RVA Contract Lens vs. The Old Way
Procurement staff currently use Excel spreadsheets and manual PDF review. Here is what changes.
Find contracts expiring this month
Before 15-30 minutes
Download CSV, open Excel, sort by date, manually scan rows
With Contract Lens 2 seconds
Type 'contracts expiring this month' in Ask Richmond
Extract key terms from a contract PDF
Before 30-60 minutes
Open 40-page PDF, scroll through, take notes manually
With Contract Lens 10 seconds
Upload PDF → AI extracts expiration, renewal, pricing, conditions
See which department spends the most
Before 20-45 minutes
Pivot table in Excel, format chart manually
With Contract Lens Instant
Open Public Transparency → instant interactive charts
Check vendor concentration risk
Before 1-2 hours
Manual cross-referencing across spreadsheets
With Contract Lens Instant
HHI index and department flags calculated automatically
Share a filtered view with a colleague
Before 5-10 minutes
Save Excel file, email attachment, explain filters
With Contract Lens 2 seconds
Copy URL — filters are in the link
Export data for a report
Before Varies
Already in Excel — but filters/formatting lost between sessions
With Contract Lens 5 seconds
Apply filters → Export CSV with one click