Solve 8 Contract Management Problems with Contract Management Software

Every company has a unique set of hurdles they have to overcome, especially when contracts are considered. With the support of contract management software, many of the challenges associated with modern contract lifecycle management can be addressed. The unique objectives and needs of any given business or organization will influence the problems countered throughout their contract lifecycle management procedures. Luckily, a contract management system can assist companies in a variety of industries to alleviate the majority of the contract management problems they face.

Content-

• Minimal Transparency of Contract Portfolio
• Delays and Slow Turnarounds
• Noncompliance
• Negligible Contract Systemization
• Lacking Supply Chain Risk Mitigation Strategies
• Unfavorable Contract Auto Renewals and Expiries
• Isolated Data
• Inefficiencies Due to Transitioning Between Multiple Platforms
• Conclusion

Now, let’s dive in to the top 8 contract management challenges and learn more about how contract management software can address them.

1. Minimal Transparency of Contract Portfolio

Lacking contract transparency is a common issue that companies run into when managing contracts. The method of contract storage plays a major role here – if contracts are stored in several disconnected locations where they’re spread across email inboxes, shared drives, computer desktops, and filing cabinets, then you’re only asking for a hard time when it comes to finding contracts at the times you need them most. In light of contract reviews and negotiations, it’s critical that you can retrieve your documents rapidly and with precision. Many businesses simply can’t find their contracts due to these outdated contract storage practices.

The assistance of a contract lifecycle management software solution can solve this problem. Now, you can store contracts securely in a cloud-based digital contract repository, providing your team of authorized users with 24/7 contract access no matter the location, the time, or the digital device they use. This provides your team with a single source of truth in terms of where contracts are stored. Within the contract repository, users can use advanced text-based search features and customizable, savable filters to locate exact key words, clauses, contracts, and associated documents. Increased contract accessibility and therefore contract transparency, leads to increased contract results.

2. Delays and Slow Turnarounds

There’s nothing worse than an extraordinarily slow turnaround time when it comes to contracts. These can be caused by an inability to locate contracts, ineffective communication during reviews, or a bottleneck in legal during approvals.

With a contract management software, you lean on manual processes prone to risk, human errors, and inaccuracies. During approvals for example, a lack of standardization will cause difficulty in monitoring your contracts moving forward. This means you lose visibility of the status of each contract and increase the difficulty of identifying what is causing delays within the contract lifecycle.

Contract management software expedites contract lifecycles by standardizing every stage of the lifecycle, increasing productivity, accuracy, and security at the same time. A software-based contract management approach additionally cuts turnaround times by giving users contract lifecycle management tools that assist in alerting the team of bottlenecks. Additional tools are used to increase the efficiency of various stages. For example, contract clause libraries and preapproved contract template libraries support the contract authoring and reviewing stages, where legally approved and compliant contracts can be created and edited rapidly with minimal risk. Contract management software also supports companies with user-friendly collaboration portals to streamline reviews, negotiations, and approvals.

3. Noncompliance

Today, the majority of businesses and organizations work under very stringent compliance policies and regulations, meaning that poor contract management strategies can result in poor rates of contract compliance – putting your organization at risk for several negative repercussions. If you don’t have a standardized method of monitoring the compliance of language and terms in your contracts, then you expose yourself to preventable risks, penalties, and other items resulting from noncompliance.

Contract management software automates contract drafting with preapproved, compliant contract templates and clauses, including necessary clauses in specified contract types. To add, your company can swiftly adjust to changes in regulations and compliance policies by retrieving active contract that might be influenced by the new policies.

4. Negligible Contract Systemization

Companies without a systematized method of authoring their contracts end up developing contract portfolios full of agreements including inaccurate/outdated data and unstandardized contract language and legalese. This stems from the method employed to create their contracts. Lacking contract systemization puts strain on legal to sort through each line of each agreement to ensure the language is accurate and risk-mitigative.

Contract management software supports companies in reducing inaccurate and outdated contract clauses and templates so that only the most current and compliant contract terminology is used in every contract during the contract authoring phase. This gives legal more time to focus on other higher-priority items that require their legal expertise.

5. Lacking Supply Chain Risk Mitigation Strategies

Contracts are essential to creating client, vendor, and supplier business relationships. With the complexities associated with supply chains, a suboptimal contract management approach will only lead to increased liability. Many organizations fail to grasp a broad understanding of who their business partners are, what contract terms they’re working with, and where risk is present within their practices.

Contract management software built for enterprise-level organizations provides complete visibility into an organization’s supply chain. Your digital contract repository serves as a great resource for gleaning insights on your vendor and supplier partnerships so you can track supplier risk potential and compliance of your sourcing. Software capabilities like automated alerts and reminders can keep your team up to date on your vendors and suppliers. Proactive and intuitive contract management dashboards increase the efficiency of reporting a data analysis, where users can easily gain insights on contractual partnerships and supply chains.

6. Unfavorable Contract Auto Renewals and Expiries

Forgotten contract auto renewal and expiry dates are an extremely common issue in modern contract lifecycle management. One of the first questions we often hear when businesses ask us about or solution is, “Does it have reminders for expiring and auto renewing contracts?” (The answer is yes.)

Unfavorable auto renewed contracts and unwanted contract expiries are frustrating and costly that cut into your contract performance and bottom line.

Contract management software helps you maintain a proactive approach to upcoming key dates and deadlines so that nothing slips through the cracks. Gain awareness of all contract auto renewals and expiries with customizable automated reminders so that your team has enough time to prepare ahead and get the best deals possible.

7. Isolated Data

Contracts can significantly influence business procedures within a given company, however, this doesn’t always appear to be the case when enterprises store contracts separately from their other systems. This increases the difficulty of extracting data from your contracts, resulting in inaccurate data entries.

A contract management software solution can integrate with your CRM and other digital business solutions to eliminate re-entry of the same data and instead, automate your data entry to increase efficiency, accuracy, and standardization of contract data use.

Learn more about DocuSign, Adobe Sign, and Sertifi electronic signature integrations here.

8. Inefficiencies Due to Transitioning Between Multiple Platforms

A manual contract management strategy means working with multiple online or physical contract management platforms to oversee your contract portfolio. Do you have to maneuver between your contract draft to a different business solution to complete contract tasks? Working between multiple platforms in this way can decrease the security of your contracts, so we recommend leveraging an all-inclusive contract management system to complete all required contract responsibilities and tasks within one secure, online software system.

Conclusion

Contract management software is here to support you in your contract management challenges. Now, you can gain the confidence in your contract lifecycles with a solution that empowers you to make data-driven decisions that produce contract results. Our Dock 365 Contract Management System is built on your existing Microsoft Office 365 environment for streamlined adoption and implementation. Leverage automated reminders to never forget about contract expiry and auto renewal dates, store contracts securely in a searchable, cloud-based SharePoint contract repository, and remove tension from your legal department with contract management made easy.

For more information, we would like to welcome you to schedule a free demo with us today.