#contractmanagementsystems

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.

As the COVID-19 crisis continues, many businesses are making critical changes to their operations. These allow them to continue to provide services to their customers and keep their employees working throughout social distancing measures. Your business may need to take a hard look at many aspects of how you manage your employees and your clients. This includes how you manage your contracts throughout the crisis and creating virtual office processes. One important element that you may need to change? Your contract approval processes. 

The Importance of Streamlining Your Contract Approval Processes

Now, more than ever, you need your contact approval processes to move as smoothly as possible. You do not want contracts to get "stuck" while you wait for a specific individual to approve them. Also, you don’t want important clients, vendors, or subcontractors to fall through the cracks while your business makes that critical transition to remote work. Consider these important reasons to streamline your contract approval process: 1. Your clients need fast answers and reassurance.  Many of your clients, during this time, need a fast answer to any questions they have — including questions about the contracts they have pending with your business. You may need to make fast alterations to your contracts to ensure that they meet new industry mandates or requirements, including allowing your customers and vendors alike to maintain social distancing guidelines.  2. Remote-working employees can cause your contract approval processes to take longer.  Remote employees may not all be at their desks as a contract moves to the next stage in the approval process. Many employees are working from home with kids, spouses, pets, and other challenges that prevent them from accomplishing their business days according to their usual responsibilities. As a result, a complex contract approval process may take even longer to execute than normal.  3. Your employees need streamlined processes now as never before.  Because many of your employees are juggling other responsibilities, including caring for children or elderly loved ones, alongside their usual job responsibilities, they need a streamlined contract approval process that will prevent unnecessary work added to their days. 

Revising Your Contract Approval Processes

Contract amendments can make it incredibly difficult to keep up with all the changing terms of your business deals and contracts. Unfortunately, missing out on those amendments — especially those made late in the contract negotiation phase — is all too common for many businesses. Tracking these amendments is a crucial element of managing a complete database of contract records. Depending on what you miss, it could cost your business a substantial amount of money. Not, however, when you use your contract management software to track your contract amendments and remind you of any changes you've made throughout the life cycle of a particular client. With smart contract management software, you can organize all the collective contracts, amendments, and documents related to your relationship with a business or client, keeping everything in order for your business. 

Step One: Highlight Changes Made During Each Stage of the Negotiation Process

When you put together a new contract, whether for a repeat client or vendor or a brand new one, you may go through several stages of negotiation before you reach the final agreement between you and your contractual and partner. Depending on the stages at which those changes are made, you may need to leave specific notifications or highlight specific changes made to the contract to make it easier to keep up with all of those important details. Try: Specifically noting any changes made to your contracts during each negotiation round.  Use your contract management software to make note of the changes. This step should help link changes back to previous versions of the contract.  Highlighting changes made during the redline stage so that you can always refer back to them easily. These changes may be made immediately before contract approval. If you don't highlight them, the person approving the contract may skip right over the top of them, not realizing exactly what changes have been made.  Using your contract scoring effectively.  Contract scoring can help identify potential risks at any stage of the contract's life cycle. You can also flag new risks so that you don't miss a change that could cause increased, excessive difficulty for your business. During this stage, make sure the changes don’t lower the parent contract’s overall score.

Step Two: Make Use of Version Control (and Keep Track of Past Versions and Contracts)

When you make multiple changes to a contract, or when you work with a single contractual partner for a long time, you can end up with a long contract history that can be incredibly difficult to manage. Luckily, smart contract management software offers a number of advantages in this situation. It can: Keep up with all versions of your contracts and contract amendments. This makes it easy to go back to previous versions of the contract. You can even track who made changes and know who approved specific changes to the contract.  Make it easy to search through past versions of the contract.  If you need to find a specific clause or element of a contract, you can utilize a simple search to deliver that information to the people who need it.  Share information, if needed.  Does your contractual partner need to see a past version of a contract? You can easily share it and make it available — and show them when changes were implemented.  Keep all versions of a contract — or changing contracts with a client or business partner — stored together.  You'll be able to track that business relationship and easily find past versions of contracts as needed. Also, they will all be together in the system, rather than being stored by a system that may make them difficult to trace. Make sure everyone is looking at the latest version of a contract.  Smart contract management software can automatically notify users if they attempt to access an old version of a contract. It can also send them straight to the latest version when they're ready to access information about a client. 

Step Three: Set Up Triggers, Tasks, and Alerts As Needed

Your subcontractors — no matter the industry, from construction to event management — are an incredibly important part of the business you complete every day. Often, your clients will judge your business on the quality of work your subcontractors produce. Not only that, if you fail to properly manage your subcontractor agreements, you could end up with poor quality, high prices, or an agreement that just doesn't benefit your business the way you had hoped. Organizing your subcontractor agreements is a crucial aspect of managing all of your business’s contractual relationships. There are several key reasons why you must keep clear records surrounding your subcontractor agreements. 

1. You must have a clearly established payment arrangement.

Some subcontractors will take advantage of an ambiguous payment arrangement to overcharge you, whether that means raising the price of materials or increasing the time spent on a project to gain extra payment for the labor they put forth. Others may simply charge you the going rate for their business or include prices that are much higher than their competitors. Putting together clear subcontractor agreements, on the other hand, removes that ambiguity. Your agreement should clearly establish the work that will be completed by the subcontractor, the materials they will be expected to supply, and the payment they will receive for their efforts. You may also include bonus payments or overhead in the agreement. You can also establish penalties that the subcontractor will incur if they fail to deliver the work you expected.  

2. Your company needs adequate liability protection.

Subcontractors and independent contractors are only human, and they can make mistakes like anyone else. Not only that, you don't have the chance to individually interview or evaluate every member of your subcontractor's team the way you can your own. What happens when the subcontractor makes an error? Your agreement with that subcontractor can accomplish several things, legally speaking. It can: Indicate who bore responsibility for completing a particular piece of work.  This can make it easier to establish who caused an error — and which company bears responsibility for fixing it. Establish penalties for subcontractors who fail to uphold their end of the contract or agreement. You hired a subcontractor to take care of a specific task, but they failed to finish it in time for the rest of the project. Your subcontractor agreement might not prevent you from needing to scramble to fix things, but it can establish what the subcontractor will need to do to make it right.  Help establish legal liability for anything that goes very wrong in the project.  If something does go badly wrong, legally speaking, you want to establish that the subcontractor, and not you, is legally liable. 

3. Subcontractor agreements can help establish security obligations.

Many businesses work with confidential material or in secure areas on a regular basis. Your subcontractors must adhere to the same security standards and guidelines that you do, and your agreement can help set that out. It may detail: What certifications or tiers of access must the subcontractor hold in order to work on a specific project? Both government contracts and strict private customer contracts, for example, may require substantial certifications or secure access tiers of specific employees. Also, they may require certain security clearances from each employee, including subcontractors, who enters the site.  What security regulations must the subcontractor adhere to?  In a medical care setting, for example, subcontractors may have to adhere to HIPAA regulations in addition to normal security. There may also be specific security requirements for some secure work sites or locations.  What are the penalties for failing to adhere to security regulations? Who bears liability if a breach occurs — and what will you do about it?  The subcontractor's lack of security could reflect negatively on your business. So it's critical to set out how you will handle potential breaches ahead of time. 

4. Complete insight into your subcontractor agreements can give you more warning as renewal dates approach. 

The redline stage of the contract negotiations process — when you're still making and tracking changes to your contracts as you work with your client — is one of the most vital stages when it comes to keeping track of changing terms. Your contract may go through multiple incarnations as you work to determine the best approach for both you and the other party. Whether you're dealing with a vendor or a client, tracking the entire of your business relationship matters (and we have a guide for managing the contractual history here). This process is crucial to reaching a contractual agreement that fulfills everyone’s needs. But it can also pose a number of difficulties when it comes to tracking both past and future versions of the contract. Read these tips to organize your current processes.

1. Utilize version control.

The ContraxAware platform utilizes version control to make it easy to track the latest changes and alterations to a given contract. It can also help you keep up with the current version. Version control offers several advantages during contract negotiations: You can easily locate, at a glance, the current version of the contract.You can see past versions of the contract easily. This can make it easier to revert back to previous terms or negotiate with the other party.You can see who made changes to each version of the contract. Strong history records make it easier to track what you have changed and what the other party has changed. You can also see who within your organization has made specific changes to the contract. Version control doesn’t just make it easier to keep up with all the changing terms of a contract. It can also streamline the approval process. Version control makes it easier for everyone to see who made alterations and when they were made. 

2. Take advantage of extensive cloud storage. 

Having adequate storage for your contract management system is critical to tracking and managing all the changing versions of a contract. When you're dealing with inadequate storage, you may delete old versions of contracts in an effort to clean things up. But you shouldn’t have to reduce the footprint of each individual contract.  Unfortunately, this practice makes it incredibly difficult to keep up with past versions of the contract. This can prove problematic if a change is made that either you or the other party doesn't remember. It’s also problematic if you need to go back and review the other versions of a contract for any reason. With extensive cloud storage, on the other hand, you don't have to worry about storage space. You can keep up with every version of your contracts. It doesn’t matter how many incarnations the contract goes through before being signed by both parties.  Cloud-based contract management software makes it easy to keep up with every amendment made in a contract before it's approval. Also, it can allow you to track past contracts with specific vendors or clients easily. You can track: How costs have changed over time.What alterations you've made to your contracts.How your relationship with that entity has changed since previous contract negotiations. 

3. Create an effective amendment process. 

Government contracts, more than any other type of contract, often bring with them a specific set of requirements and regulations. You want to ensure that you remain in compliance throughout the life of the contract and during any continuing obligations with that government entity. The flags, alerts, and triggers you set up with your contract management software can go a long way toward ensuring that you meet your legal and contractual obligations. As you organize your contract records in your enterprise contract management system, consider how it can help you build those alerts. 

1. Flag any compliance concerns as the contract moves through the approval process.

While the government isn't out to go through your contracts or examine your business with a fine-tooth comb, chances are, if you're working on a government contract, you need to ensure absolute compliance. This includes specific industry compliance as well as maintaining privacy, appropriate payment arrangements, and OSHA compliance at construction and job sites. If there are any features missing from your contract, the system should notify you immediately so that you can make those changes. 

2. Trigger an alert if the size of the contract needs to scale.

When the government contracts with your business, it has the right to change the size or scale of the contract while receiving the same services for the same reasonable price range. If the contract needs to scale or requires specific changes, it should trigger an alert in your system to let you know that the size has changed and what changes you need to make to meet your new contractual obligations. 

3. Flag any specific issues that are different on this contract.

Your business probably has several clear templates that you use when you put together your usual contracts. When you're working on a government contract, however, you may discover that the template needs to change. Make sure that your contract management system flags anything on government contracts that is different from the system you usually use. This will allow you to see at a glance what has changed on this contract. Also, it will ensure that you meet your actual contractual obligations, not what you include in a standard contract. 

4. Trigger reminders of due dates and deadlines.

While the government may move forward only slowly, that doesn't mean your business can afford to do the same. Trigger reminders of important due dates and deadlines in your system. Depending on those deadlines, you may want to trigger the reminders well ahead of the actual deadline. You can also add more reminders as you get closer to those deadlines. 

5. Trigger an alert if the contract sits for too long in your system, especially during the approval process.

Government contracts can pose some unique headaches. But they also offer unique advantages to your business — and you can't afford to miss out on them. Government work often pays fairly well. Also, you can count on the government to meet its contractual obligations in a way that you might not see from a standard small business or private partner. Not only that, government contracts often offer consistent business, which can help keep your company running smoothly. You don't want to wait too long to approve those contracts and chance missing out on the contract altogether. 

6. Alert the appropriate individuals when government contracts are up for renewal. 

Government contracts, in particular, should not wait until the last minute to be renewed. Sometimes, it takes longer to get approval from the client's end when you're dealing with the government. Other times, expired contracts may have different processes than contracts that simply need to be renewed. By triggering an alert well ahead of time, you can ensure that you'll get that contract renewed quickly and effectively. Then, business can continue unhindered. 

7. Issue a reminder about access permissions on government contracts.

Even the most straightforward business can have a complex contract system that requires detailed, in-depth management. Your clients, your vendors, and your subcontractors may all have their own unique contractual requirements. This includes complex structures that you may need to keep up with and manage in your interactions with those individuals, too. Not only that, you may deal with ever-changing contract records due to amendments, term renewals, and regulatory changes.  Luckily, your contract management software can help. With an effective contract management system, you can more easily: Keep up with all of your contractual obligations.Retain your relationships with vendors, clients, and subcontractors.Ensure that your contracts are organized in an effective manner that makes them easily accessible to everyone. 

Step One: Set Up Your Business's Internal Organization System

Many large businesses have their own complex internal organizational structure. During mergers and acquisitions, or if you have multiple subsidiary companies within your business's structure, you may further complicate those internal organizational arrangements. Are you setting up your contract management system for the first time or struggling to manage your current contracts due to a lack of organization? Start by tying your contractual organization structure logically to your business's internal organization system. If, for example, you have a parent-child business setup — a larger company purchasing a small one or several smaller ones, for example — you may want to set up an organization system that sets up a distinct hierarchy between the businesses. If you have multiple subsidiaries, you may want to set the parent company over the top of them. Then, organize your subsidiaries, and their contracts, below it.  ContraxAware allows you to create a contract records organization system that fits your business's unique needs. Depending on the number of subsidiaries you have or the number of contracts you deal with on a regular basis, you may need a more complex system. Alternatively, in some cases, you may have a relatively simple and straightforward system. Ideally, you should be able to easily access the contracts for a single subsidiary or single area of your business.

Step Two: Set Up Your Internal Security

Once you've established your organizational structure, you need to make sure that your internal security system is managed appropriately. ContraxAware doesn’t just offer a secure cloud platform. It also offers the ability to manage user permissions throughout your company. This includes: Setting up who is able to access specific areas of the contract.  Your sales team may need to be able to create new contracts. But only specific individuals or departments within your organization need to have permission to approve contracts on behalf of the company. Create more granular tiers of access to protect your data integrity. Controlling who is able to access specific contract records.  Does your company have multiple subsidiary companies? If so, employees of one subsidiary may never need to access contracts belonging to another. You may also want to consider the security necessary to protect your clients. For example, you may have specific contracts that should not be shared with anyone in the company who does not work on those contracts directly.  Determining what processes each type of contract must move through before approval.  You may need to designate more steps for a complex contract than for a simpler, more straightforward one. Different subsidiaries might also require different national or industry-based approval processes.  Controlling what templates can be used by each subsidiary.  Each subsidiary may have the capacity to function within a specific geographic area or to provide specific services for your clients. The parent company may have the capacity to construct a contract that includes services by multiple child companies. But the individual subsidiaries may lack the capacity to access anything but their specific contract templates.

Step Three: Establish an Effective Naming and Labeling System

Thanks to the ContraxAware version control system, you can easily access the latest version of each contract. You can do so without having to make sure you're adhering to a complex numeric or naming system. You can also easily view each set of modifications made to a given contract. This includes everything from amendments in the middle of the approval process to changes made as your relationship with a client, vendor, or subcontractor grows across numerous contract renewals.  To utilize your contract management system effectively, however, you do need a naming and labeling system that is easy to understand and track. You may also want to use different labels for different types of contracts. For example, a vendor contract may look very different from a client contract. Even a subcontractor contract may have a different setup. Barring secure contracts — those with government organizations or companies that maintain a high level of security, for example — you should use an easy naming and labeling system that can be easily understood. This will make it simple for any member of your team looking for a specific contract to find it. 

Step Four: Keep Your Master Service Agreements Straight

Each master service agreement helps establish your direct relationship with a client, vendor, or subcontractor. It clearly displays exactly the services that are expected from the provider, whether that's the services you provide to a client or the materials or services a vendor provides to you. Keeping your master service agreements straight is critical to keeping your business running smoothly. Also, your contract management software can be utilized to help you do exactly that. It can: Establish the exact terms you and your contractual partners agree to.  The master service agreement’s contract record should list all the details of your arrangement, including payment details, the exact services expected, and any regulatory standards that could impact your contract.  Keep track of the history of changes between you and a specific contractual partner.  The longer you work with a specific partner, the longer your contractual history will grow. When you keep track of that history, you can easily refer back to it in the event of a misunderstanding or if you want to make changes to your current agreement. For example, you might have a long history of work for a client who has decided, in the past two years, not to utilize one of the services offered by your company. As the contract comes up for renewal again, that client wants to go back to using those services. Accessing past contract records can make it easier to negotiate new terms. Likewise, you may find that you make multiple changes to a contract before both sides finally approve it. If a contractual term does not make it into the final version, referring back to previous incarnations of the contract can make it easier to see where the alteration occurred. Also, you can prove whether you or your contractual partner is in the right when you disagree.  Highlight terms unique to that contract.  Your business likely has a series of standard contracts used whenever you engage with a particular type of contractual partner, whether vendor, subcontractor, or client. Sometimes, however, you will make modifications to those standard contracts to meet the needs of your contractual partner. For example, when you take government contracts, you may need to meet a series of unique terms. As a result, you may need to keep track of more vital information about that contract.  Note any amendments to the contract records, especially amendments made after the contract was initially signed.  You originally contracted with a vendor to provide a set number of materials for a certain price. After the contract was signed, however, you discovered that you needed 10% more of that material than initially expected. A quick amendment to the contract establishes with the vendor that you can add those additional materials at the same rate as your initial purchase but also that you do need to add that 10% increase onto your payments. Your contract management software should make note of those alterations and amendments made at any stage of the contract's life cycle so that you can ensure that your business remains in compliance with the standards of that contract.  Keep relevant order forms attached to each master service agreement.  Those order forms can help show your order history and enable you to keep up with spending: both specific spending related to each client account and the spending you do with a particular vendor. Keeping track of your order forms and agreements can help you budget more effectively in the future, whether that means better understanding how to price a future job or determining whether a specific vendor is still meeting your budget needs. 

Step Five: Trigger Reminders and Events

Your contract management software can automate many of the reminders and even specific events needed to help keep your contract life cycles flowing smoothly. As a result, you can free up your employees to focus on other aspects of your business. These triggers and reminders can help keep you on track and allow you to manage your contract records more effectively. Your employees don't have time to carefully examine every contract to ensure that you're keeping up with deadlines and meeting contractual obligations. Your contract management software, however, can keep up with many of those responsibilities for you.  Issue reminders of upcoming deadlines.  Is it time to meet a specific contractual deadline? Do you need to take care of a specific requirement of the contract by a certain date? Your contract management software can issue reminders of those important deadlines. Whether you need to send in a report of your assets to a local newspaper after a fresh acquisition or you need to have an approval in by a specific deadline, enterprise contract management systems make work easier.  Generate reports.  Compliance reports, industry standards, and more… There are plenty of reports generated by your business on a regular basis, many related directly to your contracts. Your contract management software can generate many of those reports automatically. Then it can send them to the proper individuals, keeping your daily business responsibilities moving smoothly.  Remind you of upcoming renewal dates.  When a contract comes up for renewal, you need to know about it well in advance. The sooner you know a renewal is coming, the sooner you can start taking care of those critical renewals. This includes negotiating new terms if needed. You can also use reminders for signatures in place so that you can continue work uninterrupted. 

Step Six: Maintain Access to Past Contract Variations

The centralization of a company's contract data is one of the main features of a contract management system. So when you think of contracts, procurement teams and legal departments might come to mind. But centralized data can benefit an entire organization, allowing all departments to handle aspects of their job more productively and more effectively, including marketing teams. So when you ask yourself, “What is contract management software, and how can it help me?” we’ve got you covered. Here are a few ways marketing departments can use contract management software to their benefit. 

Organize Your Customers Based on Their Publicity Clauses

In some situations, a marketing department might have direct contact with customers, or at least need the capability to review terms of a customer contract. One such example is the presence of publicity clauses. A publicity clause is language that discusses the disclosure of the business relationship between the company and a vendor. Under some provisions, companies can publicly announce the relationship between the company and their customer for the purposes of branding and promotion.  Some customers and vendors do not want any product or pricing information revealed to a third party for marketing use. Other times customer or vendor contracts have publicity clauses that allow the marketing department to mention company and names on promotional materials. Mixing up the two can be incredibly costly. Accidentally releasing a business relationship you shouldn’t can break the contract, lead to financial penalties, or even damage your business’s reputation. Marketing departments can harness the contract data found in their contract repository to make sure this never happens. Qualified users can generate clear-cut reports of the customers that allow public recognition. With access to all current and past contracts, the marketing team can filter customer and vendor contracts to choose the right information for their marketing plans.

Clean Out Duplicate Records

Enterprise contract management systems integrate with already existing customer relationship management (CRM) programs. This integration gathers potential business leads in a centralized system. With access to a quality CMS, marketing departments can cross-check their lead lists with customers who are already doing business with the company. This means you can clean out duplicate records from lead lists and cut down on repetitive, unproductive work. Even more importantly, this ensures the marketing team isn't double-dipping or frustrating potential and already existing companies.  Additionally, an accurate lead list with properly identified leads and customers allows the marketing department to be more precise. Marketing specifically to current customers is valuable — as long as it’s done the right way. So marketing departments can use contract management software to treat current customers like current customers and prospect leads like prospects for more targeted results. 

Tracking Customer Trends

Contract data, associated documents, and customer information give marketers the opportunity to track customer trends. Marketing teams can create more intentional campaigns and messages when they know: What a customer is purchasing. The price they are paying.The frequency they are receiving a good or service Data-driven decisions put together marketing initiatives and campaigns that attract new and recurring business better.  For example, the marketing team can review contracts to see which specific price points or discounts are successful in signing on new business. They can then use this information to focus their marketing strategy at this specific price point. This might include creating a discount program or some other type of incentive.  When Salesforce conducted a recent survey of 6,000 consumers, they found 76 percent of them expected companies to understand their needs and expectations. When marketing departments can use contract management software to access customer data, they can understand their actual customers’ needs and wants. This leads to more closed deals, which benefits the entire organization.

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