29. October 2019
Digital contract management: Missing deadlines is yesterday’s news
For many companies, contract management is a mess: here a maintenance contract, there a mobile phone contract. There is simply no overview of the countless contracts in the company. It is therefore not uncommon for contracts to continue to run quietly and secretly for years without the service being consciously used.
The changing mentality of companies also plays a special role. More and more, the world is moving away from products and towards services. Subscriptions are preferred to full licenses for products. Possession therefore takes precedence over ownership. Let’s be honest, it looks similar in our private environment: We watch series about Netflix, listen to our favorite artists on Spotify and store our documents on Dropbox. Why? Quite simple: We no longer have to carry everything around with us and can access everything that’s right or what’s wrong. Anytime, anywhere. And only with a monthly fee.
But these subscription models also have it all. While the purchase of one-time investments was still manageable, the flood of contracts and subscriptions is increasingly becoming a real challenge. This is why it will become increasingly important in the future to control these costs sustainably. Sophisticated contract management comes in handy. As an integrated solution within a document management software, the digital contract management offers a good foundation stone to blow through the existing contracts and to give their previous order new shine.
According to a recent survey by the industry association Bitkom, the digital office is becoming more and more popular among German SMEs. With 47 per cent almost every second enterprise administers and organizes its documents on digital way. The reason for this is obvious: digital working saves money, time and above all a lot of nerves.
According to a recent survey by the industry association Bitkom, the digital office is becoming more and more popular among German SMEs. With 47 per cent almost every second enterprise administers and organizes its documents on digital way. The reason for this is obvious: digital working saves money, time and above all a lot of nerves.
Contract management as a guide
Especially in small companies without their own departments, the overview of the existing contracts is simply missing. The digital contract management, correctly used, creates structure, compliance, transparency and bundles all relevant information centrally in only one place. With the establishment of seamless workflows for contract processing, tracking, reviewing and approving contracts becomes child’s play. And this can be done from the office, using a tablet from the storage room or, thanks to a smartphone, comfortably while on the move; without having to register any loss in legal or operational conformity. If contracts run contrary to the set deadline, automatic notifications indicate this. In this way, contracts can be reviewed in due time, conditions can be renegotiated or agreements that are no longer desired can be terminated in the twinkling of an eye.
What makes digital contract management so essential?
In itself, monitoring conditions and deadlines is an enormous challenge. If different versions of contracts are still on employees’ desks, analog contract management quickly becomes a confusing, non-transparent and chaotic undertaking. Missed extensions or missed notice periods usually result in unfavourable expenses.
However, when working with digital contract management that is well integrated into existing processes, versioning problems, lengthy search times and a lack of transparency are a thing of the past. Rather, the automation of contract review and approval processes facilitates processing and increases productivity. Authorized individuals can easily review and approve files and prevent important contract terms, milestones, and deadlines from being missed. With the right contract management in place, interface integration allows you to take account of file duplicates and different versions, as well as bringing important information together in a structured, traceable, and well thought-out format.
5 unbeatable arguments for the use of electronic contract management
Increase in productivity
Contracts can be easily integrated into the digital contract management. This can be easily done from the email or file system and can also be quickly retrieved.
Valuable cost savings
The integrated automated reminder function makes it possible to react in good time to deadlines and to cancel contracts that are no longer required or desired.
Compliance-compliant work
Rights, regulations, laws: Compliance continues to grow. This is precisely why it is so important that the right contract management fulfils all the desired legal requirements.
Central access – everything at a glance
The central storage of all important documents means that relevant information can be accessed by any authorised person, at any time and at any place. Intelligent rights management also regulates who is granted access and who is denied access.
Transparency and traceability
Responding quickly and agilely to certain events is becoming increasingly relevant. It is therefore all the more important to provide information as quickly and competently as possible. Those who first have to run into the cellar and search for a dusty document lose valuable time that their competitors might already be ahead of them.
Icons: Icons8
Valuable cost savings: An example of calculation
Unintentional contract renewals not only burden the wallet, they are also quite annoying for all concerned. Let’s just take the one forgotten telephone bill for 80 euros a month and the maintenance contract for the old fully automatic coffee machine for 50 euros a month. Calculated on the year, these are costs of 1,560 euro, which could have been avoided.
To minimize costs and to increase the profits has highest priority for many enterprises. Therefore it is all the more important to find out old contracts, to examine them and in the best case to cancel them.
You see: Digital contract management is not as red as many might think. If the above-mentioned aspects are taken into account, working with electronic contract files is not only fun, but also increases the reporting and analysis options thanks to central storage, strengthens compliance and creates a sustainable optimization of processes. This means that nothing stands in the way of efficient work.
Do you find contract management interesting and would like to know how to use it with AMAGNO? Then talk to our AMAGNO Sales Team about the advantages, functionality and interesting solutions. Simply contact us by telephone: Phone +49 (0)441 309 123 45 or send us an e-mail to: sales (at) amagno.de. We look forward to hearing from you!
Jana Treptow 
