (Counterfeit Electronic Parts), and any cybersecurity requirements such as DFARS 252.204-7012. If your organization has standard flow-down clauses it accepts by default, those can be added to your rules template so only new or unexpected clauses are flagged.

💡 If a clause references a regulation you are not immediately familiar with, do not accept the PO until your contracts team has reviewed it. Accepting a clause carries the full legal obligation of that regulation.

Add a check that flags any technical data or item descriptions that may introduce ITAR or EAR obligations not previously identified. This is particularly important when a PO adds drawing references, specifications, or end-use statements that were not part of the original quote. Your Contract Review rules template should reflect your organization's current DDTC registration scope.

Configure a check that verifies units of measure (each, lot, assembly, foot, pound) match your quotation exactly on every line. A unit of measure mismatch, for example, per lot versus per each, on a fastener line is one of the most common sources of large pricing errors and is easy to miss during a manual review.

Beyond the standard categories above, Contract Review allows you to build custom checks specific to your customers, programs, or internal processes and also add knowledge to the knowledge section of contract review. This gives you the ability to consolidate all the individual-specific knowledge into a central database that anyone will be able to use a s a source of truth.

Here is a compilation of frequently asked questions about GroundControl Contract Review and their answers.

GroundControl Contract Review is an AI-powered tool that automatically reviews incoming purchase orders against your internal processes, terms and conditions, and any custom rules your organization has configured. It ingests your documents, identifies discrepancies, and generates a cited findings report along with a ready-to-send discrepancy email so your team can resolve issues in minutes rather than days.

Contract Review is designed to ingest all of your contracts in only the pdf format. All uploaded documents are parsed automatically and cross-referenced against each other and your configured rules during the review.

Once your documents are ingested, our AI organizes, reviews, and correlates data across all of them simultaneously checking every line item, clause, and term against all the checks your organization has configured, as well as information from the Knowledge and Anything Else to Add prompt. Each discrepancy found is cited back to its specific source in the uploaded documents, so you can see exactly where the issue originates.

The discrepancies found are all based on the checks created! The more checks and information you give our model by adding checks to the checklist, the more detailed and thorough the contract review process will be.

Yes. You can create custom checks tailored to your organization's internal processes and standard terms and conditions. Information can also be added to the Knowledge section, which applies to every review for your company and can act as a central database for all contract review related information and rules. Contract-specific rules in addition to the checks can be added to the “Anything else you want to add” prompt of the Checklist section.

Contract Review produces a discrepancy report listing every finding, each with a plain-language description of the issue, the specific source it was found in, the rule or requirement that was not met, and a severity level. Your team can then work through the list, accepting or rejecting each finding and adding notes to document decisions. Once the review is complete, Contract Review auto-generates a discrepancy email summarizing all rejected findings with cited sources included ready to send to the customer.

Review time depends on the number and size of documents uploaded. Most standard purchase order reviews complete within a few minutes. Larger packages may take a little longer. You will see a progress indicator while the review runs.

Yes. GroundControl Contract Review is built on AWS GovCloud and is ITAR registered. We are also on the Ready level on the FedRAMP marketplace. Your data is protected in a secure, compliant environment. If you have specific questions about data handling for your facility's compliance requirements, please reach out to us at [email protected] or [email protected].

💡 Note: In compliance with ITAR, please do not send sensitive technical data or controlled documents via email or live chat. If you need to share documents with our support team, we will arrange a secure method with you directly.

While Contract Review is highly accurate, our AI may occasionally flag something that turns out not to be an issue. If a finding was flagged incorrectly, you can always manually mark that as not a discrepancy.

If you find that the same type of error recurs across multiple reviews, please let us know via our live chat or at [email protected]. We are constantly improving our AI models and your feedback directly informs that work.

Yes, this is one of the core benefits of Contract Review. All of your reviews, uploaded documents, findings, and correspondence are stored centrally on your dashboard, making it easy to search and query past contracts, quotes, and decisions at any time. Institutional expertise lives in a centralized location with our Contract Review platform.

Yes. Contract Review and GroundControl's AS9102 FAIR reporting tool are separate products that complement each other. Many customers use Contract Review at the point of receiving a purchase order, and GroundControl FAIR later in the production process when generating their First Article Inspection Reports. Contact us at [email protected] if you would like to discuss bundling both products.

To add a new user to your Contract Review account, please reach out to us at [email protected] with the user's name, email address, and a written confirmation of their US citizenship or ITAR exemption status. We will get their account created and send them onboarding instructions.

We are sorry to hear you have run into an issue. If you think you have found a bug or something is not behaving as expected, please let us know as much detail as possible so we can investigate quickly. Useful information includes:

Please share this information via our live chat or by emailing [email protected].

For a full overview of Contract Review's capabilities, check out our Getting Started guide. If you are looking for a feature that Contract Review does not currently offer, we would love to hear about it. We are constantly working to improve the product and greatly value customer feedback. Reach out via live chat or at [email protected] to share your suggestion.

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