Contract assembly (or contract document assembly) is essential in contract lifecycle management. Contract stakeholders and document assembly resources gather to assemble a cohesive and accurate contract document. However, inefficient contract document assembly processes involving the lack of a central location for contracts, scattered contract clauses, outdated contract language, subcontracts disconnected from related contract documents, and no clarity regarding up-to-date contract document versions can leave your organization open to increased risk. Contract risk can include contract non-compliance, revenue leakage, unfulfilled obligations, lawsuits, and missed opportunity. Avoid contract risk and get the highest ROI from your contracts by discovering how to expedite contract document assembly with leading contract management software. Read this entry from our Contract Management Best Practices Series.
Contract Document Assembly
Contract document assembly with contract management software can help streamline your contract lifecycle management process. Leading contract management software for contract document assembly offers (among other helpful tools):
- online document editing (including integrations with familiar applications).
- a centralized and secure location for contracts, clauses, templates, and contract key data.
- contract document version tracking and full audit trails.
- intelligent workflow automation for contract document assembly.
- and contract artificial intelligence for improved clause language, key data extraction, and more.
Let’s look at how you can leverage the incredibly beneficial contract management software tools mentioned above for unparalleled contract document assembly.
An Online Contract Document Editing Interface
An excellent way to edit and collaborate on documents online is with an online document editing interface for the centralized creation and collaboration on documents within one integrated platform. Leading contract management software supports online contract document editing for MS Word and PDF formats for heightened usability and flexibility.
Leading-edge contract management software offers native tools for better online document editing, including those that allow you to:
- create new documents straight from a contract management software record info page.
- import new documents straight into a record info page.
- and edit existing documents straight from a record info page with minimal friction.
Additionally, familiar online document editing integrations can streamline and diversify your process even more. CobbleStone Software – for instance – offers seamless integrations with Google Workspace and MS Office 365 so that you can engage in online document editing with increased governance and collaboration versatility.
To learn more about the critical 8 contract lifecycle stages relevant to contract document editing – including but not limited to contract authoring and contract negotiations – access the free whitepaper below.
A Secure Contract Repository
You and your team can centralize contracts, clauses, templates, contract data, and more in one safe location by using a secure repository within a leading contract lifecycle management software platform.
A secure contract repository can allow you to store virtually unlimited contract documents, contract key data, sensitive information, clauses, and templates in one safe and secure location. A software platform with security accreditations such as SOC 1, SOC 2, HITRUST, and Privacy Shield compliance – such as CobbleStone Software – can keep assets within your secure contract repository not only easily accessible but safe as well.
Highly configurable reports, calendars, dashboards, and granular yet user-friendly searching functionality can increase visibility, awareness, efficiency, and accountability. These contract management software tools can help your team quickly locate contract records, documents and attachments, clauses, contract key data, and other information within the system.
Contract Document Version Tracking & Audit Trails
Your organization must keep track of contract versions so that incomplete and inaccurate versions of contract documents are not pushed throughout the contract lifecycle. That could result in damaging errors, missed obligations, irresponsible contract clause language, breaches of contract, and other harmful consequences.
Luckily, leading contract management software can support your team’s efforts to keep track of contract document assembly. Thanks to automated and numbered version tracking and full audit trails of contract documents, your team can keep tabs on contract document versions with heightened assurance that all clauses, sections, and pieces of contract language are accounted for and accurate.
Intelligent Workflow Automation
Your team can further enhance contract document assembly with intelligent workflow automation.
With automated key date and task emails and notifications, you can virtually ensure that everyone on your team involved with a contract knows what they need to be doing for document assembly and other facets of contract lifecycle management. Task emails can take your users straight to alerts and CLM software system areas to address any pending tasks or issues. With task escalation configured, your team can automate the reassignment of a task if the original task owner does not fulfill their duty by a set date – increasing accountability.
According to your specific needs, intelligent, automated contract workflows can be configured within a leading contract management software suite. Intelligent workflow automation has been proven repeatedly to decrease contract lifecycle management bottlenecks, increase efficiency, and hasten the accurate completion of the contract lifecycle.
Contract Artificial Intelligence
Robust and configurable contract artificial intelligence can positively transform automated document assembly. Proprietary contract intelligence with machine learning – such as CobbleStone Software’s VISDOM® AI engine – can be easily configured to recognize particular contract language, including phrases and clauses. From there, contract AI can offer insightful language recommendations based on exponentially improving machine learning. These recommendations can be made available on a configured language library. The more information is fed to leading contract intelligence, the more it learns for ever-improving contract language recommendations.
Additionally, contract AI can help automate the extraction of metadata to support legal routing, contract data extraction, auto-amendment recommendations, and much more. While contract artificial intelligence does not replace the counsel of a licensed legal resource, it can offer intelligent possibilities from which you can choose – based on the data you introduced. Rather than waste precious time, contract intelligence with machine learning can help expedite and centralize your document assembly process with insight and unparalleled confidence.
Learn more about how contract intelligence can transform your CLM process by accessing the free whitepaper below.
Enhance Contract Assembly With CobbleStone Contract Insight®
Now that you know how to optimize the best practice of expediting contract document assembly, it is time to select the only solution that offers all of the contract document assembly tools mentioned above. That solution is CobbleStone Contract Insight.
CobbleStone's trusted, award-winning, broadly integrated contract management software platform expedites and enhances contract document assembly and other CLM tasks for marked improvements in contract lifecycle management. Your organization can confidently navigate a low-friction and highly scalable contract document assembly and contract management software platform with the foremost user-friendly CLM tools. CobbleStone Contract Insight has been a visionary leader in CLM software for over twenty years and is selected by thousands of contract managers. CobbleStone's user-friendly, robust, and scalable solution seamlessly integrates with mission-critical applications, including MS Word and MS Outlook, for unified and seamless contract management. It's no wonder why Forrester names CobbleStone a Leader in CLM software!
If you are looking to positively transform contract management, book your free demo to see CobbleStone Contract Insight in action!
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