Every company has its own set of contract management issues and priorities. Choosing the right software for your company boils down to finding a solution that fits your budget, solves your biggest contract management pain points, and provides a system that you and your team will actually use. Whatever solution you choose, here are some of the most significant advantages of contract management software:
1. A solitary source of truth
Contract management software stores all of your organization’s contracts in one central location, so every user knows exactly where to go to find the contract information they require. Using contract management software eliminates the problem of having multiple copies or versions of a contract floating around, which can lead to confusion and individuals working off of an outdated version of an agreement.
2. Increased contract visibility and understanding
Businesses that do not use contract management software frequently deal with misplaced contracts that are spread across multiple desks, shared drives, and filing cabinets. Users of contract management software can search for any contract, clause, or keyword across your entire contract portfolio and find exactly what they’re looking for in less than 30 seconds.
3. Risk reduction
Contract management software can assist you in reducing contract risk in a variety of ways, including:
- Making it easier to track contract dates and deadlines – By setting up alerts for important contract dates and deadlines, you’ll never be caught off guard when an automatic renewal deadline approaches or a major contract deliverable is due.
- Providing critical contract insight to stakeholders – Contract management software allows you to run reports based on any metadata of interest, increasing contract visibility and insight for department heads, leadership teams, and others. The legal team isn’t the only one monitoring contract adherence and performance.
- Contract reporting also allows your team to easily analyze your portfolio to identify trends in past agreements, allowing you to learn from – and avoid – previous mistakes. By isolating underperforming contracts, you can work to understand what those agreements have in common and look for ways to change the structure of future contracts.
4. Saves time
One of the most significant advantages of contract management software is that it saves time, allowing you to focus on higher-value activities. Manual contract management is time-consuming and tedious, but the majority of contract management software features are specifically designed with your time in mind. An online, searchable repository eliminates the need to dig through cabinets for a contract or re-read a 75-page agreement to find a specific clause or term. The need to manually track important dates for hundreds or thousands of contracts is eliminated by automated alerts.
Artificial intelligence features automatically recognize and tag key pieces of information in your contracts, potentially saving you and your team hundreds of hours of manual entry. Contracts can be signed electronically in minutes, reducing the time required to execute new agreements. Administrators can assign varying levels of access to different groups and users using permission-based user roles, allowing your colleagues to find answers to contract-related questions without requiring your assistance.
Implementing dedicated contract management software streamlines the contract management process, allowing key members of the legal department to spend less time on tedious contract management tasks and more time on high-value strategic initiatives.
Contract administration and contract management are two distinct stages of the contracting process, encompassing the time before and after a contract is signed and implemented. It is critical to have strong contract administration and contract management processes and systems in place to ensure that all of your organization’s agreements are created, executed, organized, monitored, and optimized in accordance with company standards. Look further into the services aside from Contract Management, as provided by EffiGO in the realms of Requisition Management, Catalogue Management, e-Sourcing, etc.
