Contract Insights: The Leading Resource for Contract Management & Procurement Professionals

Contract Generation: Mastering Contract Management Series

Written by Sean Heck | 03/22/24

Generation of legally binding contracts from verbal agreements can be challenging for contract, procurement, and legal professionals.  Manual contract generation or contract creation can be tedious and error-prone.  Moreover, a manual approach to document assembly can put organizations in the precarious position of facing:

  • significant process bottlenecks.
  • compliance issues.
  • increased risk.
  • excessive fines.

It’s time to save time and take control of contract creation.  Learn how to transform your manual generation process into a value-centric strategy. Make this transformation with the help of leading contract management software.

 

 

What is Contract Creation?

Contract generation or creation is the assembly of documents and contracts.  This process begins with a contract request, then moves to contract authoring, contract negotiations, contract approvals, signatures, and finally, contract closeout.  Manual creation of contracts requires legal and IT teams to assist with:

  • document generation.
  • data entry.
  • formatting.
  • storage.
  • distribution.
  • collaboration.

As such, legal and IT teams have less time to focus on their more pressing and value-driven initiatives.

Contract creation challenges compound for organizations of ranging contract volume and contract complexity.  When multiple people are involved in creating, reviewing, and revising legally binding agreements, productivity can suffer.  Time can be wasted on creating documents, downloading templates, locating information, and manually entering data into hundreds of fields - delaying the crystallization of goods, services, and contract terms. 

Furthermore, static documents become obsolete when the correct document versions and templates are not apparent, increasing the risk of error.  Contract compliance can become an issue when templates, approved language, and clauses are not up-to-date or standardized.

 

 

Automated Contract Generation

Contract automation is the solution to contract creation process delays. Contract generation software - also known as automated document assembly software - simplifies the creation of contracts by reducing bottlenecks.  The generation of ranging contract types can be streamlined with standard contract templates and pre-approved clause libraries.

You can enjoy the seamless merging of clauses with document templates, secure document storage, comprehensive version tracking, and seamless contract workflows for approvals.  Contract auto-redlining can support organizations in having their documents automatically revised with preferred contract clauses and sections. Additionally, imported clauses can be leveraged as contract metadata fields to include on contract records for easy use and access. Business users can experience transparent and collaborative reviews and approvals between internal and external parties.

An automated contract creation system supports transparency, provides a complete audit trail, and facilitates collaboration and accountability.  Accuracy, speed, and consistency translate to a strong contract generation solution ROI.

 

 

Contract Generation Software - The Right Solution

Don't ignore the benefits a contract creation tool can provide to your organization.  Your team needs a contract software solution that can positively transform contract generation processes.  That solution is CobbleStone Software.

CobbleStone's acclaimed and seamlessly integrated contract management software suite - CobbleStone Contract Insight® - streamlines legal documents assembly.  As such, organizations create contracts that are accurate and compliant in record time.  CobbleStone Contract Insight is highly configurable for your business rules.  It is built to support your team with low friction and robust contract lifecycle management features.

Effectively manage all stages of the contract lifecycle, from contract requests to contract renewals.  CobbleStone offers advanced features to provide faster contract creation software ROI, including:

  • a pre-approved library of document templates (such as MSAs, non-disclosure agreements, etc.) and clauses.
  • rules-based clauses with seamless merging and clause ownership.
  • easy contract data field merging.
  • simplified contract approval routing.
  • a rapid contract approval process.
  • full document version tracking.
  • ad-hoc reports.
  • automated workflows.
  • streamlined contract compliance, payment schedules, and obligations tracking.
  • tracking of legal-specific terms, payment terms, and line items.
  • IntelliSign® electronic signatures.

 

 

CobbleStone Contract Insight serves organizations from a variety of CLM software industries.  Organizations in both the public and private sectors can improve their contract generation and creation processes with a leading contract management system.  Contract cycles transition from outdated and inefficient liabilities into assets that support contract management KPIs.

Are you ready to master effective contract creation and other critical contracting processes?  CobbleStone Software can support your digital transformation initiatives.  Book your free demo today to learn more about how CobbleStone® can help with state-of-the-art and future-minded contract management and eProcurement features.

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This blog post was updated on March 22, 2024. Its original publication was in April 2019.

Legal Disclaimer: This article is not legal advice.  The content of this article is for general information and educational purposes only.  The information on this website may not present the most up-to-date legal information.  Readers should contact their attorneys for legal advice regarding any particular legal matter - including contract creation or contract generation, as well as any other topics related to contract management, procurement, eSourcing, purchase order management, etc.