How to Optimize Your Contracts for Faster Closing

Managing contracts is a challenging endeavor; however, advancements in technology have made contract automation a straightforward task. Contract automation utilizes software that empowers non-legal teams to independently handle contract management, without relying heavily on lawyers.

Why is contract automation so important in today's corporate world?

Contract automation holds significant importance in today's corporate world due to its multifaceted benefits. By streamlining manual processes, contract automation enhances operational efficiency, reduces errors, and expedites workflows. It also ensures compliance with legal and regulatory requirements, minimizing the risk of costly disputes. Additionally, automated systems enable seamless collaboration and communication among stakeholders, promoting transparency, aligning expectations, and accelerating decision-making.

Pain points in the absence of contract automation

Here are some daily challenges encountered without contract automation:

• Doubling the work: Imagine the daily burden of duplicating work: drafting contracts in Word, sending them for evaluation, and then completing them using additional third-party programs.
• Increased time expenditure: Finding old documents becomes a time-consuming task, requiring extensive keyword searches in various locations such as physical files or past emails, which needs to be repeated multiple times.
• Manual work: Manual document tasks like printing, scanning, checking, and posting consume significant time, preventing the department from focusing on revenue-generating activities.
• Unsatisfactory experience with counterparties: In a tech-driven world, relying on outdated manual contract signing processes from the past discourages collaboration and fails to meet the efficiency expectations of modern business relationships.
• Version control chaos: Email-based contract amendments often lead to turmoil and delays when making changes. Reviewing past emails to ensure no comments were missed becomes a challenging and time-consuming task to finalize the final draft.

How does a typical contract management automation process work?

According to Aberdeen Research, the average time for end-to-end contract creation, negotiation, and closure is 20-30 days.

Implementing an automated contract management solution empowers your company to maximize the value derived from agreements while reducing risk. With innovative contract management software and suitable tools, contract drafting, evaluation, negotiation, execution, and recording can become streamlined and simplified elements of the overall contract process.

• Use automatic templates for drafting contracts: Templates ensure document consistency and accuracy, minimizing concerns about errors and outdated versions. They reduce stress and expedite transactions by eliminating the need to create documents from scratch or search for previous templates.
• Use self-service contracts to your advantage: Self-service contracts enable users to create contracts without legal team consultation, minimizing time and ensuring compliance with pre-approved templates.
• Create workflows for approval: Automated approval streamlines the contract lifecycle, saving time and increasing productivity. Efficient implementation reduces processing times for applications, expense claims, and approvals from weeks to hours.
• Automate the signature process: Automating contract management accelerates signature collection, enhances security, and streamlines the process. Investing in an integrated system with electronic signature functionality is a practical choice.
• Use APIs to link contracts: APIs empower teams to share knowledge, take ownership, and work autonomously, while your contract automation software ensures seamless integration with various SaaS tools for launching contracting.
• Make the most of contract reporting: Contract reporting is often overlooked, but it provides valuable insights into a business. Including employee comments is an effective way to assess contract performance and its impact on overall company performance.

Key features of contract automation

• Powerful contract editor: A feature-rich, native word processor facilitates seamless online editing and modification of legal documents while maintaining a smooth user experience.
• Contract collaboration: Enables multiple users, including counterparties, to collaboratively edit a document simultaneously. Automatic saving ensures all changes are captured in a single version.
• Audit Trail: By incorporating time and date stamps, the system maintains a comprehensive record of all user activities and document modifications.
• Automated Contract Databases and Reminders: Stores contracts securely in chronological order, with the ability to swiftly sort and retrieve them using tags and filters. The contract automation technology should also automatically detect contract expiry dates, send renewal notifications and reminders to the relevant teams, and prevent missed opportunities.?
• Native E-Signature: Enables faster, easier, and consistent signing and execution of contracts by internal stakeholders and contractors.

In conclusion, contract automation is a transformative solution to address the challenges faced in contract management. The traditional manual processes are riddled with inefficiencies, time-consuming tasks, and increased risks.

However, by adopting contract automation, companies can overcome these hurdles and unlock a range of benefits. By streamlining workflows, reducing errors, and enhancing operational efficiency, contract automation resolves the pain points associated with manual contract management. It ensures compliance with legal and regulatory requirements, mitigates the risk of disputes, and promotes seamless collaboration among stakeholders. Moreover, contract automation saves valuable time, allowing teams to focus on revenue-generating activities instead of mundane administrative tasks.

This article was originally published at top.legal blog page.