Build the firm's deal checklist template

Every share purchase on the buy side should start from the same checklist: the same workstreams, the same columns, the same numbering and the same views, so that partners can read any deal's board at a glance. As the knowledge lawyer or PSL, you build that checklist once as a board template in a library, and every team starts its deal from it.

Two questions shape the template. Which deals is it for? One template per deal type and side keeps each one short enough to use. And what changes from deal to deal? The matter's name, the client and the parties go in as tokens, so they fill themselves in when a team applies the template. Start with a blank template or save a board from a deal whose checklist is worth reusing.

Start from a matter's board

You can save a board as a template if you manage its matter's group or have permission to edit that group's templates. Organisation admins can also save it to the Firm-wide Library. A regular matter member without those permissions does not see Save as template.

1. Open the matter and choose More at the end of the board's row in Project management.

2. Choose Save as template.

   

3. Choose Library. It offers the matter's group when you can edit its templates, and the Firm-wide Library if you are an organisation admin. When only one library is available, it is selected for you.

   

4. Choose how much of the deal to reuse. Setup only is selected by default.

   The template you are preparing	Choose
   Workstreams, columns and views for teams to populate with their own tasks	Setup only: keeps columns and their options, labels and formulas; views and filters; empty task groups; automations and integrations; dashboards; permission sets and rules; checklist and Excel export layouts; board settings. Leaves out tasks, values, comments and files
   A checklist with the standard tasks already written	Setup and data: also keeps every task and its values, so remove the finished deal's facts from the template before colleagues use it

   

   

   Templates never copy the people and teams on permission sets, even with Setup and data. Boards with more than 1,000 tasks can only be saved with Setup only.

5. Click Save as template. The confirmation reads Board saved as a template. The original board stays in the matter.

   

6. Open that library's Task board templates and open the saved board. Rename it for the deal type, replace client names and dates with standard wording or tokens, and review automations, integrations and any copied task values before the next team uses it.

Create the template board

If you are starting with a blank board, create it in the library.

1. Open the library the template belongs in: open the group and click Library. Organisation admins also find every library under Templates > Libraries in admin.

2. On the library page, under Templates in and the library's name, click Task board templates.

3. Click Create new, name the template after the deal it is for ("SPA buy side: signing and closing"), and save it.

You can edit templates in a library if you administer that group or have been allowed to edit its templates. See keep the firm's templates in shared libraries.

Build it as you would a live deal

1. Add the task groups for the workstreams and the tasks under each, in the order the team works through them.

2. Add the columns the firm reports on: the responsible lawyer, status, the deadline, the document. See choose what to track on each task.

3. Set up the views each workstream needs. See give each workstream its own view.

4. Write the guidance into the tasks themselves: what the task involves, which precedent to start from, who usually signs. A trainee opening the board on day one reads it there.

Fill in matter details with tokens

1. Click Board in the toolbar and choose Template variables. The menu item is only on template boards.

   

2. Find the detail you need and click the copy button beside it. The details come from the matter (its title and case number), its client (name and contact details) and, for financings, the CP checklist card (the lender, the agent, the signing date and expected closing).

   

3. Paste the token into a task or task group title, for example "Board minutes of {{matter.client.name}} approving the SPA". You can also insert a token while you edit a task group's title, or a task's title in its panel, with the Insert template variable button at the end of the title field.

4. For a task that repeats once per item, use a list token such as {{each: cp.original_obligors}}. When the template is applied, the task becomes one task per obligor, so "Officer's certificate of {{each: cp.original_obligors}}" turns into a certificate task for each of them.

When a team applies the template to a matter, every token is replaced with that matter's value. Tokens work in task and task group titles.

Fill in Deal details & parties before applying a template that repeats tasks per obligor or guarantor. Boards created from those lists offer Review changes when parties are later added, renamed or removed. The team reviews and applies the row changes in update the checklist when parties change; changing the party list alone does not update the rows.

Test it before the teams do

1. Open a test matter, Project Alpha, and fill in its client and case number.

2. Create a board there from the template, or apply it from Board > Import > Template on an empty board.

3. Check that every token was filled in and that list tasks expanded as they should. A gap in a title means the matter does not have that detail filled in yet.

Tips from practice

• One template per deal type and side. A buy-side template that also covers the sell side is a template nobody trusts.
• Update the template, do not copy it. When the firm changes its practice, change the template so the next deal starts right.
• Name the template for the person choosing it. Teams pick it from a list when they create the board; "SPA buy side: signing and closing" says more than "Checklist v3".

Teams start their deals from it in start from the firm's template or an earlier deal.