Contract management or contract administration is the management of contractsmade with customers, vendors, partners, or employees.

An important purpose of contract management software is to streamline administrative tasks and reduce overhead by providing a single, unified view of each contract’s processes.

In any business (small to enterprise), contract management software can be used to manage a new contract request, capture data related to the contract, document authoring, contract creation, negotiation, execution, post signature management and renewal/terminate. The software can then follow the contract as it goes through the review and approval process, providing documentation for digital signatures and execution of the contract, including post-execution tracking and commitments management. Contract Lifecycle Management software not only provides business owners with better visibility into the status of a specific contract, it also facilitates reporting and compliance.Our software solutions will provide business owners with alert notifications for critical dates that affect a contract, such as the cut-off date for contract renewal or the contract’s end of life date.

Organisations in both the public and private sectors are facing increasing pressure to reduce costs and improve financial and operational performance and improve compliance. New regulatory requirements, globalisation, increases in contract volumes and complexity have resulted in an increasing recognition of the importance and benefits of effective Contract Lifecycle Management System.

• Visibility – Without easy access to contracts, procurement teams and contract managers risk eroding the value of agreements. M-Files unifies contracts and contract data into a unified view to make sure that everyone collaborates on the same version.
• Control – M-Files maintains a full audit history and version control. Automatic permissions ensure that only authorized users have access to the data. On the buy side, organizations can achieve higher savings by reducing “off contract” spending by tracking rebates and ensuring that negotiated savings are captured.
• Efficiency – Automating contract management increases efficiency and streamlines processes. In M‑Files CM, automatic workflows seamlessly move contracts through their lifecycle and consistently keep staff updated on new tasks using notifications and assignments (i.e. pending signatures).

• Initiate and request: Contract templates can be used to streamline the initiation process. Manage a library of approved and versioned contract templates.
• Draft and negotiate: During the drafting and negotiation process, drafts are version controlled. Microsoft Office and Office 365 integration fosters collaboration.
• Review and approve: Flexible workflows allow multi-step reviews and approvals.
• Sign electronically: Documents can be signed using the eSignature capabilities of DocuSign or the M-Files Mobile App.
• Execute: Milestones, obligations and issues are managed with automated assignments and notifications.
• Manage: Contracts are indexed with key metadata such as clients, projects, or properties to help organize content dynamically. Amendments, attachments and other related documents can be linked to the main contract and dynamic dashboards track status, expirations and other milestones.
• Search and retrieve: Advanced search and flexible views ensure fast contract retrieval.
• Renew and archive: Automate manual renewal and archival process. On the sell side, alerts on expiration dates allow more time to upsell and cross-sell.