The present disclosure provides for a method of machine representation and tracking of contract terms over the lifetime of a contract including a step of defining an object model having object model components. Object model components are associated with other object model components where the object model components have object model component types. Further, words of object model components are evaluated to identify whether the words contain one or more core attributes pertaining to details of the contract terms. From the object model components, and the terms they contain, prevailing terms of the contract are evaluated, stored and updated as changes are made to the object model components.