Three productivity hacks for contract managers
Looking to elevate your productivity and value during contract management? Well, contract managers often find themselves juggling multiple responsibilities related to the contract lifecycle. Manually managing these responsibilities with outdated processes can lead to inefficiencies related to repetitive contract lifecycle tasks, confusing and disorganised contract storage, bottlenecked collaboration across teams, and more. But what if you had a configurable, tailored, and time-saving tool instead? To that end, here are three productivity hacks to help you stay efficient, organised, and ahead of the game.
1. Automate repetitive tasks
Historically repetitive tasks like contract drafting, contract risk management, and contract renewal reminders can eat up valuable time if done improperly. By automating these processes with contract management software, you can focus on higher-value activities like negotiation and strategy.
Productivity hack in action: Use pre-approved templates from a dynamic clause and template library to merge contract key data with a fully formed template to generate contracts in minutes. Set automated alerts for upcoming deadlines to essentially ensure no contract renewal or other workflow tasks slip through the cracks.
Bonus tip: Tools with generative AI capabilities can automatically generate clauses for unprecedently streamlined contract management. They can also flag unusual contract clauses, helping you catch potential risks faster by presenting positive, negative, or neutral positioning from the perspective of each contracting party.
2. Centralise contract storage
Chasing down a specific contract or document buried in a maze of shared drives or email threads wastes time and adds unnecessary stress. You need a better way to search for these important documents when you need them. A centralised contract repository virtually ensures you always know where to find what you need. A single source of truth eliminates duplication and reduces errors.
Productivity hack in action: Use advanced search filters to locate contracts by keyword, party, expiration date, and more in seconds; these search terms can be found within the contract metadata record, within the contract document, and within other files and attachments. Searching for contracts is easy and breezy with search history, saved searches, and ‘Did you mean…?’ functionality.
Bonus tip: Look for contract management software with visually engaging graphical dashboards to visualise the status of contracts at a glance.
3. Streamline collaboration across teams
Contract management isn’t a one-person job; it often involves input from legal, finance and other departments. Mis-communication and delays can slow everything down and cost contract parties time, money and resources. Collaborative features like shared workspaces (a document collaboration gateway) can help your teams and counterparties all stay on the same page.
Productivity hack in action: Use auto-redlining, negotiation and approval workflows, clause ownership, and numbered version tracking and audit trails within contract management software to keep feedback organised and accessible. Real-time updates mean everyone stays aligned – even during complex, multi-faceted negotiation processes.
Bonus tip: Adopt electronic signature software to eliminate the bottleneck of printing, scanning, and mailing contracts; also say goodbye to disorganised digital signing processes.
Sign and send from virtually anywhere at any time. Cut signing time by up to twenty percent while retaining digital signature attestation and security.
Key takeaway
By leveraging task automation, centralising storage, and improving cross-party collaboration, contract managers can transform their contract lifecycle management processes from reactive chaos to proactive efficiency.
The result? Faster turnaround times, fewer errors, and more time to focus on building strong relationships with contract counterparties and other key stakeholders.
So, are you ready to work smarter, not harder? Then book a free demo with a Contract Insight® expert from Four today and see how we can help you streamline your contract management process.
Contact John O’Brien, CEO at Four Business Solutions – global business consultants and software integrators specialising in business process improvement.