3 Ways to Keep a Watchful Eye on Your Contracts
By Karen Howe
Where is that contract now? Has Legal reviewed it yet? How long has it been waiting for approval?
These questions and others like them probably come up every day. If your contract management solution can’t help you answer them quickly and accurately, it’s putting you at a disadvantage. In this post, I’d like to share with you three ways Contract Logix provides visibility into your contract process.
Stage and Status Tracking
Every contract record has a place to indicate the stage in the contracting process (e.g. draft, review, approval) and its overall status (pending, active, inactive, etc.).
Whenever either field is updated, a pop-up prompts the user to enter a note, and these notes along with information about when the change was made, by whom, and how many days have elapsed since the last change are kept with the record. With a single click you get a full history of all stage/status updates and can answer questions like “When did this get sent for approval?” and “How long did it take?”
Progress Bars
Turn on Progress Bars and you can see at a glance how far along a contract is in the contracting process. Each stage along the way is assigned a color-coded percentage of completeness, as seen in the example below. You don’t need to open a record to see the bars (they’re visible in the Contracts grid) and the colors stand out, allowing you to quickly scan the list to see where a contract is right now.
Watch List
With a single click, you can add any contract to your “Watch List” and get instant access to the record from anywhere in the system. With Progress Bars on, your personal Watch List also displays graphically the progress of each contract as it moves through the contracting process. The Watch List helps you keep a “watchful eye” on contracts that are most important to you.
Takeaway
If your contracts are stored in folders or tracked on a spreadsheet, do you really know who has them or where they are in the process? Maybe not. Features that empower users to see for themselves where contracts are can greatly reduce email inquiries and/or phone calls to the contracting or legal department. Plus, features like Stage and Status Tracking provide valuable data about the efficiency of your entire contracting process. They give you the insight you need to establish KPIs and optimize your contract management.
About the Author
Karen Howe has been with Contract Logix as Training Director since the company was formed. She’s trained hundreds (all right, thousands) of users over the years. These days she’s spending her time creating videos, tutorials and online Help files for our new products, Express and Premium. When not working, she’s usually dreaming about her next trip to Key West or Wellfleet on Cape Cod.