Contract writing - also known as contract authoring - is a critical stage of the contract lifecycle. The contract writing process involves contract parties putting into written copy the terms of a contract. One extremely important facet of contract writing is contract clause management. Insufficient contract authoring procedures as they pertain to contract clause management often rely upon disorganized tracking of versions, a lack of unified contracts and subcontracts, and - unfortunately - scattered clauses. Such processes can leave your organization with contracts that are missing clauses, an overlooked mass of key dates and milestones, and unified contract lifecycle management.
Improve Contract Writing & Clause Oversight
To avoid the issues mentioned above, your organization needs to enlist the help of a contract management solution that improves contract writing with better clause management. Leading contract writing solutions can help by simplifying and enhancing clause creation and clause inclusion, providing flow down clauses and alerts, and much more. The best solution for your organization's clause management needs is CobbleStone Software's intelligent clause application - featured with CobbleStone's scalable contract management software suite - Contract Insight®. Here's why, and here's what you need to know about maximizing your ROI.
Simple & Future-Minded Clause Merging
Your organization can leverage the ability to dynamically author contract documents by merging contract data fields with clauses from your pre-approved library. With CobbleStone Software, your organization can easily configure a centralized clause library to promote the production of timely, accurate, and compliant contracts. Your team can manage nearly unlimited templates and document versions with pre-approved data fields and mergeable clauses.
Clause libraries can also be utilized for specific or situational templates - such as those used for FAR, DFAR, and GSA contracts. Contract Insight supports CLIN management (contract line item number management) and insertion of line items into contract templates. Documents can swiftly be exported as standard files such as MS Word documents and PDFs.
Contract Writing & Clause Governance in Action
To capture how the processes and functionality mentioned above work, let us examine a hypothetical together. Let's say your organization can choose between two governing law clauses to agree to. You can configure both of those clauses in your pre-approved clause library and - based upon a defined, rules-based process - your Contract Insight system would insert either Clause A or Clause B. Note that, while this example just features two clauses, you can configure virtually as many as your organization needs.
Moving on with this example, let's say - for instance - that you have a consulting agreement.
A templated clause document is chosen for merging with contract details and will consequently be downloaded and opened in Microsoft Word.
In the scenario we have been working with, you would choose your consulting agreement template in the document process manager and you can preview it online or open in MS Word once downloaded. The integrated templating tool makes it so that data such as the counterparty information, contract’s effective date, the contract amount, and other key contract data appear throughout your new contract document, and you can edit them as needed.
For better governance over contract negotiations, you can force password-protected Track Changes within MS Word so that edits to your document after the data has been merged are tracked and audited.
Comprehensive Flow Down Functionality
CobbleStone’s scalable and low-friction contract management software suite can support flow down clauses and alerts if your organization is enlisting the aid of a subcontractor for a contract.
For example, your organization and a federal government agency enter into a GSA contract. For this scenario, your organization must pass some of your contract’s obligations on to a project management company. Here, your organization would need to have a contract with the subcontractor.
Contract Insight simplifies the tracking of flow down indicators. Your team can easily tag flow down clauses and obligations to be included in subcontractor documents. Tracking virtually every facet of your contract can make it easier and more unified to manage both your GSA contract and your subcontract with the project management company.
CobbleStone PC Helper App for MS Word
Your organization can further modernize and simplify the contract writing and clause management processes with CobbleStone's PC Helper App for MS Word.
After you ensure that you are logged into the Helper App, you can enjoy a visually-appealing and user-friendly "CobbleStone" menu tab at the top of the document you are working with. The menu ribbon features a plethora of user-friendly tools for various stages of the contract lifecycle.
Here, we will focus on features most relevant to the clause management aspects of contract writing, but you can find a comprehensive overview of the PC Helper App's features by reading the MS Word PC Helper App blog.
User-Friendly Clause Creation
The "Create Clause" button in your CobbleStone PC Helper App menu ribbon allows you to easily and seamlessly add updated standard language to your organization's Contract Insight clause library.
Say, for example, you need to add a standard renewal clause. First, you would provide the clause language.
Once you've entered your new clause text, you must name your clause.
After that, your newly added clause will be available for inclusion in contract documents. You can access your clause library by clicking "Clause Menu" on the CobbleStone PC Helper App menu ribbon in MS Word. From there, you can include pre-approved clauses within seconds! Simply click "Insert." For an even more organized and streamlined process, clauses can easily be searched by type and keyword!
Transform Contract Writing & Clause Management With CobbleStone
Now that you are aware of how to automate clause management and contract writing with a future-minded, dynamic, and intelligent clause application, it is time to get started with all that CobbleStone Software has to offer.
CobbleStone Software's long-celebrated and consistently acclaimed contract management software platform has helped a variety of contract management, eSourcing, and eProcurement professionals from a myriad of public and private organizations.
CobbleStone Software helps organizations to improve their contract management procedures from contract requests to contract awards to PoP to expiration. With its robust and user-friendly interface, Contract Insight can transform the way your organization authors contracts with dynamic clause merging.
It's time to make the positive change that your contract lifecycle needs. Book a free demo of Contract Insight today!
