Five Must-Have Features of a Contract Management Solution

“Marriage is a financial contract; I have enough contracts already.”
   – Linda Fiorentino

It’s a fact: businesses that implement a transparent contract management process compress their time to revenue; mitigate risks by having fewer contractual exceptions and increase customer satisfaction. Contracting is more complex than ever before, and this unfortunate trend is expected to continue. One reason is that standard, “universal” contracts are a thing of the past now as clients are demanding more personalized contracts.

What’s needed is a solution that solves the very basic problem of contract management by creating a simple, reliable process to execute the intake, review, approval, execution, management and storage of contracts. Business, legal, and even financial contract approvers should have access to one central location to collaborate and approve contracts as they move through the contract lifecycle process. Beyond that, we’ve selected five features that we feel must be incorporated in your contract management solution.

Here are five must-have features of a contract management solution:

1. Contract Lifecycle – Contracts can be managed throughout the entire lifecycle, including renewal dates, termination notice periods and non-standard terms.
2. Added Visibility – Centralizing your contracts allows visibility throughout their lifecycle. You can see a document’s history, including all previous versions and can create reports based on any data field in a personalized dashboard.
3. Simplified Management– Easily collaborate with reviewers and departments directly. Email updates can also be sent to contracts through an assigned unique email address. Email notifications can be configured for multiple events, including new contract requests, comments, tasks, updates and documents.
4. Custom Intake Forms – Custom intake and data forms allow multiple contract types with the capability to support context sensitive data capture. Some contract types supported include NDAs, MSAs, SOWs, etc. Fields can be easily configured by contract type and reminders can be based on business rules.
5. Flexible Workflow – Workflow can be configured relative to contract type or matched to your unique business needs.

Contracts no longer have to be the 24/7 headache they used to be. It’s time to get on board with the finest in contract management solutions and allow your business to reach the level of success it deserves.