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How to Improve Contract Management with Document Management

From initiation through renewal, contract management presents administrative challenges to just about any organization. Add the remote work trend into the mix and both your clients and staff members have to find new methods for file sharing regardless of where people are physically working.

For instance, when negotiating a contract, do you know if your sales team has remote access to the most recent version? Can you quickly identify all contracts that relate to a particular service, sales associate, or client? How far in advance do you know about contract renewals? Is there alternative access to your contracts during a power outage, following a natural disaster, or when there are stay-at-home orders? Is your head spinning yet?

This is where a business process outsourcing (BPO) partner comes in. By partnering with an experienced provider of document scanning, cloud document management software, and workflow automation, you can be more confident that your business processes are being more effectively managed, ultimately reducing your corporate risk. By implementing an efficient document and contracts management system you’ll improve customer experience, vendor relationships, productivity, and much more.

How Document Management Software Works

Determining which is the latest version of the contract you are negotiating can be challenging when you’re relying on email and file sharing. With document management software, you can ensure only the current version of a contract is accessible to users with version control. And with access control, specify with document field-level precision which users or groups of users are able to access sensitive information.

Improve Information Security with Cloud Software

When choosing the right BPO services for your company, it’s important to make sure they are SOC 2 Type 2 certified. Partners with this certification go through a comprehensive audit annually to ensure they are following internal and external processes and guidelines designed to ensure document security while files such as contracts are in their possession. This audit is carried out by a third party to ensure impartiality so you can rest assured your SOC 2 certified BPO partner will keep your documents safe.

Process Accountability Using Workflow Automation

Making sure files are routed through the necessary business departments in a timely manner can be easy when you’re using the right tools. Workflow automation provides accountability throughout this process, and can be customized for your individual organization.

For instance, a sales professional may initiate a contract e-form that requires them to document both the contract’s tactical aspects (name, address, phone number, etc.) as well as the business aspects (how much will be charged for a service/sale and when payment is due, etc.). Once the contract has been approved by each party, it must move to legal for final approval. Staff can track the contract’s progress electronically and make note of any suggested changes. Instead of wondering if any action has been taken, the sales professional has comprehensive insight to the progress of the contract through the workflow process. So if they’ve been waiting to hear from legal, they can easily view the status of the contract via the document management system.

With Document Management Software, Everything Is Easier to Find

Document and contracts management software incorporates user-friendly elements that completely eradicate the unproductive time staff members spend tracking down documents. Instead of being concerned about where you left the hard copy, you can more easily find the finalized contract since most document management applications have full text search capabilities, allowing you to find contracts with specific phrases, simplifying document retrieval. If using MetaSource software:

  1. Management can have immediate and simplified visibility to view these business contracts without having to rely on anyone to locate them.
  2. Based on the contract’s date, you can establish automatic alerts for internal and external distribution to proactively notify the stakeholders of a potential contract renewal.

This means your company’s productivity will increase and your customer experience will steadily improve.

Increase Productivity with Digital Document Management

When it comes to contract management, document management software helps your company save time and money. By providing accountability, streamlining creation and approval processes, and providing visibility into critical corporate assets, you can run a much more cost-effective operation. Whether you have multiple headquarters across the country or your staff is working remotely, accessing important documents—including contracts—is easier with digital document management.

Contact MetaSource to help your company transition from using paper-based contracts to implementing document management software or download Finding the Right Path for Your Content Management Digital Transformation and learn three keys to digital transformation that will show you how to improve your company’s productivity while lowering costs.

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