Contract Management Software Desirable Features And Advantages

Contract management software is useful for centralized and automated administration of company-wide contracts. This can be contracts between the company and its employees, or contracts with customers, suppliers, distributors, dealers and other business partners. The system is responsible for contract lifecycle management (CLM) from negotiation collaboration to the creation and storage of contracts, followed by renewals and amendments, compliance, reporting, audits and so on.Centralized data allows for a faster lifecycle and secure documents with role-based access rights for user groups and individual users. With data held in a repository, text and field search is possible, and it makes auditing and tracking easier. Scheduled alerts can be sent to members responsible for contracts and human errors and omissions are largely avoided. The data entry interface is easy to use, and documents can also be uploaded in batches with an OCR scanner.The first desired feature to look for is easy and fast deployment. Traditionally, contract management software has been installed and kept in-house by companies on their own client-server network. But a hosted SaaS platform is an increasingly popular option. These providers charge customers on a periodic billing cycle based on resource usage and the number of users.It is especially preferable for small and medium level businesses, since the hosted option eliminates the need for local infrastructure and the staff needed to install and maintain the system. But many companies still keep things in-house because of the legal and financial implications of handling sensitive documentation. But whether the system is hosted or on a local server, the ROI is quick with lower administrative expenses on contracts, rising compliance rates and fewer errors.A central repository capable of handling unlimited contracts is one of the essential features to look for in contract management software. A manager should have the power to assign access rights to users and user groups based on their role. An internal search engine has to allow full text search of system fields and user queries.The system's collaboration and negotiation tool needs to have editing support for widely used document editors like MS-Word. All versions of every document have to be stored securely and tracked. Check-in document comparisons and change list notations are helpful, along with a listing of users who changed the document. The system's internal email setup should track each message and attach it to ongoing conversations.By far the most desired and important feature is document management. All versions of each document have to be secured and a status assigned to each one, so that only the owner and authorized users can access and identify it. The system should be capable of accepting any form of digital data as input, and also paper documents as batch input data from OCR scanners. The data has to be available in . Pdf, . Xls and other common downloadable formats.A standardized compliance reporting facility is essential for contract management software. Maintaining audit trails and histories for contracts is part of this compliance requirement. Standard reports can start with a complete list of all contracts, and then allow for filtering based on expiry dates, yearly increases, division or branch specific contracts, and so on.