The Template
Catalogs are where TSAs are won or lost.
Free. No marketing follow on. Read it before the seller's redline freezes the catalog into the contract.
Every TSA dispute starts in the service catalog. The seller drafts it. The buyer signs it. Six months later, every fight is over what a line item actually means. This template is the buyer's working version. Each service line carries scope, exclusions, deliverables, pricing methodology, term, exit terms, SLAs, and governance handoff.
The template treats each service line as a small contract. Most seller drafts collapse this into two columns, the service name and the price. The buyer's job is to expand the catalog back out, because the disputes that show up in month six all live in the columns the seller left blank.
The line item, defined in language the buyer's operations team would recognize. The phrase has to be specific enough that a new finance lead reading it in month four understands what is included.
What the service covers, line by line, and the explicit exclusions the buyer requires. Exclusions are the most underused tool in a catalog and the easiest place to remove future disputes.
The specific outputs the service produces. A report, a feed, a closed period, a payroll run. If the deliverable is not named, the seller will define it later, and not in the buyer's favor.
Cost-plus, fixed fee, mark-up plus pass-through, FTE rate, transaction based. The methodology, the unit, the price, the cap, and the floor. Methodology is the column the seller wants vague.
Initial term, notice period, transition support obligation, asset transfer, and data return on exit. The line by line exit ramp, not just the umbrella exit clause in the agreement.
The service level commitment, the credit calculation, the responsible owner on both sides, the escalation path, and the criterion for closing the line. The line dies when the criterion is met.
"We took the template into the redline with the seller and walked out with a catalog they could not argue against. The columns themselves are the leverage."
VP Portfolio Operations, large-cap PE
Free. No marketing follow on. Read it before the seller's redline freezes the catalog into the contract.