#automatingcontract

Making the shift to remote contract management is a big step for your business. It’s one that many businesses have had to make quickly in the light of the COVID-19 pandemic. Properly managing your contract pipeline is critical to keeping your business flowing smoothly during this period. You want to make sure your contracts move smoothly down the contract pipeline with remote access features. A smarter contract management system can help, often without the in-person touches that usually help your business manage those tasks. To manage your contract pipeline with remote access, try some of these important steps. 

1. Make sure all employees have the right access.

When you're in the office, things are simpler. An employee who doesn't have access to the right contract documentation can simply walk down the hallway and find someone who does. Unfortunately, when your employees are working remotely, they might not have access to others who can get them into those documents. As you prepare your contract pipeline for remote access, make sure your employees have the right access. Make sure logins are current, that all employees know their passwords, and that they can access contract data remotely. This is also a great time to remove old logins for employees who have left the company.

2. Create contract processes that include automated checks and reminders.

When working remotely, it's important to include automated reminders for your employees. This can help ensure that they take care of all of their obligations with regards to your contracts in a timely, effective manner. Your employees are out of their familiar element. They’re away from the office and struggling to adapt to new and changing circumstances. Make sure your contract management software offers the reminders they need: Reminders That Action Needs to Be Taken on a Contract Has a contract been allowed to sit too long in a particular queue or at a particular stage of the approval process? Make sure you issue a reminder that will let your employees know that action needs to be taken.  Contract Scoring  Automatic contract scoring can help you identify any potential challenges with a contract before it moves further through the approval process. Remote work can mean longer approval times and fewer connections between members of your team. This can make it easier for potential errors to fall through the cracks. With automated contract scoring, on the other hand, you'll be able to more easily identify any potential challenges with the contract before they become more serious.  Renewal Reminders  Do you have contracts coming up for renewal during this period of remote work? Make sure employees get reminders well ahead of time so that they can begin negotiations. This can ensure they will have time to take into account current events and how they may impact future contracts with a given partner. 

3. Automatically move your contracts on to the next phase in the contract cycle.

Once a specific stage of the contract process has been completed, it needs to move on. Set up your contract management system to automatically send the contract on to the next stage in the process. You may, for example, need to move it straight from the sales team to approval. Alternatively, a smart system can move it through the stages of approval. Make sure it automatically moves to the next person who needs to see it. Then your team can accomplish their tasks remotely and easily. 

4. Make sure you have a remote signature option in place. 

Connect your contract management software with a remote signature platform. This will allow both your team and your contractual partners to sign your contracts without having to be in the same place. These e-signatures are just as binding as physical signatures on a document. But they don't require team members to leave the safety of their homes or expose themselves to potential infections. A contract pipeline with remote access to e-signature options will also ensure that the signed version of the contract is stored online, where your team can easily access it.

5. Institute virtual contract compliance monitoring.

When your team is working remotely, your managers may face more challenges than usual monitoring contract statuses. By setting up automatic contract reminders for managers, however, you can provide your team with complete insight. This is an essential element of your WFH plan for approving and managing contracts. Let them see your contract statuses and keep them informed about the steps that need to be taken next. Follow these steps to get started:

1. Involve managers early in the process.

Often, managers need early insights into the contract management cycle. Your normal process might not bring your contract managers in until further down the cycle. However, this method may cause difficulty for your management team, especially when they're working remotely and not in the office communicating with one another. Your contract management system doesn't just have to provide automatic contract reminders for managers when it's time for them to take action on a contract. You may also want to institute notifications that a new contract has been created and allow contract managers to look over the terms of the contract. 

2. Work with the management team to see when they are most likely to step in. 

Take a look at the places where your management team usually needs to look over contracts. Many of those steps may not normally take place within your contract management system. In fact, your managers may typically simply step into an office or work directly with a team to clear up questions. When you make the transition to remote work, however, your management team may need those vital reminders and notifications to recognize that they're needed. Set up your contract management system so that it automatically provides those triggers and notifications. Set up the same automatic contract reminders for managers in other teams and key personnel in other departments, too.

3. Provide a notification and trigger the correct action each time the contract moves to a new stage.

Your contract managers may normally simply assume that contracts are moving smoothly through their normal stages. But when you make the transition to remote work, your contract management system may need to take care of many of those important reminders. This might include:  Triggering contract scoring automatically.  Contract scoring can help you get a better idea of where your contracts have the potential to pose a danger to your business. Automatic contract scoring will ensure that you do not miss potential risks along the way. Send a notification of those scores to managers so they can make recommendations as needed.  Letting managers know when contracts are approved.  An automatic notification as contracts move through the approval stage can allow the management team to get started on other projects. Automatic contract reminders for managers can also trigger the managerial workflow to take care of other tasks needed to get started on the work for a specific client.  Triggering emails for clients and vendors whose contracts are nearing renewal.  You don't want to miss out on renewing a contract, especially during this difficult period. Failing to renew a contract with a vendor or subcontractor can cause your work to slow down, while failing to renew a client contract may mean that you don't have work at a necessary time. Instead, trigger emails and other reminders that will help you get started on those key contracts.  Offering managers reminders and information when the contract process stalls.  Sometimes, your contracts may sit in a specific stage of the approval process longer than anticipated. Set your contract management system to trigger reminders that will allow your management team greater insights into why the contract has stalled. Automatic contract reminders for managers can also prompt them on what they may need to do to help get things moving again.

4. Offer reminders about each next step in the process.

man working from home to catch deadline of his new project Your management team may know each step in the contract process, from completing those initial templates to ultimately renewing your contracts. Other members of the team, however, may not have the same insights into those processes. Set up your contract management system to offer vital reminders, both to the management team and to the other team members working with those contracts. Consider: When do employees need to loop in a manager?How should employees handle questions about contract negotiations, phrasing, or terms?What is the next step in the contract process? Does it needs to move to a new stage of the approval process, or do you need to do a compliance check on a contract? Who needs to be notified? Including these reminders in the system doesn’t just ensure that your management team has a solid idea of what's going on with each contract. It also provides your employees with the insights they need to accomplish their daily work tasks remotely. Automatic contract reminders for managers streamline those processes and help salespeople connect with your customers, vendors, and subcontractors. 

5. Offer reminders to your management team about contract terms, industry requirements, and compliance needs.

Your contract negotiation process can be one of the most challenging stages of your total contract management process, but it doesn’t have to be. The more you can automate it, the more smoothly the entire process will run. Automation through your smart contract management software can make a big difference in the entire process. Setting up strong protocols can: Decrease the hours spent on negotiation.Streamline the process for reviewing contracts.Increase the safety rating of your contracts.Make it easier to create a standard contract.  Make sure you're using these strategies as part of your contract management process. 

1. Create Standard Contracts

When your negotiators go to create a contract, they shouldn't have to start from scratch. Even when they're working with a new client who has brand new demands, the contract should start from a standard document. Statements of Work should have language, terms, and sections determined by each product or service added to the order.  In short, you should only rarely have to create a completely new contract.  If your negotiation team has access to a standard contract template, they can easily add the details to meet a new client's needs and demands. By simply filling in the blanks on amounts, timelines, and other details of a specific client, your negotiators can easily put together the initial draft of the contract. Even better, it will meet your company’s KPIs from the start. If you have standard contracts but it’s been a while since their last review, look for these common areas for improvement. 

2. Establish Your Standard Change Thresholds

Within any contract creation process, there is some room for negotiation.  As easy as it would be if your clients automatically signed the standard contract for every agreement, there will be times when you need to negotiate. Sometimes, clients will push for lower prices. Well-paying clients may want some alterations to the services you offer to fully meet their needs.  Within those negotiations, however, you should establish a standard range that you're willing to operate within. While you might be willing to offer a discount for a high-volume customer or one that has given your company a great deal of repeat business, you're only willing to discount your services or products so much. After all, you have to generate income from the contract! Your company likely has standard deviations for other areas of the contract, too. For example, you have a timeline on which you're usually able to deliver your goods or services. While you might deviate from that timeline for a rush order, you can only put things together so quickly on a regular basis. Set your contract management software to automatically display those deviations for your negotiators. Provide them with easy access to how far you're willing to negotiate and where the hard-line is drawn. As a result, you'll find that you have to spend less time dealing with the approval process since your contracts will already be acceptable. You can also grow your team faster as you empower every person with the tools they need to finalize deals and free up your own time.

3. Program in Your Hard Terms

There are some terms that you simply aren't willing to negotiate on — for any client. These might include compliance standards, legal requirements, or even what type of services you're able to deliver. Whatever those hard lines are, program them to auto-fill in your contract management software.  Highlight them so that negotiators can easily see them, and make the text uneditable. If you have a clause that is always included in your contracts, ensure that the program puts it there, in the appropriate place, automatically.  This simple step can save a great deal of time both on contract creation and on the approval process. Not only does it reduce manual work for your contract team, but you'll also know that the right clauses and terms are already in place. 

4. Automatically Score Contracts

Employee turnover is hard for any company. Not only is it expensive (for a senior-level executive, it could cost more than twice their annual salary to replace them), it can leave you scrambling to handle the processes that executive normally deals with. Unfortunately, turnover is a reality of business operation. Sometimes, in spite of your best efforts, you just can't keep an executive from leaving your company. In order to keep things running as smoothly as possible, however, it's important to have a checklist in place that will let you know what to do when an executive leaves the company. Not only is it just good practice, but it can also help you keep your contract management process moving according to schedule. Learn more about the nine stages of solid contract management to see where your company’s executives fit in. Then put these steps into practice today.

1. Have backup approvers already in place.

Many times, your executives are the ones responsible for handling details like negotiated terms and pricing. Long before an executive chooses to leave your company, you need backup approvers in place. These are individuals within the company who: Understand your normal processes.Know how you do things.Are willing to take on the burden of that responsibility.  These individuals should receive training in things like contract risk assessment and how to put together an effective contract. If the day comes when they need to handle those approval processes, they should already know what to do. If you don't have those individuals in place before you receive notice that an executive is leaving, start the training process as soon as possible. Keep in mind that it could take weeks or months to replace an executive member of the company, even if you start the search process immediately. You may want to train multiple individuals to take on those vital job tasks, including contract approval. A single individual probably cannot add all of an executive's assignments to their own list of responsibilities. 

2. Automate what you can. 

When an executive leaves, you may be scrambling to take on many of their responsibilities. This is the perfect opportunity to take a look at your contract management processes. See what tasks you can automate so they don’t fall onto another executive’s plate. Automation doesn’t just stop potential emergencies before they start. It’s an essential element of excellent contract management. Optimize your contract management software to be as effective as possible — with as little input from your team as possible. 

3. Make a list of the executive's specific responsibilities. 

Your contract management software likely already takes care of much of the contract management process for you. But how much of it? How many of those processes are already automated by your contract management software? What processes, including signing, approvals, or audit management, will need to be handled by others? When an executive has been with your company for a long time, it may surprise you just how many tasks they take care of on a daily basis. They might manage tasks for both contract approval and contract administration. Before they leave, have them list out their responsibilities and the contributions they make to the contract management process. Then, make sure that you have other individuals in place to handle those responsibilities. 

4. Revoke the executive's permissions. 

It doesn’t matter how trustworthy the individual who used to work for your company is. They are no longer a member of your team. Make sure you go into all of the company's programs, including your contract management software, and revoke access and permissions. You do not want a former executive to have access to your company's vital records and information. Even if it’s unlikely, you don’t want the potential liability that they can steal information or change it in the future.  Many companies mistakenly maintain the executive's permissions after the executive leaves. This allows other members of the team to use the former employee's login information until that position has been filled. Unfortunately, that can leave gaping security holes in your organization. It allows lower-level employees access to information that only executives should have. Before you revoke permissions, however, make sure those tasks have been assigned to someone else. Also, create a plan for handling those processes in the interim. Alternatively, consider assigning tasks to a “role” instead of a person so you can assign that role to different people over the years.

5. Communicate with your remaining team.

Employee turnover is hard for any company. Not only is it expensive (for a senior-level executive, it could cost more than twice their annual salary to replace them), it can leave you scrambling to handle the processes that executive normally deals with. Unfortunately, turnover is a reality of business operation. Sometimes, in spite of your best efforts, you just can't keep an executive from leaving your company. In order to keep things running as smoothly as possible, however, it's important to have a checklist in place that will let you know what to do when an executive leaves the company. Not only is it just good practice, but it can also help you keep your contract management process moving according to schedule. Learn more about the nine stages of solid contract management to see where your company’s executives fit in. Then put these steps into practice today.

1. Have backup approvers already in place.

Many times, your executives are the ones responsible for handling details like negotiated terms and pricing. Long before an executive chooses to leave your company, you need backup approvers in place. These are individuals within the company who: Understand your normal processes.Know how you do things.Are willing to take on the burden of that responsibility.  These individuals should receive training in things like contract risk assessment and how to put together an effective contract. If the day comes when they need to handle those approval processes, they should already know what to do. If you don't have those individuals in place before you receive notice that an executive is leaving, start the training process as soon as possible. Keep in mind that it could take weeks or months to replace an executive member of the company, even if you start the search process immediately. You may want to train multiple individuals to take on those vital job tasks, including contract approval. A single individual probably cannot add all of an executive's assignments to their own list of responsibilities. 

2. Automate what you can. 

When an executive leaves, you may be scrambling to take on many of their responsibilities. This is the perfect opportunity to take a look at your contract management processes. See what tasks you can automate so they don’t fall onto another executive’s plate. Automation doesn’t just stop potential emergencies before they start. It’s an essential element of excellent contract management. Optimize your contract management software to be as effective as possible — with as little input from your team as possible. 

3. Make a list of the executive's specific responsibilities. 

Your contract management software likely already takes care of much of the contract management process for you. But how much of it? How many of those processes are already automated by your contract management software? What processes, including signing, approvals, or audit management, will need to be handled by others? When an executive has been with your company for a long time, it may surprise you just how many tasks they take care of on a daily basis. They might manage tasks for both contract approval and contract administration. Before they leave, have them list out their responsibilities and the contributions they make to the contract management process. Then, make sure that you have other individuals in place to handle those responsibilities. 

4. Revoke the executive's permissions. 

It doesn’t matter how trustworthy the individual who used to work for your company is. They are no longer a member of your team. Make sure you go into all of the company's programs, including your contract management software, and revoke access and permissions. You do not want a former executive to have access to your company's vital records and information. Even if it’s unlikely, you don’t want the potential liability that they can steal information or change it in the future.  Many companies mistakenly maintain the executive's permissions after the executive leaves. This allows other members of the team to use the former employee's login information until that position has been filled. Unfortunately, that can leave gaping security holes in your organization. It allows lower-level employees access to information that only executives should have. Before you revoke permissions, however, make sure those tasks have been assigned to someone else. Also, create a plan for handling those processes in the interim. Alternatively, consider assigning tasks to a “role” instead of a person so you can assign that role to different people over the years.

5. Communicate with your remaining team.