Are you tired of spending countless times trying to find specific contracts, clauses, or other critical information?
Do you have an organized contract storage system where you could pull data from months or even several years ago? What would that process look like when searching for that information? How long would it take?
Is your current contract storage system organized and efficient? Does it promote growth and the scaling of your business? Will your current contract storage system work for the long term?
If your company consistently works with a high volume of contracts, it’s likely you’ve encountered the regular time-wasting bottleneck of manual contract and clause searches.
Did you know that according to the Journal of Contract Management, 71% of organizations that manage contracts lose 10% of their contracts?
By adopting a SharePoint-based centralized contract repository, you can increase visibility, efficiency, and organization in your contract management process. Leveraging all that a contract repository has to offer will not only improve contract storage but will also offer ways to improve day-to-day business operations and business-vendor relationships.
Content-
- What is a contract repository?
- How To Use A Digital Contract Repository
- Why Your Business Needs a Contract Repository
- 3 Tips for Contract Repository Implementation
- The Pain Points of an Inefficient Contract Repository
- Why You Should Opt for a Cloud-Based Contract Repository
- Increase cohesiveness
- Boost accuracy with automation
- Cloud-based Storage
- Better Communication
- Increased Security
- Version Tracking
- Customizable, Filtered Search Functionalities
- Automated Notifications
- Stress-free management
- Improve client satisfaction
- Increased compliance
- Cost-efficiency
- Conclusion
What is a contract repository?
A digital contract repository or document repository is a centralized storage for all your contracts and related documents. It is an electronic contract database that allows users to tag, sort, categorize, archive, store, and retrieve their company contracts and associated documents in a cloud-secure environment. These easily accessible locations are the highlight of modern contract management software solutions. Prior to the technological advancements of today, traditional contract management processes were conducted manually – leading to disorganization, a lack of cohesiveness, and document loss. In these previous management methods, storing and sorting physical documents was very ineffective and risky. Contracts and related documents were often improperly categorized (or not categorized at all) in physical storage systems – leading to difficulty and time wasted when searching for a specific document in the repository.
With a centralized repository provided by contract management software solutions, the contract manager or business owner can build, store, manage, sort, and execute contracts in a single location. The Dock 365 Contract Management System (CMS) uses a centralized contract repository. In this repository, you can create, store, sort, and manage contracts in one location, allowing you to find contracts quickly while increasing visibility. The contract repository includes an Optical Character Recognition (OCR) capability to convert old contracts and make them searchable within the database. To create a cohesive and streamlined contract management process, we recommend utilizing a centralized contract repository to store all of your contracts. A contract repository is a centralized place where contracts and related metadata is kept and managed. The repository will function in various ways based on the type of business, growth of the business, the number of users, and types of contracts and documents.
How To Use A Digital Contract Repository
Contracts are the cornerstone of every business partnership, containing critical information and sensitive data pertaining to company performance stats and other business relationships. Your method of contract storage, accessibility, and organization is dependent on the contract lifecycle management solution you adopt. Today, digitizing contract management opens you up to increased opportunities to extract more value from your contracts.
Manual, paper-based contract management is clearly outdated, risky, and slow. A digital contract management solution allows users to easily access their contract and associated data to analyze trends and gain insights into contract performance and statuses. Within your digital contract repository, you can derive key contract information to help you make the most data-driven business decisions. In addition, you can rapidly and accurately search for exact pieces of metadata, clauses, and contracts within seconds with advanced text-based search capabilities and customizable, savable filters.
Why Your Business Needs a Contract Repository
A primary concern in contract management is contract visibility. Without an appropriate level of visibility in your contract management system, there won’t be an accessible and comprehensive overview of contract details, terms, and obligations. Because every contract is different, and every contract manager creates and manages contracts in a unique manner, it's necessary to develop a contract management system that provides visibility for all involved in the contract management process.
For example, if a contract manager prefers to store contracts and related information in physical files, it will create an obstructed and difficult process to filter through and find specific documents. In this way, the following could result
- Delays in service
- Missed or forgotten deadlines, renewals, expiration dates, etc.
- Contract non-compliance
- Expired contracts
- Duplicated contracts
Avoid all of these pitfalls with the help of a functional contract repository. A contract repository allows you to access all contract and document information within a single centralized location. Find whatever you need, whenever you need it.
Technological advancements have enabled today’s contract repositories to possess some remarkable features and search/filter functions. With a contract repository, you can increase data cohesiveness and accuracy, utilize automation, track contracts, improve teamwork, and increase compliance. Manage, store, sort, and create contracts in one place with increased visibility with the help of a contract repository. Gone are the days of endless time wasted searching for contracts – find anything rapidly with a repository.
Using our CMS solution, you will have every contract within direct access at any time with a customizable search function where you can set pre-made filters for different contract and document types.
3 Tips for Contract Repository Implementation
Let’s discuss three top tips for successful contract repository implementation.
1. Begin by assessing your business’s unique needs and goals
Discuss with your contract management team the needs and goals within your business. Follow-up by assessing what the purpose of a contract repository is and how it will serve in achieving business results.
Discover what the administrative team needs and where gaps can be filled. Where are there existing delays in the process? What is the current system of filtering and searching for contract data like? How effective is communication across various teams (legal, contract, executive, etc.)? Having an extensive overview of how the current system functions and what needs exist will help in further decision-making. In this way, you can decide which data to prioritize in the new contract repository.
Is there automation in your contract management process? We suggest setting automated reminders and alerts of critical dates and deadlines. Set your sales department up for success by facilitating discussion surrounding what a contract repository has to offer them. The filtered search capability of a contract repository, for example, can help your sales team find specific contract terms and clauses as well as information regarding negotiations. With automated reminders, they will also be well-prepared for renewals and other key dates.
Lastly, ask your contract managers what the biggest area of need is. They are key for setting the fine details for the contract repository when it is implemented.
2. Sort contracts and associated documents
After taking a complete assessment of unique needs and goals from a variety of departments in your business, use the information you compiled to decide in what order to upload contracts and documents into the contract repository.
This is important because contract types play a large role to the repository. Based on the answers from your teams, which type of document is most important to your business’s goals? Which type of contract is used most consistently? Create a seamless transition into using the contract repository by having a broad overview of the impacts of contracts currently so that transferring them into the repository is easy.
Organize contracts based on specific characteristics. This is a very important step that takes a considerable amount of time but will pay high dividends in the long run for team efficiency. Sort contracts based on various clauses, conditions, and terms. This allows you to conduct time-efficient and accurate searches within the contract repository by using customizable filters. This optimizes contract management by saving valuable time and making it extremely simple to find very specific information in a sea of complex contract data. Your contract management, legal, and sales teams will thank you!
This is the step that takes the most time but is what ends up paying off in a significant way. Effective and clear organization of contract details will create a very simple, clean, and cohesive contract repository.
3. Implementation
Now that all of the planning is complete, you are ready for contract repository implementation.
We recommend our Dock 365 Contract Management System. Our system will offer you a centralized contract repository that gives you a comprehensive understanding of all aspects of your contract management processes. Our effortless contract management life cycle platform allows you to review every part of your customer and vendor contracts, set deadlines and review dates, create, and edit contracts, and use contract tracking tools to track various items and obligations.
By taking the time to plan and organize contract repository implementation, you can ensure a smooth transition into its use and increase the likelihood of its success. Assess your business’s unique needs and goals, sort the contracts and other pertinent documents, then implement. With these three steps, you will certainly have contract repository success!
The Pain Points of an Inefficient Contract Repository
Microsoft Excel has historically been the key software used by businesses to store contracts. An ill-equipped contract repository will only make it harder for you to manage your current contract portfolio, and most especially, a contract portfolio growing in volume and complexity. If you currently struggle to manage your contracts effectively, then a poor contract repository certainly won’t make it any easier – particularly when it comes to gleaning insights on your contract data. Consequentially, it can leave your business vulnerable to several potential pitfalls including the following:
Poor data accessibility
Keeping contracts filing cabinets, shared drives, desktops, email chains, and other disjointed locations only leads to an increased likelihood of data and contract loss as well as bottlenecks in retrieving your contracts when you need them.
Minimal security
Contracts include highly confidential data, and with a repository system lacking in security, you run the risk of a data breach and your documents being found in the wrong hands. A digital contract repository offers encryption in transit and at rest, user permissions-based access features, and other robust security capabilities to minimize risk exposure.
Forgotten obligations and key dates
Are you tired of letting auto renewal and contract expiry dates slip through the cracks? Say no more with automated reminders brought to you by contract lifecycle management software. A manual contract repository makes it difficult to collect key dates and track obligations directly from your contracts. Contract management software extracts metadata like milestones, obligations, terms, and key dates so you can easily monitor these items and plan ahead for them with your team.
Subpar version control
Collaboration and communication on your contracts become harder than it needs to be with a manual contract storage method. You’ll often have people working on the wrong contract draft version, or the wrong version might find itself in the wrong place. The poor ability to control contract version histories only leads to decreased visibility and increased confusion. In more extreme cases, minimal version control can result in the deletion of contracts or losing your contracts entirely.
Struggle to monitor KPIs
Without instant access to your contract data, it becomes nearly impossible to use your data to effectively oversee and monitor contract KPIs – cutting into your ability to analyze contract performance and business achievements.
Expensive compliance outcomes
A manual contract storage method increases costs by incurring fines and penalties associated with contract noncompliance and failure to adhere to industry and regulatory requirements and policies.
Why You Should Opt for a Cloud-Based Contract Repository
Cloud-based contract repositories are ideal for time management and efficiency. This is because the energy and time spent on manually searching for contracts and clauses or monitoring compliance can be drastically reduced. By using the contract repository, key contract managers and employees can shift their efforts towards more important tasks that require a hands-on approach, rather than be pulled to administrative duties. This way, your contract management team can increase productivity instantaneously. You can perform several functions pertaining to your contracts in a single secure place with the repository.
Let’s discuss the many benefits of a centralized repository.
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Increase cohesiveness
Using a contract repository will decrease the fragmentation of your data and increase overall cohesiveness and organization. During contract life cycle management, it’s very likely that data will get fragmented at some point. Even by using a solution such as SharePoint to collect your data, it’s inevitable for data to become scattered due to numerous people and parties inputting different information. Utilizing a centralized contract repository will help in contract and metadata storage and management on a large scale. Additionally, contract metadata can be uploaded into the repository for contracts that are both new and pre-existing.
A massive advantage of a cloud-based, centralized contract repository is the fact that it provides a detailed birds-eye view of all contract information. Digital contract repositories provide business owners with a single source of truth regarding where their contract data is stored. Every contract detail, including contract type, name of the client or vendor associated with the contract, expiry date, status within the lifecycle, execution date, and more is readily available. Previous contract management heavily relied on Excel spreadsheets or written documents to track specific contract details. Authorized users can access contracts without the hassle so they can attain accurate information relating to ongoing business relationships.
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Boost accuracy with automation
Human error is one of the largest areas for potential discrepancies that you will encounter during contract life cycle management. By entering data manually into spreadsheets, errors are bound to occur. Small errors can lead to large impacts business-wide.
What could human error cause in my business?
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Reduced mastery of contract obligations
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Missed renewals and deadlines
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Misinformed business decisions
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Inaccuracies in various reviews and reports
The Dock 365 Contract Management System offers a centralized contract repository that can automate data entry. In this way, your contract management team can work with a consistent user interface and eliminate human error – giving you and your stakeholders more confidence in the data storage, security, and accuracy of your contract repository.
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Cloud-based Storage
Storing contract documents has never been easier. With our cloud-based, contract management system, you’ll never have to worry about losing track of documents. The previous manual method of storing physical copies of contracts and related documents made storing and retrieving copies incredibly difficult and disjointed. Storing physical documents takes up a large amount of space, increasing costs and decreasing efficiency. Now, you can use a digital contract repository that stores documents within a cloud and centralizes every piece of data. Finding a single document or clause within your contract repository is incredibly easy and efficient.
A cloud-based centralized contract repository is perfect for boosting overall performance and time efficiency. This is because the energy and time spent on manually searching for contracts and clauses or monitoring compliance can be drastically reduced. By using the contract repository software, key contract managers and employees can shift their efforts towards more important tasks that require a hands-on approach, rather than be pulled to administrative duties. This way, your contract management team can increase productivity instantaneously.
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Better Communication
When working with various clients and vendors, having a centralized contract repository will actually help improve communications. Because your business works with many contracts and many parties, it's important to streamline where possible. A centralized contract repository will enhance organization while creating a more accurate storage, search, and management process.
Without a centralized repository, you risk missing critical details or losing contracts entirely when it’s preventable. You’ll never miss important deadlines or misconstrue data and details with the help of a repository. The impact of a disorganized contract management storage system can be tremendous – leading to dissatisfied and angry clients and vendors. You also run the risk of breaking the code, facing various penalties, and being non-compliant.
Gain control, insight, and visibility with a centralized contract repository. With the user-friendly dashboard provided in a contract repository, all contract information is available in plain view. In this way, you can find errors that exist and make adaptive changes quickly. Our contract repository additionally allows you to set automated reminders and notifications for dates and deadlines.
A contract repository can offer your business some amazing benefits. Your contract management team will be equipped with tools to communicate accurately and dependably with clients and vendors. You will improve response times and be able to pinpoint any errors and address issues effectively.
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Increased Security
In a centralized repository, all sensitive data is kept safe so you can make tampering and document loss a thing of the past. Adopting a centralized contract repository software is an easy way to mitigate risk immediately. Don’t let your company’s reputation be soured by a lack of data security. Within a contract repository, your contract manager can enable specific security measures and permissions within the software to limit access to certain contracts and related documents. In previous manual contract management, security risks and the potential for tampering were highly increased. In electronic contract management, it’s impossible for a forgery to take place because users are noted within the software every time an individual accesses a document.
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Version tracking
Version tracking is one of the most revolutionary features provided by a centralized repository. Within the lifecycle of an individual contract, the contract will undergo several edits and iterations by many different people. It’s important that the correct version of the contract is in the right hands at all times so that the correct information is relayed during its lifecycle. During contract building and drafting, several experts work together to create a contract. While spreadsheets provide a simplistic overview of data, as well as a convenient method to track contracts, using spreadsheets is a manual contract management method that cannot effectively handle complex contracts or a high volume of contracts for an organization.
Within the centralized repository, the user can select the most recently edited document so they can continue working on the correct version of the document whenever they desire. To scale your business and make the most of your relationships with your vendors, it’s necessary to switch from a manual contract tracking approach to a digitized one. If you desire to increase the number of vendors you work with or the volume and/or complexity of contracts, make the switch so that you can optimize these processes.
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Customizable, Filtered Search Functionalities
Our system is equipped with a customizable, filtered search function. Want to save a custom filter to use again in a similar search in the future? You can do just that within our centralized repository. Simply search for whatever type of contract, clause, or document you need by typing specific keywords in the Search bar. Apply several filters to find highly specified data instantly. In this way, time efficiency and productivity are maximized within your centralized contract repository.
Contracts include a whole host of sensitive information and a digital contract repository increases the efficiency of sorting through this information so you can retrieve specific data points whenever needed. Searching, reporting, and data analysis are simplified with the assistance of your repository, where you can take data points and develop KPIs and assess performance on proactive, comprehensive contract data dashboards.
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Automated Notifications
Lastly, our contract management software offers you the ability to set custom notifications, reminders, and alerts so you can stay proactive and aware of any critical date. Rather than rely on a third-party notification, our software has all you need to stay on top of contractual obligations. Thanks to automated notifications, your team never has to miss a renewal or expiry date ever again.
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Stress-free contract management team
Does your contract management team spend far too much time looking for certain contracts, clauses, or associated documents?
When your contract management team conducts a “search mission” for pertinent documents as a part of day-to-day operations, it’s a sign that the current system is below standard. Thankfully, there is absolutely a solution for these types of headaches. If your team is overburdened by the need to locate hard-to-find documents consistently, it pulls time and energy away from contract administration.
Using a centralized contract repository rather than manual data entry via spreadsheets, you set up your contract management team for success and time efficiency. Contracts can be easily located and filtered through so that your employees can focus on other critical tasks and propel business objectives forward.
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Improve client satisfaction
A contract repository will increase the time efficiency and productivity of individual contract lifecycles. In this way, you increase the value of your business by providing faster turnaround times. Increase client satisfaction with rapid and accurate fulfillment that will consistently keep your customers returning for your services.
By giving your customers repeated, high-quality performance in contract management, you’ll exceed their expectations and boost your business’s reputation indirectly. With quality service, comes quality results. A centralized contract management repository will only help your business scale!
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Increased compliance
When you have no clue where contracts are located, it makes it astronomically difficult to prove if your business is in compliance with specific rules and regulations.
With fragmented data storage and management, you make it nearly impossible to define what is occurring organization-wide. Reduce regulatory and financial risks by employing a centralized contract repository. By having on-hand access to supplier or vendor certificates, you can stay informed of the correct actions to take, ensuring you provide external auditors with proof of your business’s compliance. A centralized contract repository can function as a source of truth about your business dealings and serves as a source where non-compliance occurrences can be identified and then corrected.
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Cost-efficiency
Ready to cut down on costs? Then adopting a digital contract repository is an excellent place to start. A contract repository allows you to find contracts faster than a paper-based repository or one where you store contracts in multiple places (i.e., shared drives, emails, desktops, etc.). Text-based search and filtering capabilities allow you to retrieve contracts based on contract name, contact, organization, and other characteristics. In this manner, you can easily find answers to your contract questions rapidly without needing the assistance of your legal department.
Conclusion
Do you have a centralized repository? If not, you are certainly leaving some incredible benefits on the table. Our Dock 365 Contract Management System will help you store, manage, and create contracts so you can streamline, optimize, and achieve business results.
With readily available data, improved communication, maximized security, enhanced client satisfaction, increased integrity, and higher levels of accuracy, you can make great strides in your contract management processes today.
Our contract management software was created with your business needs and goals in mind so you can up-level your business strategy and increase the value of your experiences with clients and vendors alike.
