Get Contracts Processed in a Jiffy Using a Self-Service Contract Request Process
By Justin Perkins
I learned something new today. “Jiffy” is an authentic unit of measurement, not just a folksy saying, but the exact length of time represented by a jiffy differs depending on your field of study. In physics, a jiffy is the time it takes light to travel one centimeter in a vacuum. In electronics, a jiffy is the time between cycles of alternating current. And in computing, it’s the time between computer clock cycles. Needless to say, I’m not claiming you can get a contract prepared in an actual jiffy. But you can save a lot of time by utilizing a self-service contract request process.
Businesses often deal with a lot of simple, repetitive tasks that not only bog down teams but produce additional risk for the company. For instance, how often do you get requests for yet another standard agreement such as an NDA, BAA, or CDA? If you get enough of these, how much time are you wasting providing them again and again to these teams or individuals?
Contract management software from Contract Logix offers our customers tools that enable users to self-provision requests via self-service contract request process. Imagine you are an individual who needs one of these standard contracts. You log into the platform and answer a series of quick questions, like who the related company is, press a button to submit and Bam! The software reviews your request and provides you with a finalized agreement.
The self-service contract request process is not only fast but it’s efficient. It makes sure the document contains the most up-to-date legal language. Has anyone at your company ever asked for an agreement and then just kept repurposing it over and over again? What if you changed that agreement last month, and they did not come back to get a new template? This ensures no one is holding onto an outdated legal document, thus increasing risk across your organization.
Contract request tools that enable this self-service contract request process also help you put controls and procedures in place to support a better process. Such tools can ensure you are capturing all the information you need up front before the request is submitted, thus saving someone from having to chase it down. And they can automatically validate each request with a workflow that can decide when an additional review prior to self-provisioning such a document is required. This is critical to keeping the process flowing and making sure you are adding efficiencies for the bulk of such agreements, but not increasing the risk across the business by approving requests and providing documents which otherwise should be rejected.
One of the biggest benefits of giving people in the organization the ability to request contracts online using a self-service contract request process is that it will save your legal team a ton of time. This frees up legal resources to focus on the strategic stuff.
Takeaway
When assessing the benefit of any contract management software, finding ways to reduce time is critical to the success of your business. If you are wasting valuable resources and time trying to get simple contractual requests processed, bringing in automated tools, like self-service requests for certain contract types, will get the job done in – that’s right – a jiffy.
If you enjoyed this article, come back next week to learn how to save time and effort with Contract Templates.
And, if you want to learn more about what a self-service contract request process can do for your organization or would like to see a demo of our software, just schedule a call with one of our specialists.