Any organization with a sizable contract portfolio counts on their contract manager, or contract management team, to ensure that every agreement is carefully monitored from signing through the closeout process. Depending on the number of contracts, the value of those agreements, and the risks associated with not managing them effectively, various solutions can be implemented to help ease the burden of keeping up with them manually.

What kinds of tools do contract managers need to be successful? This blog covers why dedicated contract management software should be at the top of the list.

As we look forward to a fresh start in 2021, we also want to review the last 12 months of contract management news, tips, and more from the ContractWorks blog.

This article revisits some of the most popular ContractWorks blog posts from 2020, covering topics like remote working, important contract terms, and the value of analyzing your agreements.

ContractWorks is pleased to announce a strategic partnership with Cenza to support the migration of legacy contract data to the ContractWorks platform.

ContractWorks is known for its easy-to-use contract management software, industry leading support team, and quick implementation process. Now, using a combination of ContractWorks’ built-in artificial intelligence and Cenza’s contract migration services, customers are able to migrate their data and enable the full functionality of the ContractWorks software even faster.

Conducting a contract review is a key part of the contracting process, and serves as an opportunity to fully understand everything you and your business are agreeing to before putting pen to paper. A contract review helps you reduce organizational risks and increases the likelihood that an agreement will make a positive business impact for all parties involved. Without a comprehensive contract review, you run the risk of committing to obligations that you can’t fulfill, damaging your company’s brand and reputation, and wasting valuable time and financial resources resolving disputes that could have been prevented.

This article covers some of the most important things to look for during a contract review at various stages of the contracting process, and includes a downloadable checklist for contract review and management.

At ContractWorks, our employees come from a variety of experiences and backgrounds, each with a unique set of skills and talents that align with our overall mission of providing simple, smart document management solutions.

We’re proud of the team we’ve assembled, and we think it’s about time you get to know the people that are innovative, agile, and committed to fulfilling the needs of our customers.

In this post, we're catching up with Implementation Manager Katy Neal. Katy plays an important role helping clients find success using the ContractWorks platform, and works to provide both initial training and ongoing customer support. Read more about Katy below.

Starting a new in-house counsel role typically involves months of learning and working through speed bumps as you adjust to your new organization, teammates, and routines. Even the most experienced professionals need time to settle in and learn company policies and procedures and what is expected of the legal team.

Luckily, there are some steps you can take early in the process that will help you get up to speed as quickly as possible so you can start planning for long term success.

Below is a step-by-step guide to help you get acclimated in a new in-house counsel role.

There are countless KPIs you could implement to evaluate your contract management performance, so identifying which indicators best help illustrate the health of your organization is key. It can be tempting to measure every aspect of your process, and there’s no reason you can’t get to that point over time, but it often makes the most sense to start by measuring and working to improve the areas that really move the needle. 

Here are a few KPIs to consider implementing to measure the effectiveness and efficiency of your contract management process.

For many companies, the search for an online contract management solution is sparked by either rapid business growth that leads to a higher contract volume, leadership’s desire to regain control of a mismanaged portfolio, or a specific contracting event that costs the business time, money, or reputational harm. Whether a high-value contract automatically renewed without your knowledge or a critical vendor agreement got lost, there are endless examples of problems that could have been avoided with an online contract management system.   

Here are some of the top reasons businesses shift from manual to online contract management.

To thrive in a contract management role, you must develop an understanding of what various company leaders and stakeholders care about in the contract management process, and what they expect from the people who are responsible for those agreements. 

Chief financial officers rely on contract data to help evaluate how the company is performing, set growth goals, create financial projections, and understand where the business might be at risk. Anyone responsible for managing agreements needs to be able to provide your CFO with accurate, timely contract information, so they have visibility into things like contract expenses, revenue, and more.

What specific concerns do CFOs have when it comes to contract management? This article shares four things CFOs expect from an effective contract management process.

Every contract manager has a system in place for tracking and monitoring agreements throughout the contract lifecycle. While some rely on manual methods, others find ways to automate parts of the process to save time and reduce risks.

However you decide to stay on top of contract details, there are best practices to consider that can help you accomplish these tasks more effectively. This article shares five tips for tracking and monitoring your contracts.