We're about to sign and nobody can summarise it

The contract is five hundred pages and the signing meeting is booked. Ask what the payment terms are and someone says standard, I think; ask about the notice windows, the set-off rights, the design liability, and the answers are all versions of it should be fine. The document will govern every pound on the job, and the people about to run it can't summarise it.

Nobody administers a contract from the contract. Jobs run on what people remember the terms to be, which is why the one-page summary matters: the dates, the notice windows, the deduction rights and the clauses that bite, pulled out once and pinned where the job can see them. The cheatsheet is that page - and filled in before signature, it is also the fastest way to find the term you can't live with while there is still time to negotiate it.

If you would rather it were done for you, Contract Review & Amendment Schedule is the service that does it.