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Recalculating Deadlines

A common surprise: you update the Contract Date or Closing Date, but the other deadlines don't move. Whether a date recalculates depends entirely on how it was created.

Two kinds of dates​

  • Computed dates come from a checklist / timeline template. Each is defined as a rule — an anchor (like Effective Date or Closing Date) plus an offset, e.g. Inspection Deadline = Effective Date + 10 days. Because a computed date knows its anchor, it can recalculate.
  • Manual dates were typed in by hand or filled in from contract extraction. They're just a fixed date with no anchor, so nothing ties them to your contract or closing date.

Only computed dates recalculate. Manual dates stay put until you change them yourself.

What happens when you change an anchor date​

When you edit a key date — say you push Closing back a week — DocJacket automatically recalculates everything built to depend on it:

  • Computed key dates anchored to it shift by their rule
  • Task due dates that were anchored to it (from a checklist) move too
  • DocJacket may show a cascade preview first, so you can review the affected dates and tasks before saving

Dates and tasks with a plain fixed date — and any date you've manually overridden — are left alone.

Getting every deadline right​

If you changed the contract or closing date and the other deadlines didn't follow, those deadlines were manual (typed or extracted) with no anchor. To fix them:

  1. Apply a checklist / timeline template to the transaction. The template stamps the anchor + offset rules, so those deadlines become computed dates that recalculate from your contract/closing date from then on. See Checklists.
  2. Or edit each deadline by hand — manual dates won't move on their own.

If a key date is computed but shows a stale value because it was manually overridden, open its drawer and use Overridden — reset to recompute it from its anchor.

Why aren't my key dates in chronological order?​

The timeline on a transaction is manually orderable — you can drag rows into whatever sequence you want — so it sorts by that manual order first, not strictly by date. That's intentional (some teams like grouping by phase rather than pure date), but it means a row can look "out of order": when a key date's value changes, or a template seeds dates in a non-date order, the row keeps its existing position instead of re-sorting itself.

To put them back in date order, drag the handle on each row to reorder the timeline the way you want it. (Date-driven views — like the upcoming-deadlines and calendar views — always list strictly by date, so if you just want to see what's next by date, use those.)

A note on task due dates​

A task's Due Date in the task drawer is a single date you set directly (and can clear). Tasks that got their due date from a checklist template are anchored to a key date and recompute automatically when that key date moves. If a task keeps snapping back to a key date and you want a permanently fixed date, that anchor lives on the task template — adjust it there.

See also Key Dates & Financials.