Contract management software is instrumental in automating the drafting, negotiation, execution, and oversight of contracts. Naturally, there are some solutions that are better fitting for your organisation than others. Because of this, tchances are you may be struggling with an outdated system that can cause you to miss out on the full value of your contracts. If your current contract management solution is slowing you down, it may be time to switch.
But how do you know when it’s time to upgrade? Well, here are three key signs that it’s time to consider a superior contract lifecycle management software solution.
- Configuration limitations
One of the biggest frustrations you can face when using contract management software is a lack of configurability – or the inability to tailor the system to your specific business needs.
When workflows and contract data fields are rigid and pre-defined, it can feel as if you have to conform to a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach to contract management that might not align with your business goals. Lack of configuration control can lead to inefficiencies, excessive manual workarounds, confusion across departments, and wasted time trying to make the system fit into your requirements. Without control over fields, workflows, and reporting, you may struggle to fully leverage the software’s potential – possibly feeling boxed in by its limitations rather than liberated by its flexibility.
This rigidity can not only slow down your operations but also undermine the purpose of having contract management software in the first place.
Leading contract lifecycle management software is highly configurable and allows you to create virtually unlimited user-defined fields according to your business and sector-specific needs. These user-defined fields can capture evolving key details on your requests, contracts, vendors, customers and employees. You can even assign specific fields to specific record types as needed. You can configure what seems like unlimited characteristics for these fields, including:
- field names
- field group names
- field types
- field order
- default values
- list values
- required fields
- help descriptions.
That doesn’t mean you have to start from scratch though. Leading contract management software also provides a variety of out-of-the-box fields that can be further configured.
You can enjoy the configurability of a variety of field types, such as:
- checkbox
- currency
- date
- date and time
- decimal
- decimal 4
- drop-down box
- hyperlink
- integer
- multi-line text box (Includes text formatting)
- multi-select list box
- password
- rich text editor
- slider
- text box.
On the workflow side, you don’t have to rely on rigid workflow settings that don’t support your team in its goals. Leading contract management software supports configurable approval workflow processes that can be initiated from any step in the contract lifecycle. You can create parallel, serial or hybrid approval workflows as simple or complex as needed through an easy-to-use workflow configuration user interface. By establishing rules for workflow processes, your organisation is essentially assured that the proper reviews, approvals, tasks, events, notifications and alerts will be initiated for every contract at precisely the right time.
So, why continue to struggle with inflexible field configuration and limiting workflows? Consider upgrading for the functionality mentioned above and more.
2. Storage limitations
Using contract management software with storage limitations can create significant bottlenecks when you manage a high volume of contracts or large files.
As contract volume and complexity grow, restricted storage capacity can force your team to archive or delete important documents to free up space. This can disrupt access to historical contract data, create risks in compliance, and complicate external audits or reviews. Additionally, constantly worrying about storage constraints diverts attention away from more strategic contract management tasks, as your team spends time managing storage instead of focusing on optimising contract workflows and attaining insights.
Ultimately, storage limitations hinder scalability and can prevent businesses from maintaining a comprehensive, centralised contract repository. They should be replaced favour of something better via a contract lifecycle management software upgrade.
Quite simply, award-winning contract management software allows you to store unlimited contracts, electronic files, and attachments without degrading response times. You can also rest assured that you won’t run out of space for metadata fields, templates, clauses, and reports. Your business can scale with growing contract complexity and volume while maintaining a constant, unwavering contract repository that can easily be searched with saved searches, search history and ‘Did you mean…?’ functionality. Your comprehensive body of contracts can easily be accessed for audits and reporting.
Embrace endless contract storage; consider upgrading your contract management software to make storage worries a distant thing of the past.
3. Limited integration options
When contract management software has integration limitations, it can create siloes between key business systems, such as CLM, CRM, and ERP platforms. Without a seamless way to marry these systems, your team can be forced to manually transfer data between them – leading to errors, duplicate data and inefficiencies. Lack of interconnectivity between systems makes it difficult to maintain a single source of truth – causing delays in contract approvals, missed deadlines and fragmented visibility into contract performance.
Furthermore, the inability to sync contract data with other important information reduces the CLM software’s overall value, as you can’t truly automate your workflows or leverage important data insights.
Integration limitations not only slow down operations but also diminish the potential for collaboration and scaling across your departments.
Leading contract lifecycle management software seamlessly integrates with leading CRM, ERP, accounting systems, and many others to truly centralise contract lifecycle management with other processes. Award-winning solutions include web services API for firewall-friendly integration and are built on principles that allow you to extend the CLM system’s functionality to third-party software applications.
Enjoy contract management software that meaningfully connects your business processes as a single source of truth; consider upgrading to powerful integration.
Optimise contract performance with Contract Insight®
Robust contract performance management with detailed CLM data analytics oversight begins and ends with Contract Insight and is enhanced by use of the right metrics. Book a free demo of Contract Insight® contract management and eProcurement software today.
Contact John O’Brien, CEO at Four Business Solutions – global business consultants and software integrators specialising in business process improvement.