Does your company use a contract management tool?
Did you know that implementing a contract management tool can not only streamline your contract management process but also make your contracts smarter as well?
As the CEO of your organization, it is likely that you have a multitude of contracts on file that you need to keep track of. If you’re not using a contract management tool to help you achieve organization with your contracts, though, they can easily get mismanaged and important aspects of the contract can fall through the cracks. To ensure that all your contracts are fulfilling their intended purposes, it is essential to verify that they’re structured properly. The best way to verify this is with contract management tools but what are the essential features these tools should offer to ensure that they’re accomplishing their intended purpose?
Important Features of Contract Management Tools
To ensure that your contract management system is reviewing contracts correctly, enforcing provisions accordingly, realizing the intent of your contracts, and recognizing any weaknesses that need to be corrected, make sure any contract management tools you decide to implement offer these important features.
Automated Negotiation
As negotiation is one of the most important parts of the contract management process, it is essential that any contract lifecycle management tools you choose for your needs can send and receive contract information through a secure portal. Having this feature in your contract management tool will speed up the contract processing speed and allow stakeholders to review the contract and track any highlighted features and prerequisites of the contract, enabling them to identify any errors and make changes.
Automated Approval
One of the biggest features of a good automated contract management tool is that it will allow the user to take significant advantage of the automated approval process. This means that appropriate documents are sent to the department or the person that they’re associated with. Choosing a tool that offers automated approval also enables legal staff and clients to communicate without any interruption and to speed up the approval process by maintaining a parallel contract workflow.
Centralized Document Storage
This feature is essential for any tool you choose because it enables your company to maintain a centralized repository for all documents that are related to the contracts. Having a single, primary, and secure location for contract files helps authorized users access these files by their identifying data. Having this feature in your contract management tools will allow users to customize security preferences or settings based on the contract.
Renewal and Milestone Detection
Another important feature of any contract management tool you decide to implement is the ability to notify you when the contract is due to re-approval or renewal. The tool should also be able to identify any areas or add-ons that can be improved to increase contract value and it should notify users by automated alerts when the contract is going to expire.
Being able to successfully organize and manage your contracts is essential, making the importance of contract management tools a big deal. If your company has yet to implement any contract management tools, now is the time to do so to ensure that your contracts are properly managed, and nothing is falling through the cracks.
