How to capture and use contract data effectively

One of the biggest mistakes businesses can make when managing contracts is failing to capture contract data. Too often, businesses only view contracts as a formality, and they fail to recognize the true value that sits within a contract’s data.?

This explains why contracts get buried post-signature. Legal and business teams file signed contracts away, hoping that the new relationship runs smoothly, and they’ll never have to reach for it again.?

But in doing so, businesses are failing to capitalize on a significant opportunity: capturing contract data, and all the valuable insights it contains. But what actually is contract data, where can you find it, and why should you bother tracking it at all??

We offer a data-rich repository for your legal documents, making it simple and fast to search through contracts post-signature.

What is contract data?

Contract data is a term used to describe the information contained within a contract. It covers everything from clauses, signatures, pages and specific details within a contract, like dates, contract owners, contract types and contract values.?

Contracts are merely seen as a legal requirement in most organizations, and the details within them are often only relied on before the courts if something goes wrong. But this data can prove transformative if captured and examined properly, making it quicker and easier for legal and business teams to get future contracts across the line.?

What are the benefits of capturing contract data?

Despite being widely neglected, the case for capturing contract data is a strong one.

1. Contract analytics can help you improve your contract processes.

2. Searching becomes quicker and easier with efficient data capture methods

3. Contract data enables more informed decisions

Challenges of capturing contract data

The default currency for contracts, with almost 100% market penetration, is a product that was never designed for legal documentation: Microsoft Word.?

People create contracts in Word, often by copying and pasting parts from old documents, and then make tracked changes, bouncing around between different versions via email. At some point, everyone’s happy and the document becomes a PDF.

This PDF jumps into various email chains until it’s printed, signed and scanned, or perhaps signed electronically with a tool like DocuSign, or a DocuSign alternative. It’s then saved on a shared or personal drive, where it sits pretty much forever.

There are lots of problems with this process: it’s hard to collaborate, it’s inefficient, it takes a long time and version control is difficult. But a key problem, that only increases as time goes on, is data loss.?

This makes it almost impossible to have a genuine audit trail of a legal document’s journey from inception to agreement. Who made which edits, when, why, and how - all of this is either never captured or lost along the way. Without data to identify problem clauses and contract negotiation bottlenecks, they are almost certain to reappear next time.

But what should businesses do to overcome these challenges?

How should businesses capture contract data??

1. Identify the metrics that matter most?

2. Create a centralized contract repository?

3. Build contracts as data to begin with

4. Create processes for contract data to be analyzed?

GREF has a solution, OPEX Digital Contracts. Email us at [email protected] for a demonstration today.