What is the ROI from a contracts management system?

Are you looking to improve the way your company deals with its contracts? You may be a small or large company but when you run a business, there’s a continuous stream of contracts to deal with and according to the International Association for Contract and Commercial Management, they found that companies are losing a staggering nine percent of annual revenue due to poor contracts management.

Improving the way you handle contracts is one of the simplest and most efficient ways to improve your control and visibility and impact the bottom line as well. Of course, before you invest in anything, you probably want to know exactly what a contracts management system can bring to your business, let’s start with its general advantages, and the contract lifecycle management tools it provides.

Contract lifecycle management tools offer five key advantages:

• Centralized repositories
• Auto-generated documents
• Automated alerts and escalations
• Advanced search filters
• Clear business intelligence reports

A register of contracts that is centralised and secure.
When you’re running a business, the sheer volume of contracts you must deal with can be overwhelming, especially if you’re using multiple spreadsheets of manually manging them with paper, so if you’re using multiple locations to store them, there’s no doubt you’re wasting a lot of your own time trying to locate contracts and keep track of changes. Storing your register of contracts is a central database eliminates all those issues and enables you and your team to work more securely and collaboratively.

Simple document creation, request, and storage.
Manually creating each new contract and corresponding documents from scratch is never the best use of your time, but it is also very easy to make errors and create consistency issues. Using a contracts management system allows you to eliminate the need for this type of manual work. Instead of generating an entirely new document, you can use built-int templates for easy data input. And instead of filling out the information yourself, you can use the integration with your CRM to auto-populate. Not only that, but contracts management system will also help with the process of notifying your stakeholders and suppliers of your document requests by making that process much quicker and simpler, and securely store it in the system with additional version controls for better visibility.

Automated alerts and escalations, so you don’t miss a thing.
When you have tons of contracts to deal with, each with its own set of deadlines and other contractual obligations, your ability to stay on top of these can be overwhelming and directly affect the length of your contracts process… And when you do it manually, you run the risk of forgetting, and missing key dates. Oversights like that just don’t happen when you use automated alerts, notifications, and escalations built-in to manage your contracts. When it’s time for renewal, and a contract is due to expiry, contract management systems will start the escalation process and you and your team will be notified in time so you can negotiate and make a more informed decision on the contracts renewal or termination.

Advanced search filters for instant invisibility.
Collecting and analysing your data helps you find ways to propel your business forward. You can’t do that if your data is scattered across multiple systems, paper, and spreadsheets. It’s also a lot more difficult when you can’t filter it in any way, that’s what advanced search filters are for. They let you gain a much higher visibility into your contracts and own processes and how well they perform.

Pro-active reports for a smarter way to look at data.
If you’re running a business, you know how quickly costs can pile up and how easily things can be delayed and forgotten when you haven’t got the information clearly and instantly to make more informed decisions. Pulling all your information together that means the most to you and your business, from a contracts management system you can choose from a set of standard reports or export any stored data into a report. Enjoy a smarter way to look at data and instantly access any of your data with effective visuals on a digital dashboard.

Now, baring in mind these key tools and advantages of a contract management system, you may want to ask yourself the following question to understand how you could measure the ROI of implementing a contracts management system;

• How often do you duplicate work?
• How much time do you spend generating contracts and documents?
• Do you ever miss a deadline or review date?
• How much time do you spend tracking down data and information?

The ROI of a contracts management system for your company could be substantial. If a high return on investment just within the first few months of implementation is what you’re aiming at, start by choosing the best tools for your business.
When you use Acord, you get all the features that help you propel your company forward and empower your team.

Accord has been continually developed with various organisations in the public and private sector and during the pandemic the system helped 81,660 Users to manage contracts valuing over £21 Billion; enabling visibility into contracts and supply chain and providing valuable tools for helping teams to collaborate efficiently. They include a secure and centralised contracts repository, effortless document workflows and storage, automated alerts and escalation processes, advanced search filters, and instant smart reporting. We also take care of integrating with your system and collaboration tools. So, if this sounds like something your business could benefit from, don’t hesitate to get in touch.