Many people realize that they have a challenge with managing contracts. Usually as a result of something bad happening. A cell phone contract auto-renews at a high rate, a lease renews but they are moving to a new office. Once they realize the problem they quickly turn to Excel. It is easy to type information into the columns. Usually, the vendor name, the type of contract, the start and end dates, and maybe who is responsible for the contract.
Now they have what they think is the list of contracts until they discover that there are other people doing the same thing. So they decide to merge the lists into one list and keep it on a shared drive. During this consolidation, they also realize that the contract documents are stored everywhere. Some in paper and some scanned copies on people’s local drives. They decide to put all of these files on the shared drive with the master spreadsheet. All is well, a central location with a single list. Until one day they suddenly discover that there are 5 copies of the master spreadsheet and they are all different. Which one is correct? No one knows.
In sorting out the master spreadsheet issue, they discover that contract deadlines are still being missed. No one seems to remember to check the spreadsheet to see what is expiring. They also discover that on some of the contracts that they are creating there are multiple copies of the file and they can’t figure out which file is the latest version. What a mess, now they are digging through emails to try to figure it out.
Just about everyone has experienced or is experiencing this scenario. The scene plays over and over from small businesses to large corporations.
Now that you are nervous and fearing for your job, how do you fix it? It’s easy, you use a cloud based contract management solution. It is very cost effective and does not burden your IT team.
How does a contract management solution help? Here are just a few of the ways:
- Central location for all contracts
- Customized data fields so you can track the info you need
- Version control so you always have the latest version
- Automated reminders so you never forget and miss a renewal
- Approval process for creating, revising, and approving contracts
- Electronic signature integration so you don’t have to print, sign, mail, or scan
- Secure storage
- Authenticated access from anywhere
Contact us using the request form to find out how organizations no longer have to deal with this challenge. Once you try it you will never go back!