Looking to elevate your productivity and value during contract management? Well, contract managers often find themselves juggling multiple responsibilities related to the contract lifecycle. Manually managing these responsibilities with outdated processes can lead to inefficiencies related to repetitive contract lifecycle tasks, confusing and disorganized contract storage, bottlenecked collaboration across teams, and more. But what if you had a configurable, tailored, and time-saving tool instead? To that end, here are three productivity hacks to help you stay efficient, organized, and ahead of the game.
1. Automate Repetitive Tasks
Historically repetitive tasks like contract drafting, contract risk management, and contract renewal reminders can eat up valuable time if done improperly. By automating these processes with contract management software, you can focus on higher-value activities like negotiation and strategy.
Productivity Hack in Action: Use pre-approved templates from a dynamic clause and template library to merge contract key data with a fully formed template to generate contracts in minutes. Set automated alerts for upcoming deadlines to essentially ensure no contract renewal or other workflow tasks slip through the cracks.
Bonus Tip: Tools with generative AI capabilities can automatically generate clauses for unprecedently streamlined contract management. They can also flag unusual contract clauses, helping you catch potential risks faster by presenting positive, negative, or neutral positioning from the perspective of each contracting party.
2. Centralize Contract Storage
Chasing down a specific contract or document buried in a maze of shared drives or email threads wastes time and adds unnecessary stress. You need a better way to search for these important documents when you need them. A centralized contract repository virtually ensures you always know where to find what you need. A single source of truth eliminates duplication and reduces errors.
Productivity Hack in Action: Use advanced search filters to locate contracts by keyword, party, expiration date, and more in seconds; these search terms can be found within the contract metadata record, within the contract document, and within other files and attachments. Searching for contracts is easy and breezy with search history, saved searches, and “Did you mean…?” functionality.
Bonus Tip: Look for contract management software with visually engaging graphical dashboards to visualize the status of contracts at a glance.
3. Streamline Collaboration Across Teams
Contract management isn’t a one-person job; it often involves input from legal, finance, and other departments. Miscommunication and delays can slow everything down and cost contract parties time, money, and resource efficiency. Collaborative features like shared workspaces (a document collaboration gateway) can help your teams and counterparties all stay on the same page.
Productivity Hack in Action: Use auto-redlining, negotiation and approval workflows, clause ownership, and numbered version tracking and audit trails within contract management software to keep feedback organized and accessible. Real-time updates mean everyone stays aligned – even during complex, multi-faceted negotiation processes.
Bonus Tip: Adopt electronic signature software to eliminate the bottleneck of printing, scanning, and mailing contracts; also say goodbye to disorganized digital signing processes. Sign and send from virtually anywhere at any time. Cut signing time by up to twenty percent while retaining digital signature attestation and security.
Key Takeaway
By leveraging task automation, centralizing storage, and improving cross-party collaboration, contract managers can transform their contract lifecycle management processes from reactive chaos to proactive efficiency. The result? Faster turnaround times, fewer errors, and more time to focus on building strong relationships with contract counterparties and other key stakeholders.
So, are you ready to work smarter, not harder? Then book a free demo with a CobbleStone Contract Insight® expert today and see how we can help you streamline your contract management process.
*Legal Disclaimer: This article is not legal advice. The content of this article is for general informational and educational purposes only. The information on this website may not present the most up-to-date legal information. Readers should contact their attorney for legal advice regarding any particular legal matter.
