Every contract manager must be able to manage and keep track of agreements while a contract is in place. Some people use manual methods, but others look for ways to automate parts of the process to save time and reduce risks.
No matter what method you choose to use to keep track of contact information, there are some best practices that you should keep in mind. These can help you do these things more efficiently. This post has tips for keeping track of and eyeing your contracts.
Use a Contract Management Software
When you use software to manage contracts, the process goes more smoothly. Using software for contract management makes it easier and more organized to keep track of and keep an eye on company agreements. A repository for contracts is a place where all of your agreements can be stored and organized in one place. This makes it easy to find the documents you need at any time.
With the help of the custom reporting features, you can make reports about any piece of data in your contract portfolio and send them automatically to many different parties regularly. With alerts and notifications, you can always know when a contract deadline is coming up. This allows you to take proper strategic steps at the right time.
Make Sure You Know Where to Find Your Contracts
The first thing you need to do to get ready to keep an eye on your contracts and the information they contain is to make sure you know where all of your agreements are. Even though the idea seems simple, many companies don’t save their contacts in one place.
Set up a plan for how you will organize your repository, whether you use a filing cabinet, a shared drive, or contract management software so that you can find any agreement quickly when you need to refer to it or look it over. This will help you keep the agreements you’ve made. This is a significant first step that will affect everything else you do with contracts for the rest of the time you have an agreement.
Find out What you Need to be on the Lookout For
Consider making a list of every important piece of data that needs to be kept an eye on after each new contract is signed. This will help you develop a plan to follow until the contract can be retired and kept. Talk to the person in charge of the contract to find out if there are any particular things you need to keep an eye on that go beyond your typical list of dates and deadlines.
During the lifecycle of a contract, it is common to keep a record of and keep a close eye on the following information: What needs to be done and who is responsible for:
- Final dates.
- Renegotiating periods and the right to leave.
- Termination notice requirements.
- Hazardous provisions.
- Compliance requirements.
- Contract execution.
Instead, be Proactive Than Have to React
Staying ahead of dates and deadlines and actively looking for risks and opportunities during contract monitoring can help you stay in charge of your tasks. You will have the best chance of finding any changes or fixes you need to make before they happen if you look over your most important agreements and the specific areas you listed in the last section regularly. This is different from having to deal with problems after they’ve happened.
Contract managers must keep track of deadlines well in advance. This gives them enough time to look at how things are going now before deciding what to do next. For example, if you know weeks or months in advance when a contract will end, you and the other people involved in the deal can work together to make an informed decision about whether to keep the arrangement, change its terms, or end it.
If you miss the deadline and only find out a few days or hours before you have to act, your team may not have enough time to figure out the best way to move forward, which could lead to a decision that hurts the organization.
Keep Stakeholders Informed
Contract management depends on keeping track of and keeping an eye on agreements, but you also have to make sure that the right people get the information to do your job. Contract management is a task that requires a lot of teamwork, and reasonable contract managers keep lines of communication open with everyone who has a stake in the organization.
When thinking about what to say, deadlines and deliverables might be the first things that come to mind. But the contract should not be ignored in how it is carried out. Every deal, whether on the buy-side or the sell-side, affects the organization’s finances. Because of this, the heads of departments and the people in charge of making decisions need as much information as possible to determine if each contract is working the way it was supposed to.
