Automating contract management: essential for your business or just another trend? At Softadvice, we believe in empowering you to make decisions that fit your needs. Consider the value of automated contract management by asking yourself these three simple questions.
How easily can you retrieve your contracts?
A simple question: Have you ever spent more time than you’d like digging up a specific contract? If the answer is “yes”, don’t worry – you’re not alone. Most businesses still rely on printed copies paired with a digital summary to store contracts. This multi-format approach often leads to unnecessary work. After all, the reasons for needing to access a particular contract can vary widely: How do you quickly find all contracts expiring in April or those with company X from the past 10 years? While you’ll eventually find them, the search isn’t always efficient.
That’s because traditional contract management is focused more on where your contracts are stored, rather than what they are… an important distinction! In today’s era of lightning-fast data processing, the ability to retrieve documents based on relevant metadata gives you a significant advantage. It allows documents to be found based on their content and key details. While you might have a nostalgic attachment to dusty archives, the efficiency boost from automation offers a clear advantage!
What process does your contract management follow for review and approval?
Is it mainly about sifting through emails, scanning inboxes, or straining your eyes over printed copies? Good news: It doesn’t have to be this way – there’s a much simpler and safer approach. Paper can get lost, emails can vanish… chaos is always just around the corner. Automating the review and approval of contracts ensures much greater efficiency. Your contracts will always reach the right people and key terms, deadlines, and user permissions will be strictly adhered to.
This speed and precision won’t go unnoticed by your customers and partners, who will appreciate the seamless experience. Your contracts will be concluded faster, transaction costs will drop significantly and, above all, your turnover will increase. The saying goes, “What you do yourself, you may do better”, but automating contract management is a clear exception.
Does your company truly need this solution?
Why should you commit to more transparent contract management? It’s a fair question, and it deserves a straightforward answer: Relying solely on emails, the expertise of your contract manager, paperwork, and unstructured data from an ERP system carries significant risks. It’s also inefficient and often incompatible with your other key software systems. But don’t be too hard on yourself: most companies are still using these outdated methods. Old habits die hard.
Solutions that integrate seamlessly with other systems , keeping all data equally visible, accessible and manageable, bring much more than ease of use alone. You gain valuable time and peace of mind: no struggling with file duplication, broken templates and unusable layouts. With a professional automated contract management system, all your critical data remains intact throughout every stage of editing and approval.
Do those pain points sound more familiar than you would like? Softadvice offers a simple yet highly efficient solution. M-files is an Enterprise Content Management (ECM) system that allows you to fully automate your contract management and minimise risks. Reliable, straightforward and easy to implement. By adopting M-files, you’ll gain a competitive edge and leave the competition far behind!
