cloud-based contract management system

Nearly 80% of business activities are controlled by contracts. Contracts are an integral part of any company. No matter if you're a new company or a huge corporation the chances are that you'll be dealing with numerous contracts . These include partnership agreements non-disclosure agreements general employment agreements, equipment and property contracts the list goes on. What is your strategy for managing them? Do you rely on papers sheets, spreadsheets and other outdated systems? Have you ever thought of moving to contract management systems? If so, this article is for you.

contract management

Before you invest in a contract management software, ensure you've reviewed the following seven questions to avoid common pitfalls.

software solutions contract management tools

Does the program have AI capabilities?

contract life cycle management

With the sheer volume of contractsand the need to maintain uniformity management of contracts, and pulling out essential information pose the biggest challenge. Some organizations may not have a standardized method of organizing contracts databases. For instance, your company has an abundance of procurement contracts with differing renewal dates and renegotiation conditions. A team of staff members could spend hours looking over, analyzing and tracking the information to ensure that you don't miss any opportunities. Instead, if you go using an artificial intelligence-powered system to manage contracts, your task is completed in just a few minutes. Thanks to Doc.AI capabilities, information such as names of contracts, renewal dates negotiations terms, and renewal dates can be extracted. This makes it easy for the review, approval and sign-off process.

software contract management

And that's not even the best part of it. Furthermore, advanced contract management systems that incorporate AI capabilities are able to help review contracts, examine clauses and clauses as well as classify contracts by the kind of clauses. AI-enabled CMS will also assist in staying in line with the evolving laws. NLP analyses every document and provides a list of threats and opportunities.

solution provider contract management software

Are there standard templates for contract drafting and editing?

best contract management software

The process of drafting contracts is among the most difficult things to do. Consider how challenging it could be to draft documents that have similar clauses along with terms and conditions words, and basically exactly the same content several of times. And this is why your CMS should have templates that are easy to use and clause libraries for different fields. When you use these templates, that have been approved by your legal and editorial teams, you are able to quickly draft contracts that do not have any grammar or language issues. Plus, a provision to centralize and standardize contracts provides you with 360-degree views of the contract, which allows you to track the contract's history using customizable filters. You can also collaborate with peers to review and edit them and then store them.

What's your ROI potential? How much money can my business save?

Savings best contract management software figures are the greatest motivators to decide whether to invest in a contract-management program or not. A study by Goldman Sachs concluded that an automated system for managing contracts can make negotiations more efficient by 50 %, cut payment errors by 75 to 90% percent, lower the cost to manage contracts by 10-30 percent , and reduce the amount of staff needed for contract management of 10 to 20 percent. Indeed, contract administration can indeed be a cost-effective solution, if done correctly.

It is recommended to consider factors like the time spent on audits and monitoring renewal dates, reduction in contract disputes as well as the creation of new possibilities and reduction of sales cycle.

Are the solutions customizable?

The majority of providers in marketplace claims that they offer an answer that is customized to the requirements of each organization. But does that mean it is always true? Instead of spending money on customization, thoroughly describe the workflow, crucial processes needs to be modified, consider options using more specific questions.

As an example: In a typical contract management workflow once the contract manager drafts the documents the system routes the document to the person who approves. Without stopping at this basic feature, a customization might be an email message with the link to the document sent to the approver. This link must support or be compatible with all devices, including smartphones, tablets and computers.

While at the same time highly customizable software can also mean cumbersome and complex to use, while simplicity can also mean too much. It's therefore a prudent idea to study the pros and cons and the level of sophistication of the team who will be using the software and then choose the most appropriate customization.

What are some unique features or highlights that can reduce manual processes?

Within a Contract Management System, contract documents are stored in a central, secure and searchable database with user-based access. This allows the best compliance and large-scale reports. In particular, contracts could be traced easily and the process of reviewing and signing can be made automated using electronic signatures. A different example would be data and analytics. To find out data on the time it took to negotiate a contract, the users will be able to analyze limitations, find the number of iterations needed and make comprehensive reports. This is also helpful in adding clause libraries, as well as providing insight about the previous performance as well as reducing the contract cycle times.

Another important feature to look on is contract redlining or editing. The redlining process highlights the text to show modifications, additions deleted, approvals and rejections. This feature is extremely useful, especially when two or more people want to work on the same document together. This allows more possibility of reviewing and discussing contracts.

How simple is it to use and deploy?

A contract management program that has an intuitive interface with simple-to-use features is sure to delight your customers. To gain maximum advantage, during the time of deployment, try to integrate it with current systems that cut down on the time it takes to navigate from one platform to another. In this case, integrating CRM into the new software for contract management can aid sales personnel in automating supply customer data, make contracts , and then route them to approvals, in addition to being in charge of renewals, expirations, and other important dates.

The next step would be to check for the process of onboarding. Ideal if you have an out-of-the-box solution so that you can begin to live and operational in a few weeks' time. Do not forget that lengthy deployment cycles are not viable anymore.

7. The data and personal information be safe?

Last but certainly not least Security of data is of utmost importance. As contracts contain highly confidential and sensitive information, they must be restricted from unauthorized access to earn the respect of your group, be it partners, vendors and customers. Furthermore, the rising threat of cyberattacks and cyber threats have made companies vulnerable to risks of potential legal branding, financial and legal liabilities. If you are about to maintain the trust of your principal business contacts verify that the supplier hasn't experienced any major data breach.

Get in touch with our experts via [email protected] to learn about Vuram's Contract Management Solution.