Jeremy Ferrer
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January
Any company, regardless of its sector of activity, is required to deal with all sorts of contracts throughout its development. When these become too numerous, it is difficult to manage them, whether administratively or legally, unless you use a contract. According to a study conducted by the IACCM (International Association for Contract and Commercial Management), a company that poorly manages its contracts runs the risk of losing around 9% of its turnover. In the digital age, where each department or function within a company is moving towards digital transformation, it would be interesting to consider implementing contract management software. This solution is for people who feel they are wasting too much time organizing and managing contracts. Its main purpose is to make it easier for the entire legal team to access the documents they need when they need them. In the following few lines, find out what a contract library is, why it is useful in a business and how to set it up.
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By definition, Contract Management is A company's contract library. Like a digital library, it is an online tool that centralizes, manages and processes all of a company's contractual documents. These are archived in a structured manner in a large database that is accessible to everyone who deals with company contracts. These documents may be of a different nature, such as contracts, clauses, negotiations... They are stored in the contract management software or contract library software and are regularly updated.
You should know that more and more publishers are developing contract management software or contracters. The following common functionalities can be found on most of these tools:
- The existence of a document library that makes it possible to centralize all the data relating to the various contracts of the company. The tool can be Google Drive or Sharepoint.
- A tag system to allow users to know the status of the contract, if it has already been signed or not for example.
- A search engine that makes it easy to find a given contract. It should be equipped with filters for more precise queries.
- Pre-designed templates to create any type of contract. All that's left is to customize it later.
- The presence of sheets that summarize and summarize all the crucial data of a contract such as the duration, the amount, the clauses...
- An endorsement management system
- An automatic pre-entry system that is possible thanks to meta data.
- A feature relating to the right of access
- A control system
- A reminder system
Contract management software is an excellent tool that every business must now have in order to optimize contract management. It was designed to meet the various needs of society.
When administrative and legal documents are scattered, managing them becomes very difficult. It is even possible to lose them. Thanks to a contract library or Contrateca, it is possible to reserve a collaborative space specific to each contract so that it can be treated separately from the others and according to its nature. All documents, conversations, negotiations, exchanges with employees are centralized in the same space. Contracts are also signed and archived in the same place. If you connect your Contract Management software with an electronic signature tool, it will be even more convenient. Generally, this type of solution has no limits in terms of volume, especially for paid models.
Not all team members will have access to contracts and documents that concern them. The contract library makes it possible to structure the files, to create a tree structure, and then to assign sensitive documents only to the people authorized to consult them. In this way, you protect your confidential documents.
Contract management software also meets the need to express professionalism through the possibility of creating well-structured, logical and standards-compliant legal documents. As this type of platform most often offers collaborative functionality, you can invite all the stakeholders who are working on the contract to use the tool in order to standardize actions.
In some situations, the creation of a contract must be done independently by a few members of the team. With the contrast library, it is possible to configure fields that can be edited and personalized and others that cannot be modified. The department that takes care of contract management can always analyze and verify contracts created later.
In reality, the contract library is a branch of the contract management tool. Rather, it is reserved for the archiving and centralization of contractual documents while the software encompasses everything, from the moment the contract is created until it is archived.
Many businesses have become less productive because they get lost in administrative paperwork, contracts, or documents that they have stored in archives or on a computer that is too old. Administrative dematerialization is the solution. For contract management in particular, it is necessary to opt for the contract library. Here's why a business should invest in this tool:
Generally, the digital contract library is a SaaS solution or Software as a Service, allowing you to access any information wherever you go as long as you have an Internet connection. If you are traveling for a business trip and need to bring a contract with you, you no longer have to have the paper document in your briefcase. A few clicks on the contract management platform are enough to quickly find your contract. Rest assured, most of these tools are highly secure and respect authentication codes to protect users.
Sometimes, as a production or sales manager, you need to get your hands on an old contract that you dealt with a long time ago. If your business doesn't use a contract check system, finding the contract in question can be a real obstacle course, especially if your contracts are stored in filing cabinets or boxes. It may also be stored somewhere on the computer, but you don't know exactly where. The advantage of using contract management software is that you don't get lost in the tons of documents that circulate within the company.
Everyone who is authorized to work on contracts can have the same information from the same database. There is no room for confusion.
This is the ultimate goal of dematerializing and digitizing documents in a company: saving time. Everyone can benefit from it, especially the legal department.
Documents that are scattered here and there are sources of disorganization within a society. When their processing is controlled, everyone who manages the contracts or who needs to access their content saves time.
Also, if the business is large, it can be difficult to search for documents that are already archived in the legal department and pass them on to other departments. It can take a long time for the procedure to be successful. The fact that documents are stored and centralized in the same contract library platform allows for better efficiency and responsiveness at the level of the services concerned.
It's the same for signing contracts. This step can turn into a real nightmare if the contract involves several signatories from different departments. If the contract is centralized in one place, this process can be completed quickly.
A contract is in a way the realization of a collaboration with a third party such as a service provider, a supplier or a buyer. As your business grows, so will the contracts you need to deal with. However, the creation of these documents can slow down your progress, since on the one hand you have to wait for the legal department to intervene. On the other hand, if you leave only your sales team to create the contract, you are afraid that some information will be missing. All the usefulness of the Contract Management is there. It allows you to better manage the creation of contracts. On the platform, it is possible to complete in advance all the mandatory information as well as the fields to be personalized that must appear in the contract. Which is highly secure the creation of your contracts.
This is the main function of a digital contract library. Even better, the software doesn't simply archive documents. It does this in a systematic way. Some solutions offered on the market integrate a search function with a system of filters, allowing each user to make accurate and fast queries, which is a considerable time saver.
Monitoring the information contained in the contract is a hard and time-consuming task that any legal department struggles to do manually. By using contract management software, you can track this data automatically. It helps you save time. Thus, you will no longer have to worry about the expiry date of the contract for example. The software automatically sends you a timely notification. In addition, automation is a strong point of this type of tool. Birthday dates can also be calculated easily and automatically.
Setting up contract management software in your company's legal department is essential as soon as your contracts increase in number. Here are the different steps to follow to set up this tool:
The first step is to define the needs and expectations of the company in terms of contract management. The best way to do this is to involve all of your internal teams, those who contribute directly or indirectly to the contract development process. Their views on the issue matter enormously to your decision making. The aim is to allow them a more enriched experience in terms of contract management and to gradually integrate the digitalization process within the department.
The second step to take is to take stock of what already exists and what methods you have adopted so far. Make a list of the company's binding contracts. This step allows you to know where you are and what is the most suitable solution for you.
Before embarking on any project, first think about a budget you want to allocate to it. Make sure it meets your needs and make sure you don't exceed it.
The contract management software that's right for you is the one that really meets your needs. However, before making a choice, here are some criteria that you should consider:
When choosing a contract for your business, make sure that it offers a function of standardizing the creation of contracts. The software should be flexible enough for each user to be able to customize the contract they are working on. In this way, errors are minimized and the risk of losing time is reduced. It would also be interesting to opt for software that integrates the function of pre-approved templates so that the person who creates the contract no longer wastes time sending it for approval. A good tool should also include a library that lists pre-approved legal clauses.
This function is essential for any user, technician or not, of the contract library software. So make sure that your tool doesn't only include archiving and storage features. Make it easy and fast for people to find what they need on the platform.
Ergonomics and ease of use ensure a good user experience for your team. In reality, most people who are going to use Contract Management software are not adept at using complex computer tools. It is necessary to make their task easier by opting for a complete model, but simple to handle. Navigation should be easy.
A business can use a lot of management software at the same time. It is essential that the contract management tool of your choice can be adapted to the other tools existing in your company. In reality, the contracting process is only one step in a larger process within society. For example, it must be integrated with electronic signature software. For example, information and data from a CRM are transmitted and used to the contract management software.
Once you have made a first list of contract software that is likely to meet your expectations, do not hesitate to ask for a demonstration in order to make an objective decision. Ask a legal department representative to attend the demo and help you decide. Be proactive by preparing questions that you can ask the software designer. Note that you are fully entitled to require a trial period before using the software permanently.
References allow you to have a more objective view of product performance. You can also simply ask entrepreneurial friends what they think of the tool or search for opinions on the Internet.
The implementation of a contract management system within your company must always be followed by training the personnel concerned. Again, most of the people who are going to use the software are not computer technicians. Follow-up and training are necessary to best integrate them into the deployment of the contract library software.
It is often not easy to set up management tools, regardless of the field in a company. To deepen your knowledge of the concept of contract, take the opportunity to follow a webinar offered by BME or Buy Made Easy, a company with its experience in outsourcing purchases.
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