Data-driven contract management is the building block for contract data processing and contract analytics, providing the necessary insight for businesses to reduce contract cycle times with improved control, governance and visibility. Organisations can turn contracts into essential, data-driven sources of business intelligence that support strategies, tactics and goals with the help of Four’s contract management software, Contract Insight.
Safeguard data with Artificial Intelligence
Data can’t be leveraged for the purposes mentioned above if its reliability is compromised. So the first step towards making data-driven decisions is putting measures in place to comprehensively protect your data. Organisations need the right tools to identify sensitive data such as personally identifiable information (PII) and payment card information (PCI) so that increased risk and compliance issues are avoided.
VISDOM AI, the proprietary artificial intelligence tool used in Contract Insight, can assist administrators in identifying and safeguarding contract data such as names, phone numbers, email addresses, locations, dates, counterparty names and other key information. This functionality will help you decide which sensitive data should be redacted from any contract.
With VISDOM, Contract Insight administrators can select data types and define rules for access to relevant data points. When these data-driven rules are put into place, they can be automated with the assistance of VISDOM, promoting increased security, reduced financial losses, improved reputation and the elimination of time wasted performing monotonous data import analysis.
Leverage VISDOM AI for data extraction
The benefits of VISDOM for data-driven contract management don’t end with data protection and security. VISDOM can also be utilised for data extraction and classification. Our AI-powered contract management software is critical in helping businesses like yours import contract records and request records and other data into your systems in a more time-efficient and less error-prone manner.
With VISDOM, contract documents can easily be uploaded into an organisation’s Contract Insight system. Once these documents are processed, users can choose the record type they want to create from a list of options, including contracts, requests, supplier/customer records, purchase orders, employee records and eSourcing records.
A business using this VISDOM feature can choose a contract type for a document and running the document through VISDOM’s data extraction tool will see critical data such as dates, details, clauses, confidentiality notes and renewal notes auto-extracted from their document. As such, companies decrease time wasted on manual data entry and instead can focus on the value-driving aspects of data-driven contract management.
Data extraction with VISDOM is extremely beneficial to companies that need to manage legacy contracts but lack the necessary resources to manage a bulk data import. The same process applies, allowing organisations to keep both new contracts and legacy contracts in a uniform format in a centralised location.
Searching for documents with Contract Insight
When contracts and other documents are stored in shared drives, it becomes challenging for companies to keep track of up-to-date document versions and contract details due to limited searching capabilities and the absence of audit trails. A contract management process that relies on a searchable contract repository enables much greater transparency and equips organisations with enhanced contract tracking and status updates. Contract Insight can provide these capabilities.
Contract management reporting
Organizations can create reports based on key dates, financials, and categorised data fields with Contract Insight’s configurable ad-hoc reports. Contract management reports equip Contract Insight users with full visibility of contractual relationships across their contract portfolio, and can generate full audit trails. Ad-hoc reporting allows users to generate reports – or saved searches – based upon user-defined or system-defined fields. Users can make changes to contract records right from the ad-hoc report view page and changes to contracts from report results, allowing them to maximise the benefits of data-driven management.
Contract Insight ad-hoc reports include:
- active contracts
- expiring contracts
- expired contracts
- contract amounts
- contracts by department
- contracts that are in review
- key dates and milestones etc.
Contract Insight users can review reports on their dashboards or report lists, or they can have them sent via email on a scheduled basis – sending recurring emails as needed. With reports that help users maintain quick access to important data details about their contracts, organisations can make the most of contract data for smarter contract processes.
Better contract analytics with intuitive dashboards
Contract Insight users can leverage system and user-created dashboards for successful data-driven contract management. Dashboards can be displayed by contract status and administrators can assign certain dashboards to certain user groups. Furthermore, organisations can configure reports to be sent out to employees by automated email in structured spreadsheet form so all team members and interested parties can easily view essential data.
User-friendly and visually engaging dashboards promote data-driven contract management and well-governed contract lifecycle management. Dashboards include legacy dashboards and executive graphical dashboards – which you can personalise according to your own needs – supporting:
- contract KPIs
- contracts overview
- accounts by departments
- legal
- supplier management
- year analysis
- bids overview.
Transform data-driven contract management with Four Business
Organisations can set themselves up for long-term success with processes that are based upon the goal of efficiently gathering quality data and analyzing them swiftly and accurately to make informed business decisions. With a contract management solution that allows organisations to protect, extract, search, reports and analyse data easily in one centralised location, you can enjoy more control over your contracts, a streamlined contract lifecycle and higher contract management ROI. This solution is Contract Insight from Four Business Solutions.
Contract Insight is a cloud-hosted (SaaS) or deployed (on-premise) source-to-contract solution. The acclaimed platform is trusted by thousands of professionals for their contract management, legal document management, procurement and sourcing needs.
Used by many Fortune 500 companies, Contract Insight gives you real time visibility into your contracts. It doesn’t just shore up your security; it will help you meet contract compliance regulations, centralise your contract management and improve your overall contract administration process.
For more information, contact John O’Brien, CEO at Four Business Solutions, global business consultants and software integrators providing business processes improvements in Finance, Supply Chain & Operations, across a broad range of industries.