Managing contract functions can prove challenging when primarily relying on spreadsheets, shared drives, and other siloed platforms. Without efficient contract functions, organizations can find themselves in a quagmire of inefficiency. Contract management functions require careful planning, the right technology, and a well-thought-out contract strategy. Discover how you can automate eight key contract management functions with contract management software.
What Are Contract Management Functions?
Contract management functions are the mission-critical tasks that must be completed throughout the contract lifecycle, from requests through renewals. Both the pre-award and post-award contract lifecycle contain vital contract management functions for a comprehensive CLM process. Without automated contract management functions, you can incur contract workflow bottlenecks that can negatively impact your organization’s bottom line.
Contract Requests
You can automate contract request functions with the help of CLM software that offers dynamic questionnaires and user-friendly intake forms to help delineate the type of contract request. Automated alerts and ad-hoc reporting features can help expedite contract request functions that can be seamlessly ushered into the contract authoring stage. Without contract request automation requests, you could be starting your contract process on the wrong foot.
Contract Authoring
Contract authoring functions require language, formatting, counterparty information, milestones, key dates, and other crucial components. You can automate contract authoring functions with the help of pre-approved contract templates and clauses from a secure language library, thorough version tracking, and rules-based authoring permissions from within a centralized CLM software. Without streamlined contract authoring functions, your internal stakeholders can find themselves disorganized and frustrated – especially when undesignated personnel inadvertently involve themselves in the contract writing processes outside of their expertise or permissions.
Discover how artificial intelligence with machine learning can help improve contract language and manage overall contract risk.
Contract Negotiations
Contract negotiation functions can be automated with the help of contract management software that offers complete version control, document collaboration, rules-based clause ownership, robust contract oversight with tracked changes, and more. While contract negotiations can take their necessary time, automating contract negotiation functions where possible allows you to focus more on contract content strategy.
Contract Approvals
Contract approvals require gathering confirmations from all necessary stakeholders before signing. Chasing down stakeholders via phone or other manual processes can prove inefficient. Fortunately, you can leverage a contract eApproval tool within a leading CLM software suite that supports comprehensive audit trails to gather decisions, including approvals and rejections, from counterparties – all within a centralized platform.
Contract Signatures
E-signatures can make online contract signature functions a breeze. CLM software allows you to sign in the office or on the go with a mobile device and suitable Wi-Fi, especially with the help of an industry-leading CLM software mobile app, which can equip you to gather signatures from necessary stakeholders in record-time. A digital signature secures a signature’s dates and time to demonstrate that it remains untampered with thereafter - reducing the need for a licensed notary.
You can request bulk eSignature functions from a plethora of stakeholders with a few clicks. With the ability to request third-party signatures via email, stakeholders can quickly access requested documents to sign - without needing to download a specific program. Within a highly secure online signing portal, you can track the status of fully executed and partially executed signed documents – all while retaining your signatory records in a centralized location.
Discover how you can automate contract signature functions in the video below.
Contract Obligations
Managing contract obligation functions can be cumbersome when manually tracking what was agreed upon, which can cause you to waste time rereading contracts to comb through obligation details.
Luckily - you can remain abreast of timely obligations with the help of automated contract obligation functions - such as crucial task alerts, date awareness, virtually real-time obligation status reports, milestone tracking, dynamic graphical dashboards for optimized contract obligation oversight, and more. Rather than trapping contract obligations in static documents and allowing them to linger in the ethers of your mind, you can automate contract obligation functions in a centralized and trackable location – freeing your mind to focus more on contract management strategy.
Contract Compliance
Manually auditing and reporting contract compliance functions with tools such as spreadsheets can be cumbersome. Fortunately, contract management software offers advanced auditing and reporting functions - including visually engaging graphical dashboards - to help retain optimal contract compliance oversight within your organization and with external stakeholders - including DBE tracking for substantial supplier diversity, OFAC, and HITRUST. Leading CLM software offers robust contract compliance function auditing and tracking features such as:
- highly-configurable dashboards for prioritized contract areas of compliance.
- ad-hoc reporting for user-defined reports that can be exportable to MS Excel.
- an online report designer tool to configure compliance report layouts which can be exported to multiple file types.
Contract Renewals
Automated contract renewal functions - such as calendar alerts, opportunity realization options supported by artificial intelligence, clear audit trails for viewing approaching renewal dates, and readily available contract re-drafting features – can help you streamline the contract renewal process with confidence, empowering you with the foresight and knowledge you need to renegotiate effectively with counterparties. Without such automated contract renewal functions, you can find yourself blindsided by a sudden renewal or miss anticipatory processes in maximizing your contracts’ renegotiations.
Automate CLM Functions With CobbleStone Contract Insight®
Automate your contract management functions efficiently and effectively with CobbleStone Contract Insight® - an end-to-end CLM software solution, equipped with the necessary future-minded contract management tools that can help streamline your contract lifecycle management process.
CobbleStone’s trusted, award-winning, fully integrated contract management software streamlines the contract management process with optimal governance, reduced friction, and high flexibility from contract requests to renewals. CobbleStone Software has been a visionary leader in CLM software for over twenty years. CobbleStone’s user-friendly, robust, and scalable solution seamlessly integrates with mission-critical applications for unified and seamless contract management. It’s no wonder why Forrester names CobbleStone a Leader in CLM software!
Discover why thousands of contract managers trust CobbleStone Software with their contract management needs. To learn more about CobbleStone’s unparalleled contract management software, book a free demo with a Contract Insight expert today!
Are you interested in future-minded contract management software tools? Watch the 6 Critical Contract Management Tools for 2021 video below to learn how to leverage industry-leading CLM software tools for streamlined, user-friendly, and low-friction contract lifecycle management success!
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