In this ever-changing market, paper-laden manual contracting is outdated. In order to sustain and gain competitive advantage, enterprises should adopt paperless contracting with the help of integrated centralized repositories, automated processes, and smart analytics. Moreover, with remote work becoming the new normal, legal teams are looking for technology-enabled solutions that would allow them to easily access all information from anywhere, and thus, streamline the contract management process. A secure and single centralized contract repository is indispensable for seamless contracting.
Why Do You Need a Contract Repository?
The importance of establishing a centralized contract repository cannot be overstated. Let us look at some of the major reasons why it is so vital:
- Easy to Locate – What can be worse than forgetting where you had stored a document, especially when it comes to something as important as contracts? An integrated single online location like a centralized repository would not only ensure effective record-keeping but will also save you the labor of scouring the file cabinets.
- Solid Protection – Contracts contain confidential pieces of information that demand to be protected. A cloud-based contract repository software like the one offered by Zycus ensures strong security measures including advanced encryption and access control.
- Document Organization – Storing files digitally is way more convenient than even the best paper-based CLM system as it enables smooth categorization; you can easily drag and drop files into folders or sub-folders, and highlight the same, without any pompous color-coding, indexing, cross-referencing, and frequent updating.
- Easy to Search – An online contract repository allows you to perform a quick search and find contracts or the desired clauses within them in seconds. Advanced search and filtering not only save time but also help your company avoid the hassle of a manual search.
- Sharing Information – In manual contracting, if you want to share some information with a party, you would be needing to scan the entire document and send it via email. Whereas, contracts stored in a cloud-based central repository can easily be shared with the desired party in just a few clicks.
Zycus AI brings Central Repository from Remote History to Modern Metrics:
Zycus Explorer and Protector takes a center stage in transforming your contract repository
1. Advanced Search Capabilities
It is a great struggle for enterprises using manual contracting to identify and prioritize contracts on the basis of their risk profiles. They are very much prone to face non-compliance and heavy financial losses as they are incapable of accessing, identifying, and reviewing the contracts that are at risk.
The need for better risk management has increased the demand for an integrated centralized contract repository that offers advanced search capabilities. Zycus’s contract repository software enables multi-parameter search with dynamic reporting and configurable dashboards.
2. Control over Contract Lifecycle
At any given point of time, a centralized repository allows the stakeholders to gain visibility into the whereabouts of the contracts while they are being reviewed, this, in turn, increases accountability. The cloud-based repository also acts as a platform for collaboration among the legal team, suppliers, and vendors during negotiation; thus, ensuring quicker turn-around.
Moreover, the user-friendly reporting enables all the departments to access key contract information and effectively collaborate through the platform for undisturbed communication and co-operation. By automating the workflows, the software keeps a record of all the changes and updates. This helps to maintain an accurate audit trail. One more important feature is the version control which ensures that only the latest version of the documents is always used by everyone.
3. Contract Risk Management
One of the major challenges that large organizations face is the scattering of contracts across various physical as well as virtual storage systems. This can lead to a number of problems including – decreased visibility into thousands of contracts, increased risk of security breach and non-compliance, misuse of contract data, etc.
With Zycus’s AI-powered solutions, organizations can migrate thousands of contracts seamlessly into a single centralized cloud repository, which would help organizations to effectively deal with these issues. Also, artificial intelligence in contract management solutions identifies deviation of terms and clauses across legacy contracts that would help in analyzing risks and ensuring that the contracts are up-to-date with the latest regulations.
4. Contract Performance Tracking
Manual contracting involves storing contracts in multiple locations – be it physical file cabinets, computer folders, or hard-drives. Storage of contracts across diverse locations negates the possibility of monitoring contract performance and tracking if at all they are financially beneficial for the company. Whereas, if the company adopts an advanced contract management solution, it would offer a single centralized repository that can be accessed from everywhere, in any device. This would enable the organization to gain visibility into all the contracts at a single unified location.
Moreover, the configurable milestones and metrics would track the contracts post-sign-off. Due to the triggers and alerts attached to metrics, any discrepancies in performance or compliance can easily be identified and resolved quickly.
5. Informed Decision Making
Enterprises often fail to gain maximum value from their contracts owing to the absence of a comprehensive dashboard and reporting system. Without this duo, it becomes difficult to find out missed milestones, delayed payments, or any other inconsistencies.
The dashboard offers you the information regarding upcoming deadlines, non-compliance, renew/expiration alerts, etc. at a glance. Whereas, reports present a much more in-depth view of all key contract data. This data is utilized for identifying patterns, preventing certain risks, or amending the contract path wherever the performance is unsatisfactory. The data is also useful for making strategic organizational decisions and predicting outcomes on the basis of past patterns; thus, leading to smarter business deals, reduced risks, and better negotiating-power.
The above points highlight how a centralized repository for all contracts forms an integral part of a sophisticated contract management solution and is critical for harnessing key contract data. Zycus CLM offers unparalleled insights into your contract documents, quickly providing you with relevant information about contract performance and regulatory compliance via a single-view customizable dashboard. To learn more about how Zycus can ensure compliance across all your agreements and help you follow the best practices for contract management contact us now.
