Contract Management Software for Full Visibility and Control of Your Agreements
Document Manager is a secure central platform to manage documents throughout their lifecycle, with automated workflows and built-in security, role-based access and version control measures that make it the ideal advanced, automated contract management software for contract lifecycle management.
Discover the easiest way to categorise and store important documents, together with the advantages of automated contract management software. Contract Managers take advantage of automated contracts oversight, contracts version control and secure storage and contracts retrieval.
What is Contract Management Software?
Contract management software automates and streamlines the contract lifecycle, making it easier for businesses to create, negotiate, sign, renew and track agreements. By consolidating all contract related tasks into one platform with structured storage and automated workflows, businesses can eliminate inefficiencies and increase productivity.
In this article, we explore historical contract management challenges, and the features and benefits of an electronic contract management system.
Contract Management vs Document Management
Contract management deals with creating, negotiating and keeping an eye on your contracts to make sure you’re following the rules and cutting down on risks. Document management, on the other hand, is all about storing, organising and finding your files without too much hassle.
While both of these handle your paperwork, contract management adds extra layers of oversight, keeping track of what you need to do and when you need to do it, which makes it a more strategic exercise for your business.
Think of document management as a filing cabinet, while contract management works like your personal assistant who’s always one step ahead.
Control Contracts at Every Stage
Take control of your contracts with powerful, scalable software to simplify your contract workflows. From creation and contract drafting to indexing and storage, every step is simplified for efficiency and compliance. An effective automated contract management solution helps contract management teams with contract negotiation, enables them to evaluate contract performance and contract terms, in order to reinforce positive business, contractual relationships.
Common Contract Management Problems
Managing the contract lifecycle is a multi-faceted process that, if mismanaged, can result in contract processing bottlenecks, increase risk exposure, and potentially affect your organisation’s bottom line.
Despite technology advancements, many businesses still use outdated, manual contract processes or static, duplicated online storage and drives.
- Companies lose an average of £100 per hour for every in-house staff member working on a contract.
- Many businesses don’t have clear contract administration processes in place.
- A large percentage of companies don’t have a dedicated solution for storing contracts after they’ve been agreed and signed.
From speaking to prospects and talking to delegates at events, we know that many departments, such as legal teams and HR professionals, use Google Drive, One Drive and SharePoint for contract storage, despite their document management and workflow limitations as contract repositories.
Let’s consider the value of streamlined CLM with intelligent contract workflow automation.
Contract Management Software Features and Benefits
1. AI Indexing
AI driven contract tools index documents as they enter your organisation. Automated version control in contract management software helps with drafting, review and contract approvals to speed up agreements and reduce admin time.
AI is especially useful to identify fields and metadata in contracts which enhances both indexing and search within the contracts management system. The ability to identify names, purpose, date ranges, contract values, and start and expiry periods enables staff to store, retrieve and review contracts with precision.
Leverage AI-based contract data extraction, field mapping and clause matching.
2. Automated Approval Workflows
Speed up contract approvals with contract management software to avoid delays and to ensure that the correct people review contracts at the right time, within deadlines.
Contracts can be routed automatically to responsible staff for review, amendment and approval. Tasks are viewable in a colour coded, user friendly dashboard while alerts ensure that no contract-related task is missed.
Contract management software connects contract data across all your business systems and processes.
The CMS pushes contract data into related business systems and also pulls in data to track commitment fulfilments. For example, a supplier contract can be made accessible in a spend management system so that all invoices received under the contract comply with the original terms. In a sales context, a company can track delivery data directly against the contract to ensure no obligation is unmet.
3. Contract Repository
Store all contracts in one central, secure and easily accessible repository. Find what you need in seconds with advanced search and filtering.
Centralised documents are essential for business efficiency, version control, collaboration and security. Centralising contracts in one location eliminates duplication of effort, and duplication of technical resources and their associated budgets.
4. Smart Drafting and Templates
Automate contract creation with pre-approved templates and smart drafting tools to reduce errors, save time and promote self-service. Legal experts can administrate the system to enable users to auto-build agreements based on defined business rules.
By creating and uploading contract templates and clause templates to the system, organisations can ensure company policies are adhered to. Templates facilitate self-service which reduces reliance on legal teams. Smart contract drafting reduces the potential for introducing errors or contract loopholes.
5. E-Signatures and Approval Flows
Contract management software enables approved system users to sign and approve contracts from anywhere. Speed up negotiation and deal cycles with automated approval workflows.
Electronic signatures, or e-signatures, are binding and admissible in court. E-signatures are beneficial as they eliminate delays associated with wet signatures and paper-based contracts. Digitising contract signing is a process efficiency step that helps with agreements’ gap analysis and adds to the metadata by which contracts can be searched, found and retrieved.
6. Alerts and Notifications
Never miss a renewal or deadline with automated contract alerts and reminders tailored to your workflow.
System users receive alerts directly in their user dashboard to enable them to take prompt action on tasks relating to contracts, such as review periods, renewal schedules, renegotiation and contract cancellation deadlines. System alerts prompt contract managers to review contracts and to escalate any legal issues before they become a serious problem.
A common dashboard metric is contract risk. The management software enables companies to configure risk scores based on internal data and third-party sources, and to detect potential problems early.
7. Insights and Custom Reporting
Get valuable insights with real-time data and customisable reports to help you make better informed decisions. Compare supplier proposals and assess contract value-for-money metrics.
Document Manager has built-in business intelligence visualisation tools that amalgamate data from multiple sources. BI dashboards provide management line-of-sight across important company activity, including the status and value of contracts.
8. Collaborate Across Teams
Enable seamless collaboration between Legal departments, Sales and Procurement teams to ensure smooth contract execution by installing contract management software. Automated contract management ensures that all teams involved receive timely alerts about negotiations, renewals and contract budget thresholds
Real-time collaboration tools enable system users to view and work on contracts simultaneously, with built-in version control to sensure that there is an accurate record of draft contracts as well as final and previous versions of contracts.
Contract Management with Built-In Security and Compliance
Enterprise-Grade Security
Your contracts are protected with top level security features, including encryption, role-based permissions and access controls, document redaction, and built-in compliance measures to meet legal and regulatory standards.
Contracts frequently contain highly sensitive information, therefore their security is paramount. Document Manager’s advanced security measures include daily penetration testing to protect you from data breaches and external threats such as cyberattacks.
Digital management provides you with risk management tools, the ability to evaluate and track contract terms, and compliance measures ensure you adhere to contract law.
Full Auditability
Have a complete audit trail of every contract interaction to ensure transparency and compliance. Eliminate the resource drain, wasted time and disruption associated with internal QA and external audits.
The ability to monitor system activity and generate complete audit trails ensures accurate record-keeping, helps to detect potential fraud, and supports legal accountability.
In addition, auditable systems improve trust and streamline regulatory reporting.
Audit trails enable organisations to track contract changes, verify authenticity and safeguard sensitive information against unauthorised modifications and data breaches.
Built for Any Team, Any Contract
Custom Contract Types and Contract Amendments
Contract management software enables you to classify and manage any type of agreement, from partnership agreements and NDAs to complex vendor contracts, and to create and control contract types to suit your business needs. Manage contract amendments throughout their duration in accordance with regulations.
Scalable for Any Business Size
Whether you’re a startup or a global enterprise, our contract management software scales with you as contract volumes grow. Our civil engineering and construction projects clients use our system both to build mutual respect with suppliers and related parties, and to help with dispute resolution.
Contract Management Customer Success Stories
Read how businesses like yours have transformed their contract management processes in our case studies section.
Trusted Worldwide
Join thousands of companies worldwide whose business teams use Document Logistix for their contract management needs. Automate standard contractual processes and reduce human error.
Why Choose Document Logistix?
- Intuitive, user friendly, customisable interface with dashboard workflow views for easy user adoption
- AI powered automation for indexing and workflows to reduce manual work and track contract data
- Seamless integrations with your existing business systems and tools
- Expert customer support
- Scalable management solutions for any industry
Contract intelligence helps businesses stay on top of their agreements without the usual paperwork hassle. Whether you’re running a startup or managing a global team, the right contract management software keeps everything organised, always accessible and above board.
Contract intelligence helps businesses stay on top of their agreements without the usual paperwork hassle. Whether you’re running a startup or managing a global team, the right contract management software keeps everything organised, always accessible and above board.
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Start Managing Contracts Smarter Today
Ready to streamline your contract management? Get in touch to ask questions or book a demo today.
Who Benefits from Contract Management Software?
Fast growing businesses with increasing contract volumes benefit the most from contract management software as it allows them to scale without increasing headcount. Multiple departments can use contract management tools including:
A. Legal Teams Contract Management
Legal teams can manage contract templates to reduce the need for contract creation from scratch. With a digital contracts management system, you can empower commercial teams to self-serve on contracts and negotiations, and minimise risks of legal errors.
B. Sales Teams Contract Efficiency Benefits
Sales are able to speed up contract agreements and closing deals without legal delays. Integrate with your existing systems and CRM software such as Salesforce to agree contracts and minimise risk. To maximise revenue opportunities Sales staff have access to pre-authorised contract templates, and a key feature of a contracts management system is that sales staff receive automated renewal reminders at the right time to negotiate.
C. HR Teams Manage Contract Complexities
Automate employment contracts and staff onboarding at scale, as well as simplify complex contracts management by automating mandatory data retention periods. New hire contracts form an important part of the onboarding process. Your management system will help you identify any contract gaps, store contacts with electronic signatures and identify any review periods.
D. Finance and Operations Teams Contract Solutions
Get financial visibility by tracking contract obligations and revenue expectations. Monitor contract data in advanced reports to enable teams and focus on business efficiency. Contracts management software provides a user-friendly dashboard view of pending tasks and recently completed contracts.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Q1. What is the difference between CRM and contract management?
CRM (Customer Relationship Management) focuses on managing customer interactions and sales pipelines, while contract management software is designed to manage contracts to ensure compliance, keep track of key dates and streamline approvals.
Q2. What does a contract management system do?
Provides contract management tools to automate contract indexing, creation, approval, execution storage, contract data and renewals processes. CLM software enables you to monitor contract risk scores.
Q3. How can contract management software help my business?
A contract management solution eliminates manual contract handling, improves due diligence, reduces errors, enhances compliance and speeds up approvals, which all saves time, money and potential legal wrangles.
Q4. Is contract management software secure?
Yes, we have enterprise-grade security features including encryption, role-based permissions, redaction tools, automated retention and full audit trails to maintain security throughout the whole contract lifecycle.
See the Whole Picture with Contract Oversight
- Gain visibility of past, present and future revenue to make data driven decisions.
- Manage documents in any format from email and Microsoft Word, to PDF and scanned paper documents.
- Access all contracts and agreements instantly whenever you need them.
- Spot renewal opportunities and growth potential and avoid unwanted risks.
- Be in control of every stage of your contracts and avoid costly mistakes. Manage the whole contract lifecycle efficiently.
- Never miss a deadline or contract review or incur contractual penalties. Set automated renewal reminders and assign relevant tasks. Automated alerts ensure you are always aware of your contractual obligations.
Contract Management Software Best Practices
Effective contract management solutions and software implementation are all about best practices for efficiency, compliance and minimising risk. To protect contract data and generate detailed audit trails for all team members, consider:
- Centralise contracts in a secure searchable repository to make them more accessible and version controlled. Automate workflows (approval and renewal processes) to reduce manual errors and speed up execution. Integrate CLM with existing CRM and ERP systems to ensure data consistency.
- Establish clear user roles and permissions to ensure accountability and data security.
- Implement regular audits and performance tracking to identify bottlenecks and improve business processes.
- Maintain staff training so users can use the CLM software with confidence.
These document management software best practices lead to better relationships and less contractual risk.
