2021 has arrived, and with it comes new innovations to your contract management software processes. Keeping this in mind, we have outlined six critical contract management tools that your organization should equip itself with to stay ahead of future-minded contract management best practices in 2021 and beyond.
#1 – Complete Contract Lifecycle Management
No organization should navigate the evolving landscape of contract management with disorganized and ununified contract lifecycle management. Your organization needs to step into 2021 with a game-changing solution that saves time, reduces costs, increases revenue, and provides a scalable, low-friction, and efficient contract administration process for oversight of the the full contract lifecycle.
Leading contract lifecycle management software solutions support your organization with a user-friendly interface for the entire contract lifecycle – including:
- an automated contract request process.
- easy contract writing that features streamlined merging of contracts with templates from your organization’s pre-approved clause library.
- a centralized process for contract negotiation, contract collaboration, contract review, and contract approval routing.
- unified contract analytics and contract data tracking.
- automated key date alerts and notifications.
- comprehensive risk management, risk mitigation, and risk analysis.
- straightforward process configuration and tracking for specific contract types for a myriad of industries.
- integrated RFx management (including RFPs).
- simple searching and reporting – which can include an ad hoc and custom report designer.
- & more.
Make Your Case for Contract Lifecycle Management
Trusted CLM software platforms support automated, intelligent contract workflow to expedite the contract lifecycle from requests to potential renewal opportunities. Save time, maintain compliance, reduce costs, and lower friction with credible contract lifecycle management software.
#2 – A Secure Contract Repository
Successful contract management in 2021 relies heavily on your organization’s ability to embrace centralized processes across the board. This is why you must leave manual methods for storing contracts – such as those involving filing cabinets for paper documentation, spreadsheets, emails, and disorganized digital storage – in the past. Those procedures make it nearly impossible for your organization to maintain version control, keep contracts secure, stay on top of key dates and milestones, or enforce contract archiving and retention rules.
Your organization can get ahead in 2021 with a secure contract repository system that helps store contracts while continuing to get the most use out of them. A web-enabled document repository allows contracts to be safely stored, and your organization’s contract management professionals can organize contracts, oversee permissions, enforce document version control, track contract status, search for existing contracts, collaborate, and much more.
Throughout the progression of the contract lifecycle, confidential information is stored and tracked within a contract management software platform. Your organization must be able to place access restrictions on PII, PCI, and other sensitive data.
For instance, your organization’s software end-users may not have any need to edit contracts other than those they’ve drafted themselves. With a permissions-based process, your organization can easily prevent instances of sensitive data being accessed by unauthorized personnel.
A secure online repository can help your organization by:
- safeguarding the organization, location, protection, sharing, and searching of contracts.
- improving accountability.
- centralizing control.
- increasing productivity.
- streamlining contract management.
Equip yourself with the centralized repository system that your organization needs to excel in 2021 with leading-edge contract management software.
#3 – Contract Intelligence: Risk Mitigation & Clause Recognition
Intelligent contract clause identification and extraction can promote continued machine learning – which allows your organization to enter 2021 with a process that continuously improves. AI-powered contract intelligence allows your users to locate standard clauses within a document when it is added to contract management software. Clause text found can be added to your organization’s training data for continuous machine learning – endlessly enhancing future clause recognition!
Your organization can leverage contract management AI to pinpoint potential risk. Leading contract intelligence can analyze text from a newly introduced document and identify “good or bad” contract language – according to a pre-configured, rules-based sentiment. An integrated artificial intelligence engine for contracts can also detect sensitive data, run statistical data analysis, and give helpful risk mitigation recommendations based on real-time data.
#4 – Contract Intelligence: Data Identification & Data Extraction
With the help of AI-powered contract management software, your organization’s contract processes are automated and streamlined. Your organization can put its trust in a proven system for analyzing contracts and transforming static, stagnant documents into dynamic, success-driving building blocks for enhanced contract oversight, proactive opportunity identification, and risk mitigation. Built-in contract AI powered by machine learning can help your organization to get the most out of its contracts. Watch the video below to learn more.
Your organization can take advantage of automated data entry capabilities that save time and resources when new contracts are added to the system. Your organization can identify critical data such as key dates and milestones, clauses, counterparty information, locations, emails, phone numbers, financial information, and more – thus eliminating the need for monotonous, time wasting, and error-prone manual data field entry.
#5 – Robust Compliance Management
Your organization can utilize advanced compliance auditing and reporting to gain better visibility into relationships between contracts across business entities. Legal, regulatory, and other compliance standards and important obligations can be adhered to with user-friendly and robust reporting tools, key dates, contract analytics, renewals, and alerts. As such, collaboration for expedited compliance and renewals is made easy and fast.
Seamless OFAC search – integrated with the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control – further improves compliance management, giving your organization the best tools for managing vendor, company, and employee compliance. After entity data is run through an initial check against the data within OFAC’s database, subsequent checks can be configured to run on a recurring, scheduled basis to ensure that OFAC data compliance is upheld. Furthermore, visually engaging risk analysis snapshots about vendors, employees, and companies can be provided to your users – enhancing data analytics.
Utilize winning compliance tools for better compliance reporting, contract analytics, and stakeholder relationships.
#6 – Rapid, Integrated Electronic Signatures
Electronic signatures integrated with contract management software can assist your organization in transitioning from negotiations to signatures quickly – as you navigate the demands of the evolving landscape of 2021 and beyond.
A rapid signing process for fully electronic signatures and electronic approval collaboration can reduce send-to-sign time by up to twenty percent. Your organization can send documents out for signing immediately after contract negotiations are completed. Reliable contract management software platforms provide a unified online repository within a centralized online portal for the comprehensive management of partially or fully executed electronic signatures.
Manual methods for new agreements, bulk HR documents, amendments, addendums, policy updates, and more can be left in the past – thanks to leading functionality that lets you send virtually unlimited documents out for bulk signatures. Sending documents is easy, and stakeholders have the ability to sign from virtually anywhere at anytime. Signatories can be provided with emails that bring them to relevant signing portals without the need for downloading a software system. View the video below to discover CobbleStone Software’s electronic signature software – IntelliSign®.
When cutting-edge contract management software solutions are integrated with robust eSignatures, signing collaboration and approvals are rapid, efficient, and cohesive.
Leap Into 2021 with Contract Insight®
The six tools that we have mentioned above can positively revolutionize how your organization manages contracts. With full contract lifecycle management, a secure contract repository, industry-defining contract intelligence, ironclad compliance management, and quick and easy electronic signatures, CobbleStone’s acclaimed contract management software suite has everything you need to jump into 2021 with confidence. Watch the video below to discover better contract management with CobbleStone!
Learn how to become the future-minded contract management all star of tomorrow – today! Book a free demo now.
