Streamline Your Contract Management Process with CLM Software: Pros and Cons

Contract management is a stressful process due to lots of moving parts, human error, and meticulous tasks; contract lifecycle management software is a remedy for the headaches involved with general contract management tasks. CLM software both simplifies and automates the process from start to finish, and prevents human errors and other issues from occurring.

Contract Lifecycle Management Software: Uses and Benefits

CLM (contract lifecycle management) software is incredibly valuable for any business that utilizes legal contracts which, generally speaking, is almost all businesses; contracts are a fundamental aspect of commerce, yet the process remains stressful and confusing.

Contract lifecycle management software streamlines and automates the key stages of legal contracts.

Not only do contract lifecycle management solutions make everything much faster and simpler, but the CLM software also prevents common human errors. Besides preventing the need for in-person signing, the software is designed in a way that prevents us from incorrectly tampering with the document, such as signing in the wrong place.

Also, because the contract lifecycle management software is entirely digital, contracts cannot be lost or destroyed; even better, all versions of the document are saved along the way, so there’s no need to worry about accidentally ‘saving over’ a contract or damaging it in any way.

The benefits this has for businesses are plenty, but the real attraction to these services is how painless they make the entire contract process.

The cons associated with contract lifecycle management systems have only to do with technical difficulties; like all programs that live inside a computer, problems do happen. That said, the software-caused issues are a small price to pay when compared to the large amount of human-caused errors that come with manual contracts.

Let’s go over some of the basic contract lifecycle management software features.

CLM Software: Features

The various contract lifecycle management software features with your software will depend entirely on who makes your particular software; each unique software provider will offer unique features.

That said, there are some fundamental aspects of CLM software that you can expect to come with most services.

Authoring

The authoring process is made simple by contract lifecycle management solutions, especially when compared to how difficult it can be with manual contracts.

Creating new contracts is as simple as scrolling and selecting from built-in templates; all you need to do is find the contract template that pertains to whatever situation you are implementing a contract for, and then go about the process of editing and personalizing the template to fit your specific needs.

The authoring process when using CLM software saves an immense amount of time; not only do you not need to physically edit and print templates, but the software actually helps you with editing.

You don’t have to worry about making natural mistakes, since the software will correct you.

Collaboration and Review

The whole purpose of contract lifecycle management services is to make the management process faster and more pain free, and nowhere is this more evident than in the collaboration and review section of the process.

Collaborating and reviewing contracts is, as you can expect, much faster with contract lifecycle management software than it is with manual contracts.

First of all, there is no in-person signing; not only that done via computer, but the CLM software also makes it incredibly simple to collaborate on editing the contract to fit your own specifications.

The software is also personalized to each party involved in the contract management; this means that the ‘tasks’ presented to one user are different to another. The software delegates what needs to be done so you don’t have to, which drastically cuts down the amount of time these processes typically take with manual contracts.

Monitoring

Monitoring is another area where CLM software assists greatly.

Contract lifecycle management services allow for quick retrieval of previous contracts (which is useful if your particular business deals with 100’s of contracts) and makes for easy monitoring; you can choose to be alerted when a contract is due for re-negotiation, or other important dates.

Not only that, but users can monitor their particular obligations or legal capabilities relating to the contracts they are a part of; this way, legal guidelines are rarely crossed or broken, which is crucial for any type of business,  no matter what industry you’re in.

Contract Lifecycle Management Services: How to Choose

All contract lifecycle management systems are unique, and you should choose the best contract lifecycle management software possible for your business.

Before you purchase any contract lifecycle management solutions, ask the following questions:

• Does this CLM software fit the needs of my business?
• Does this contract lifecycle management system fit the needs of my industry?
• Is the interface user-friendly?
• Does this service fit our budget?

Typically, you can get a free demonstration of most contract lifecycle management software before buying.