Why Ditching The Spreadsheet Will Improve Control, Visibility, Contracts Compliance and Savings.

Organisations have spent years working out of Excel spreadsheets, but as contract management challenges arise and technology starts to change in which procurement and purchasing processes work, it’s time to make some changes to how your business handles day to day contract management and your supplier relationships.

Easy to use and inexpensive an Excel spreadsheet is the go to tool to handle all things numbers; it serves as a sturdy, capable keeper of data and basically, a giant calculator for most businesses. In most cases, Excel is being used to store large overwhelming amounts of data in complex spreadsheets, but how far will its functionality take you in your day to day tasks? Unfortunately, spreadsheets cannot last forever – they are not the answer for long-term data storage, as at some point or another data will become too overwhelming and your business will be pushing your spreadsheets beyond their limits and eventually the spreadsheet will become corrupt or lost.

Spreadsheets are being replaced by databases. Avoiding another challenge of lost data and corrupt files, businesses are starting to adopt contract management systems to finally gain the control, visibility, compliance and savings they have only ever dreamed of. Working with a centralised contracts database with a contract management system offers the control and security you need so the worst-case scenario does not unfold.

Switching to contract management systems allows businesses to create logical patterns to organise information properly and proactively to gain contracts compliance. Smart functionality helps businesses to; forge links between varied data, information to be updated automatically across multiple departments and produce quick visibility on reports and contract activities.

Not having an efficient or effective contract management system in place means the contracts you have in place with your supplier can easily be ignored or forgotten about. When businesses don’t take control of their supplier relationship and the management of contracts, auto-renewing can become a real issue – contracts can be locked for another year and costs businesses millions in wasted budgets and unintentional spend.

With smart functionality working in real time, contract management systems improve the quality of your data with patterns and processes so nothing gets missed. Businesses should not be scared of the change and technology or having to say goodbye to your impressive network of spreadsheets; the best thing about databases is that you can easily import and export your worksheets.

Ditching a life of unreliable spreadsheets for a long-term and forever developing contract management system means businesses can keep on top of contracts compliance, manage suppliers and make sure everything complies with standards while making more informed decisions to make savings.