Loan covenant tracking spreadsheet: the limits

A loan covenant tracking spreadsheet needs one row per covenant rather than one per loan, with columns for the loan, the source clause in the documents, the covenant type, the threshold, the test cadence, the next test date, the computation rules, the latest actual value, and the current headroom. Most spreadsheets that fail are missing two of those columns: computation rules and next test date.

What columns does a covenant tracking spreadsheet need?

The minimum set that actually protects you:

• Loan and lender: which facility, and who holds it.
• Source clause: the section of the loan agreement defining the covenant, so a dispute goes to the document instead of to memory.
• Covenant type and threshold: minimum DSCR 1.25x, maximum LTV 65%, minimum guarantor liquidity, timely reporting, and so on, per the full taxonomy of commercial real estate loan covenants.
• Test cadence and next test date: quarterly, annual, or custom. The next date is the column that turns a list into a calendar.
• Computation rules: the lender's specific NOI adjustments, the definition of debt service used, any lookback. Almost nobody fills this column in, and it is the one that makes the actual number defensible.
• Latest actual and headroom: the computed value at the last test and its distance from the threshold. Headroom trend across periods is your early-warning signal.

Where does the spreadsheet approach break?

At scale, and for structural reasons rather than lack of discipline. One person owns the file and updates it around reporting season, so between updates it goes silently stale. Nothing in a spreadsheet fires an alert when a test date approaches or a reporting deliverable comes due; the file has to be opened to say anything. And the per-lender computation rules rarely survive in the cells. They live in the owner's head, which means the sheet stops being trustworthy exactly when that person is unavailable. At three loans these are annoyances. At thirty loans across a dozen lenders, they are how a breach gets discovered at annual review instead of the quarter it happened, and how the compliance certificate becomes a quarterly reconstruction project.

What replaces the spreadsheet?

A system where the covenant register, the test scheduling, the headroom math, and the alerting live together. TractTerm, part of Composed Studio, is built as that system for borrower-side CRE debt. Covenants sit in a register with their thresholds, cadences, and per-lender computation rules; tests are scheduled and headroom is computed; breach flags are ranked by severity across the portfolio; alerts go out by email and in-app before dates arrive. The migration path starts from the file you already have. TractTerm imports your existing loan tracking spreadsheet in bulk to get the portfolio started, so the spreadsheet's years of accumulated structure become the seed rather than a rewrite. TractTerm never moves money and is not a lender; what it replaces is the file, not your lender relationships. It is priced on the number of loans you track rather than the number of people who need access, and the published tiers start at $149 per month.