Managing the contract lifecycle includes various intricate steps and stages that require oversight and expertise from multiple parties and departments. Contracts are more than simply receiving a signature and keeping tabs on what was promised in the agreement. To successfully manage a contract’s lifecycle from start to finish takes considerable time, effort, and resources.
With a dedicated contract management software solution, like the one from www.contractsafe.com you can automate repeatable processes and tasks to systematize and standardize the contract lifecycle – and this supports you in reducing risk and increasing consistency within your processes. In addition, you’ll ensure your obligations are met promptly and promptly. Contract management software is an incredible tool that supports businesses in maximizing their return on investment while reducing risks.
What Is Contract Management?
Contract management is the business process that helps manage the creation, review, execution, monitoring, evaluation, and renewal of contracts to maximize business performance while minimizing risk.
Contract lifecycle management is key to the success of your business. Legally binding contracts determine a business’s stakeholder relationships, pricing structures, work scope, rights and obligations, project timelines, warranty provisions, and more. Effective contract management can drastically improve your organization’s performance by knowing how critical contracts can be. If your contract management is weak, it can lead your business towards various operational and financial risks.
The role of contract management is ever-changing. Contract management involves understanding every aspect of a contract’s lifecycle to extract meaningful data and information insights. Businesses that engage in successful contract lifecycle management drive their contract performance and achieve their objectives through efficient contracting and faster cycle times. Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) has evolved from an operational record-keeping system to an enterprise-level core system that addresses business risk, costs, and the maximization of revenue and profits.
Contract Management Best Practices
Approval Workflows – Easy Compliance & Efficiency
More than a central repository for your contracts, automated approval workflows within your contract management solution streamlines your contract management processes by quickly moving contracts from one step to the next. Instead of spending 80% of your time doing administrative work, you can focus on adding value.
Because not everyone sends their documents to legal (even though they should), setting approval workflows at the template level guarantees that those users, or user groups, that generate contracts from this template will have the appropriate approvals in place from the start. No one will ever have to chase down an approver or shy away from Legal.
Standardize The Contract Creation Process
An optimized contract lifecycle management strategy can result in increased productivity and efficiency. This is especially true for your organization’s legal department, where you can free up their valuable time using standardized, preapproved contract language in your library full of compliant contract templates and clauses.
You greatly support your legal department by using preapproved, standardized templates and clauses that include current, accurate, and compliant legal language. Applying consistent conditions, legalese, and vocabulary to your contracts helps reduce time spent by general counsel when proofreading them, which can help push them through the review phase faster. All of these factors lead to an efficient contract authoring phase.
Balance Storage Security and Visibility Requirements
Some of the best contract management solutions meet two objectives that are usually at odds– the security and visibility of sensitive contract information and quick, easy contract access.
The solution to managing contracts safely is to have a security system that utilizes robust verification of authorized personnel to ensure the identification of employees or partners. Confidential documents are protected with a security process that prevents unauthorized user access. Having a central system simplifies contract access across the organization. System administrators can grant various access levels, so users only see files they have the authority to view.
Streamline Approvals to Slash Turnaround Times to Save Money
A streamlined contract management approval process benefits your organization in many ways. First, your business holds the advantage of receiving contracted goods and services quicker, saving money and hassle.
Positive relationships result from a shorter cycle from the initial conversation to finalized approval agreements. This is done by adding convenience on both sides. Quicker and more responsive businesses may have a much easier time seizing opportunities with relatively tight turnaround times.
Structuring and Segmentation
When it comes to contract organization best practices, specifically regarding compliance, enabling administrators to grant different levels of permission and access to specific user profiles is key.
Roles, User Groups, And Permissions
With roles, administrators can choose who has the right to perform particular actions on your contract lifecycle management platform, i.e. the right to sign a contract, modify a template, delete a contract, etc. These user groups or access rights can then be used to set approval workflows—customizable workflows that route to the appropriate user or group that reflect established company practices for approval and signatures.
Roles allow you to define what actions particular team members can perform, and you can grant users, and teams access to specific folders using tags. Your contract lifecycle management platform might start you out with three predefined system roles—Administrator, Users, and Read-only. Still, it should enable you to create as many customized roles as you need.
