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Five benefits of automated contract management

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Five benefits of automated contract management

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Contracts have a major impact on the success of businesses, so contract management is crucial. Mainly because contracts are directly related to revenue and expenditure. There are a lot of different tasks related to the different phases in the life cycles of contracts. Automating these tasks and contract management is crucial for organisations seeking efficiency and reducing their risks.

Automating contract management

According to Forrester automated contract management delivers the following:

  • 55% improvement in compliance
  • Single contract cycle time halves
  • Closing new contracts up by a quarter
  • Turnover rises by 1 to 10 per cent

1. All contracts in one place - complete overview

Organisations process and store information from many different sources. These include paper, a scanner, electronic forms, electronic documents and possibly other applications. Earlier, we discussed the role of such information silos within organisations. With a centralised and automated contract management solution, an organisation increases the accessibility of contracts. Also, the use of metadata (assigning properties and attributes to documents) drastically improves findability. Colleagues no longer have to search through endless e-mail conversations or an illogical folder structure.

Searching is done on the basis of properties associated with the contracts (called metadata, in other words). This provides quick and efficient insights. See examples of possible views below:

  • All contracts with party X
  • Contracts expiring within a month
  • All contracts with a minimum value of X
  • Department X's contracts
  • Etc.

By intelligently searching by metadata, organisations increase their insight and overview. Moreover, this allows employees to find contracts at lightning speed, saving enormous amounts of time.

2. Automated workflows for contract reviews and task management

Automating business process workflows helps streamline the contract management process and it brings contracts to completion faster. The moment a person approves in a particular step, the next person automatically receives a notification. Thus, the next person in line knows that he or she needs to take action. This happens with steps in approval processes, but also with other tasks linked to a document. This can be a contract, but also another document. Finally, of course, the person with final responsibility gets the notification that a contract can be signed.

3. Digital signatures

The use of digital signatures creates a faster approval process, shortening the contract cycle and thereby reducing costs. You no longer want paper to disrupt this digital process, right?

4. Reduced risk and automatic updates

A reliable contract management system reduces risks around contracts thanks to automatic alerts. By adding metadata to contracts (or other documents) such as an expiry date, stakeholders receive automatic alerts. Will a contract expire in a month? Then the person involved will automatically receive an alert. This way, the organisation limits risks and that saves unnecessary costs.

5. Records Management

Set up views based on permissions and security. Employees see only what they have access to and, more importantly, to what is relevant to them. Version control keeps track of who makes what changes with the ability to jump back to a previous version with a single click.

Automating the creation, review and approval of contracts brings consistency to an organisation. Consistency in turn brings transparency and accountability, which is increasingly needed in more regulated industries. M-Files is an information management solution that brings all these benefits directly into practice. Are you curious about the benefits of contract management in practice? Follow the webinar on contract management automation for free and without obligation and discover what gains you can make.

 

 

 

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