A contract management software offers end-to-end management for your documents no matter what industry you’re in. It is important that your contract is flawless for many reasons. First, you want the document to be precise and accurate to create a clear understanding between all parties involved. Then you want your contracts to be managed well so you can keep track of analytics or important information to help your business create better plans or strategies.

Poor management of contracts can impact your business’ revenue. You may lose track of important dates, you might experience long delays waiting for another team member to finish their tasks or oversee expenses, and you may not keep track of all your contracts. But, with technology, you can utilize it to enhance the way you manage your contracts. You can use multiple tools to accomplish contract lifecycle management.

In this article, you will learn about the most favored tools in a contract management software you and your team should be looking out for. It is time for your team to get ahead of the game and prepare for the coming year. Get ready to learn the best contract management tools for 2023!

Best Tools in a Contract Management Software:

#1 Contract Authoring

Contract Authoring and Negotiation – Create, Collaborate, Negotiate and Execute contracts all in one platform.

All important details and information should be included in the contract and must favor all parties involved. Missing out on important contract clauses or making minor mistakes can cause misunderstandings down the road and can incur risks for your business. This is why you should make sure that you have a good contract authoring tool, as it is a crucial part of CLM. Both parties involved can collaborate and write down details such as dates, events, costing, clauses, and other agreement terms. A contract authoring tool enables team members to edit and place comments to make the contract drafting faster and ensure that everything is precise and accurate. In some contract management software, the contract authoring tool allows you to scroll through a library of clauses and add them to the document, so your team no longer has to type out the clauses word by word, which can sometimes lead to errors. You can also choose from templates to eliminate time spent thinking about the templates you need for your document.

#2 Contract Review / Redlining

Technology has dominated nearly everything we do and will continue to improve everyone’s lifestyles, and this includes how you edit documents. In the past, companies would use Google Suite to edit, suggest, and review documents. Although this process may still work, the disadvantages would be that you still have to share a link and save it in folders along with your other files on your drive. But with a Contract Review/Redlining tool, you can do the job all on one platform. Multiple users can have access to the same document and work on it in real time. The platform will store all of your contracts so it won’t be mixed up with other files. With this feature, you would eliminate time spent waiting for access or looking for a file.

#3 Electronic Signature

eSignature – Send contracts for review and signature, file them in a smart repository, and extract contract metadata to make data-driven decisions.

Throughout the years, more and more technology features are developed or improved. One of them being electronic signatures. However, it can be scary to use e-signatures due to fraud, credibility, or security reasons. But soon, eSignatures may be a thing of the past. So why not be ahead of the game and utilize eSignatures? E-signatures are actually safer. They can be tracked and are encrypted. Now you can add your signature to a contract anywhere, and you would have lessened time travel and costs. All you need is access to the file and a ready-made eSignature, which isn’t that difficult anymore.

#4 Contract Reminder

Alerts & Notifications – Stay ahead of contract renewals and negotiations with Smart Alerts and never miss a renewal again.

In contracts, there will always be important dates or milestones. There is the start date and the end date. For milestones, you have contract delivery, target execution date, and expiration dates. If your company is bigger and has thousands of contracts, you can easily miss out on these dates. There may be penalties if you miss out on these or make a bad reputation for your business.  A contract reminder tool can enable you to set reminders or notifications, so you never have to forget. All of this can be on one platform so you can manage your contract overall.

#5 Contract Repository

Smart Repository – Store all your buy or sell-side contracts and files in one central repository.

Organize, organize, organize. A cluttered space can lead to chaos. Team members can get confused or forget about contracts or information they need to know in an instant. In addition, looking for contracts in a messy or disorganized place takes up precious time that can be spent on focusing on more important tasks.

One of the sole reasons for finding or upgrading a software next year is because of a contract repository. Managing your contracts is best done when they are organized. You can keep all your contracts on one platform and sort them out accordingly. This is great for when you are looking for your contract or searching for key data or information in an instant.

#6 Contract Tracking

When creating a contract you may encounter delays where you have to wait for your team members to finish their tasks on working on the contract, or maybe you want updates, but you forget to check them on time. A contract tracking tool can help you. This tool gives users clear visibility of each stage of the contract management lifecycle. For example, if you want to know if the contract is finished with the pre-signature phase, then your team can access the platform to check if the document has been created. A contract tracking tool helps your team cooperate and provide valuable updates to the third party. Everyone can sync and work on other tasks while waiting for further updates.

#7 Contract Compliance

Unlike in the past, companies used Excel sheets to store data from contracts. Team members would have to manually type in the important data and make reports manually. But, with a contract compliance tool, you can conveniently monitor everything. In this tool, you can automatically generate audits and reports from assets, suppliers, and customers and get a complete overview of each contract. All of this can be done with just a click of a button on a single platform. It is a handy tool that companies would not have previously experienced when traditionally managing their contracts.

Conclusion

With the power of AI today and in the coming years, you want your company to have the best advantage in everything. The best way to do this in 2023 is to maximize tools when scanning for the right contract management for your business. Many contract management software offer some or nearly all of these tools, but make sure you check carefully and always remember to watch out for value for money.

Revnue is an AI-based contract management software that offers all these tools. Businesses no longer have to purchase several tools and shift to different platforms when dealing with contracts. By building an end-to-end contract lifecycle management software, Revnue’s goal is to empower businesses to leverage their contracts to make data-driven decisions and prepare their business for growth.