How To Drive Collaboration With Microsoft 365 Business Central Contract Management

Contractual agreements govern almost 80% of business operations. They play a crucial role in forecasting and assuring a company’s profitability. Then there is no need to wonder why every team in an organization has a stake in contract management.   

Despite departments sharing common goals and practices, they often exist as silos. For contract lifecycle management to be effective, there must be deep ties between the various organizational units. This blog post focuses on the merits of having a collaborative approach to contract management and how to achieve that by integrating Microsoft Business Central with contract management software.  

Why is team collaboration vital for contract management? 

Productive collaboration is the key to maintaining contractual compliance and efficiency across the organization. The teams must work together to ensure that they all have the same information and are on the same page. The stakes of negligence and miscommunication are too high for the legal to play lone wolf regarding contract management.  

The legal department must consider all the influencing factors while creating a contract. For instance, in the case of a pharmaceutical company, the legal requires the latest information from the finance and pharmacy teams to draft efficient legal agreements. Lack of communication among the departments can lead to financial, legal, and reputational risks. Integrating Microsoft 365 Business Central with contract management software ensures that no one is left in the dark when it comes to critical information.  

How does Microsoft 365 Business Central promote collaborative contract management? 

Contracts are the first step for a company to establish business relationships and cost-savings. And depending upon their purpose, contractual agreements come with unique and specific terms and conditions. The legal team requires timely information to devise vendor and client-focused agreements. Also, after contract execution, there must be constant monitoring to ensure compliance and performance. It seems like a waste of resources and expertise to restrict the post-contract stage to just the legal team.

It all boils down to their contract management system and strategy when managing the relationship between legal and other departments. Business Central is an end-to-end solution designed for the entire organization. Integrating the platform with contract management software will enable other departments to participate in the contract lifecycle management process. The legal can develop long-term strategies to get more value from the contracts with actionable inputs from sales, finance, HR, and procurement team. Here’s how Microsoft 365 Business Central drives collaboration for efficient contract management. 

• Visible internal processes 

When the legal team functions as a separate entity, the other departments are not privy to what goes into contract creation and management. But fortunately, Business Central contract management connects the rest of the organization with the contracting process. The integrated system provides them with agency and resources to oversee the progress of contractual agreements throughout the contract lifecycle.  

Every time the contract undergoes amendments or workflows, there is always scope for misunderstandings and distortion of facts. With Business Central contract management, the sales, procurement, HR, and other departments can stay on top of contract creation, negotiation, review, and approval workflows. Therefore, they have real-time document status to keep track of contract versions. Transparent internal processes mean there is much less chance of discrepancies and errors in the contracting process. Further, the stakeholders have clear visibility of agreements and their outcomes.

• Work in parallel 

Microsoft 365 Business Central contract management empowers relevant stakeholders from other departments to handle their legal agreements. For instance, no other personnel is more well-versed in the ins and outs of sales agreements than the sales team. Thus, incorporating the salespeople in the contracting process through Business Central contract management enables them to identify and mitigate bottlenecks.  

They can work in parallel with the legal team throughout the contract lifecycle to ensure that only a cent-percent efficient contractual agreement gets to the final stage. Identifying roadblocks in the contracting process can also help the legal team to function at its maximum capacity. Working side-by-side with other departments provides the legal team with strategic insights into contract requirements and relevant parties.  

• Assigned ownership 

While two heads are better than one, too many contributors can harm the contract management process. What scaling organizations require is collaborations with a clear-cut definition of authority and accountability. So, no matter how many teams or personnel are involved in the process, there is a method to the madness.  

Microsoft Business Central contract management comes with a user permission function to limit access to the contracting process to relevant personnel. Whether it is dashboard, workflows, or contract data, only authorized users can retrieve them. Thus, the integrated system encourages productive collaboration without the risk of data leakage or infringement. 

• Shared information 

Automated processes are the quickest way to efficient and error-free contracts. Microsoft 365 Business Central contract management goes one step further to enable enterprises to auto-populate customer, employee, and vendor data to create accurate contractual agreements. Thus, the legal team can fill in contract form fields with initial extracted values from the Business Central databases. Consequently, removing the scope of human error and delays due to manual entry of data.  

Business Central contract management also broadens the scope of shared information by providing relevant teams with access to comprehensive contract reports. Timely insight into renewal, expiry, obligation, and invoice reports empowers other departments to actively participate in contract management. They can keep track of relevant dates and milestones to avoid missed deadlines.  

• Input for negotiations 

While the legal oversees contract creation and management, the contract request is put forward by sales, finance, procurement, or any other department. They require contractual agreements for their day-to-day operations. That is why they are much more equipped to understand the context of each legal agreement.  

For instance, when it comes to supplier contracts, the procurement teams have the tactical advantage to make intelligent decisions. They can make the negotiation process go smoother with their expertise in market conditions, vendor disposition, and commodities. Thanks to Business Central contract management, the organization can utilize the procurement team’s proficiency to streamline contract management. The integrated system empowers them to access and accelerate the review and negotiation process. When the enterprise has all the necessary knowledge at hand, it is super easy to arrive at a contractual agreement that benefits both parties.  

• Access to financial data  

Integrating Microsoft 365 Business Central with contract management software gives the legal department unique insight into financial summaries and invoice details. Easy access to specific order information, delivery, payment, balance, etc. can help the legal department to gauge the cost-effectiveness of suppliers and customers. 

All this financial data is especially helpful during contract drafting and negotiation to draw up effective terms and clauses. Efficient contractual agreements improve the chances of approval and compliance. Moreover, a comprehensive overview of the fiscal and contract performance can help the organization to make smart choices during the renewal stage.  

What do enterprises gain from collaboration through Microsoft Business Central Contract Management? 

The consistent and transparent contract management process offered by Microsoft Business Central is likely to have a favorable impact on customer and supplier relationships. Insight into contract workflows fosters a fruitful collaboration among departments regarding contract lifecycle management. Some of the other substantial benefits of delegating and sharing contract information with other departments include the following: 

• Accelerate negotiation cycles  

When businesses get into the contract negotiation process with the expertise of the relevant department, they can finalize the contractual agreement much faster. Moreover, the integrated system also provides easy access to centralized contract repositories. They can extract necessary information from the executed contracts to promote conductive contract dialogue. An intelligent contract management process can accelerate the negotiation process and speed up time-to-signature. 

• Eliminate erroneous payments  

Real-time access to contracts and commercial reports through Microsoft 365 Business Central contract management reduces the financial risks associated with contracts. The sales and procurement can stay ahead of key dates and payments to eliminate litigation costs and fines.  

• Bring down operational costs 

Business Central contract management enables enterprises to delegate appropriate tasks to other departments while the legal stay in control of the operation. It lessens the burden on the legal counsel, and they are free to focus on high-value tasks. Thus, efficient resource and personnel allocation enable enterprises to cut down on unnecessary operating and processing costs related to contract management. 

• Mitigates roadblocks 

When you have the entire organization productively contributing to the contracting process, it is so much easier to identify and mitigate risks. For instance, Business Central contract management enables salespeople to oversee sales agreements as it progresses through the contract lifecycle and eliminate bottlenecks before they become a problem for the company.  

Bottom line 

Microsoft 365 Business Central integration helps to connect a wide range of departments across the organization to achieve efficient and smooth contract management. Irrespective of the company size, the Business Central contract management system consolidates individual teams into a single unified with shared information.  

When organizations have Microsoft 365 Central contract management system, it is far easier to ensure that the appropriate information gets to the right person at the right time. The integrated systems instill transparency, collaboration, and accountability in the contracting process. Additionally, it gives the relevant parties the power to intervene and change the operation as needed.