Contract Management Software: Get What You Want!

Don’t wait until it’s too late to realize your small or large business could use a more efficient way to organize, maintain, and manage your contracts! Mistakes happen, but they are preventable. Too many times deadlines are missed, money is spent unnecessarily, and time is wasted pursuing ongoing contract objectives. Prevention of these and many more everyday complications can be simplified by choosing a contract management software that meets your needs.

Why Contract Management Software?

Outdated paper filing systems hinder and expose your business to the risks of misspent time, dead files, and increased losses. Launching a contract management software will allow you to effectively compete with today’s growing tech based small businesses and encourage your business to prosper.

What is Contract Management Software?

Contracts, as the foundation, are defined by Merriam – Webster’s dictionary as, “a binding agreement between two or more persons or parties; especially: one legally enforceable,” or “a business arrangement for the supply of goods or services at a fixed price…” Depending on the contract’s complexity certain stipulations may need to be readdressed several times during the contract’s lifecycle. They are more than a simple piece of paper that can be filed and forgotten.

Until recently contracts required using a lot of paper, ink, copiers, files, file cabinets, and extra bodies, i.e., contract management, which is the administrative duties of handling contracts. Unnecessary risks and human errors increase substantially when relying on a complicated contract management system filled with busy work from using paper. A good contract management software remedies these issues and more because it offers routing, notifications, straightforward searches, comprehensive reports, and other features that can be tailored to your business needs.

A contract management software is an automated way to organize and maintain the contract lifecycle between parties. With a beneficial contract management software, information is located in one place enabling features like Notifications, E-sign, and OCR to increase efficiency and generate a smoother workflow. Some software products provide the added features at an additional cost. Often contract management software will offer version control. Your workflow will see continued improvement from this feature because you will always have the latest version. This makes getting what you want from your contracts easier than ever.

Getting What You Want From Your Contracts

Paper contract management systems often make progress feel like walking up hill in the sand. The same steps are made over and over, but progress is slow, slips are made, and the task is weighed down by excess grains of sand. A good contract management software improves workflow management, decreases risks, and ensures contract awareness while bringing value to your business.

Improving Workflow

“Time is money!” On average a staff member can spend around 18 minutes a day looking for a lost contract or document. For example, if you are paying a subordinate employee $10 an hour, that’s around $60 spent searching each month - $720 each year!

Employing a contract management software with Optical Character Recognition (OCR) ensures your searching capabilities and in turn helps to save time and money. By enabling quick conversion of scanned documents OCR saves hours spent manually entering information. It enhances your contract management software to offer more efficient searches and trouble free edits of documents.

Coupling OCR with notifications and routing supports an efficient contract life cycle. Making sure that each stage of a contract is completed properly and on time is crucial to cutting costs and achieving successful contract management. Notifications and routing enable timely approvals in the appropriate order. They help to guarantee that John isn’t signing off on Part C before Jane can complete any necessary changes or updates.

E-sign supports notifications and routing. It assures contracts are signed correctly and in a timely manner. Businesses no longer have to wait for a contract to physically travel from one place to another or for a person to come in to sign. E-sign allows a contract to be legally signed and returned electronically within minutes of being sent and received.

The cloud allows OCR, Notifications, and E-sign to reach their full potential and provides for an even smoother workflow. Using the cloud supports efficiency by helping to reduce paper dependence and giving you freedom! Business is no longer desk or office bound because information can be uploaded and accessed from anywhere.

The cloud lets future partners gain easier secure access to contract negotiation, updates, and signing. Control of what can be seen and changed is at your discretion. Instant access removes the hardship of waiting on paper to travel hours or days allowing for quicker turnaround. Depending on your preferences, the cloud permits a staff that could work from home. According to Global Workplace Analytics, this can allow $11,000 per person per year and increase staff productivity by 2/3.

These benefits provide quicker turnarounds, allow your business to focus on more pressing tasks, and ultimately aid in reducing your use of paper.

Reducing the use of paper can cut spending costs around 20 to 25%. One case of paper is around $46. That’s in addition to office supplies (I.E. pens, paper clips, highlighters, etc.), copiers, printers, ink, toner, files, and file cabinets. Don’t forget the office space you will need to own or rent to make sure that you have enough room for storing extras along with any archives from your paper contracts. Check out this form to calculate it all.

Unproductive use of space will cost because of its size, practicality, and necessity. Keeping a large room on premise just to store supplies and archives is no longer necessary because a contract management software lets you retain what is essential in the least amount of space. This allows better management of resources and supports cultivating the growth of clients and profits.

No business wants to be hindered by the sand that a paper contract management process can create. These undeniable benefits help to guarantee your business positive results from your contracts. Workflow management is improved by utilizing the tools a good contract management software offers. Within a brief period you can realize better resource management, more time, and reduce costs.

Decrease Risks

Often times the day to day hustle and bustle of business can overwhelm and exhaust your time. This could prove costly. Missing auto renewals, expirations, or specific terms and benefits of your contracts are concerns that can be put to rest.

With automated notifications you can forestall automatic contract renewals, stay on top of contract expirations, and better maintain contract provisions. Notifications allow you to rework the terms of a contract or ensure that it ends on time. Staying current on deadlines and stipulations reduces unexpected costs and protects from profit losses.

Fulfillment tracking diminishes the chances of a contract being filed away and forgotten. Each new step or task can be tracked and deadlines can be maintained giving you better visibility and control of your contracts.

A robust contract management software allows reporting. Reports can be generated to prevent oversights or to answer an audit or survey. Ultimately information that could take days to gather from a paper contract management system can be gathered with contract management software in a matter of minutes.

These features allow for maximum contract value and help to make certain that you are getting what you want from your contracts.

In Summary

Why risk losing contracts, missing deadlines, and wasting money? Implementing a beneficial contract management software is a straightforward and effective way to avoid these pitfalls, meet your specific needs, and solve your pain points.

Unintentional missteps are avoidable. By using a contract management software you don’t have to worry if something is missing or forgotten.

• Notifications are there to remind you when to sign, if an expiration is approaching, or if a change has been made.
• E-sign stops the running from here to there to track down a signature.
• OCR enables quick searching for PDF documents to confirm or make any necessary amendments.
• The Cloud allows access from anywhere. Giving you and your clients more freedom to stay on top of pressing matters.
• Audit trails allow you to view any actions that have taking place with the record.
• Reports ensure that you are aware of your contracts and sharing information with your administrative staff and board members. The benefit of seeing everything in one place provides the added value of quickly taking care of surveys and audits. With a few specifications a report can inform you of any deadlines or changes, or ascertain if any financial missteps have been made.

Getting what you want from your contracts is a lot easier than before. Choosing a contract management software that is right for you will bring added value as well as cost savings to your business. You won’t regret easily making your workflow smoother and more efficient, decreasing your risks, and increasing contract awareness.

Are you getting what you want from your contracts? Let us know in the comment section below.

The More You Know:

The U. S. Small Business Administration
National Contract Management Association
Federal News Radio - “Agencies end 9-year small business contracting drought”

Sources:

Merriam-Webster Dictionary - Contract
Business Dictionary – Contract Management
Wikipedia – Optical Character Recognition
GlobalWorkplaceAnalytics.com - Latest Telecommuting Statistics
The Cost of Managing Paper: A Great Incentive to go Paperless