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Implementierung CLM-Systeme

The Best Contract Management Solution in 2024

Contract management software offers a significant advantage as it allows lean business and legal teams to focus on more complex, higher-value tasks instead of spending a lot of time on large volumes of routine contracts.

The term contract management can be used to describe a wide range of activities. For some companies, contract management is something like a folder in a desk drawer. Others entrust a single team member with managing worksheets and managing change.

Contracts are the universal language of business: Almost every euro that flows into or leaves a company is underpinned by a contract. For this reason, contract management software is becoming increasingly popular among companies of all sizes. A good contract management system should be able to automate contract requests, approvals, and maintenance processes. But it can also do much more to help a company improve efficiency, strengthen business relationships and protect its interests.

What is contract management software?

When you talk about contract management software, you mean one thing in particular: automated software for contract life cycle management (CLM).

Contract management software offers a significant advantage as it allows lean business and legal teams to focus on more complex, higher-value tasks instead of spending a lot of time on large volumes of routine contracts.

Another advantage of CLM software is that it makes it easy to create, sign, and distribute legal documents. These cloud and on-premise solutions help your team centralize contracts and reduce the time spent sending documents back and forth between partners during negotiations.

Here are some of the key features that should be found in the best contract management software.

Surety: Internal security should protect your contracts from unauthorised editing and changes. Any good contract management software should include end-to-end encryption to keep all sensitive data private. These security measures should be manageable through user permissions and automatic change notifications to ensure your organization's privacy and data protection.

Organization: A good contract management system also allows you to search and quickly retrieve your entire database, whether it's on-premise or in the cloud. Within the software, you should be able to easily set up and maintain your storage hierarchy.

Tracking: Notifications and tracking features should keep your entire team informed about the progress of a contract. These features significantly reduce the time a contract takes from creation to agreement, particularly when the document is sent electronically.

Reporting: Contract management systems with reporting and analysis options help your team identify weak points in the signing process and improve speed and compliance. Reports can be created to help you understand where your processes are failing and better predict and model best practices throughout the contract life cycle.

We've compiled a list of the best contract management applications out there today that can provide scalable solutions for creating, executing, and monitoring contracts for legal teams, sales teams, and small businesses.

What makes good contract management software?

A good contract management solution should be accessible from anywhere, anytime and have appropriate security measures. This accessibility would allow everyone involved to access important contract information from their laptops or mobile devices and ensure they don't miss a deadline or opportunity. In addition, a customizable contract solution can be tailored to the company's specific needs so that it can capture all required data and processes.

Collaboration is another important feature of a good contract management solution. Most good software solutions should enable effective, straightforward, and rapid collaboration between the various parties involved in the contract management process, including legal, procurement, sales, and finance departments. This ensures that all parties involved are informed about the status of the individual contracts at all times, so that they can make well-founded decisions about their company's legal and financial obligations.

The degree of possible and flawless integration with other business systems can also play a decisive role for most companies. The best contract management solutions should integrate seamlessly with other systems, such as CRM, ERP, and accounting software, to streamline the entire process. Features that enable automation can also be used to reduce manual work and improve efficiency. Most CLM solutions should provide features to automate manual tasks such as document creation, contract review and approval, and contract renewal reminders.

Robust reporting and analysis capabilities are also critical to a good contract management solution. Sophisticated solutions should provide stakeholders with the necessary data to monitor contract performance and identify areas for improvement.

And last but not least, a good contract management solution should be user-friendly, intuitive and easy to use so that as little training as possible is required. It should also be cost-effective and offer a high ROI by reducing contract terms, improving compliance and reducing legal risks.

With these features, a good contract management solution can help companies streamline their processes and achieve incredible results in their operations and ultimately improve their bottom line.

The best contract management software

top.legal

top.legal is a cloud-based solution for managing and automating contract processes. We've set up a dedicated digital workspace where all parties can centrally manage contracts, get real-time insights into agreements, and streamline document creation, contract processes, and collaboration all in one place.

With top.legal, you can drastically reduce the time and resources required to manage and manage all of your contracts. Our CLM software helps you manage, track, and automate every step of your contract life cycle, whether you're a small, medium, or large organization.

Price range: On request

Why choose top.legal?

  • We provide legally approved contract templates with which legal and business users can quickly enter the relevant information, adapt certain clauses to the respective counterparty or order, and distribute the contract for rapid execution.
  • You can easily and securely sign your contracts electronically to simplify your work, reduce costs, and speed up your processes.
  • Seamless integrations with leading platforms: You can connect your contract management platform to the apps you already use.
  • You can share documents internally and externally via a link or allow the other party to access the contract from a single location, including signing.
  • With a comprehensive contract management dashboard, you get actionable insights into all elements of contract management, including milestones, deliverables, clauses, obligations, contractors, and other general contract qualities.

PandaDoc

PandaDoc is an all-in-one contact management solution that allows you to adapt, negotiate, and digitally sign complex contracts. It includes a wide variety of templates, as well as a library of pre-checked clause options that allow you to quickly create error-free professional documents. You can also set up renewal reminders and automatically keep track of upcoming renewals. The system integrates with HubSpot CRM, Pipedrive, Salesforce, Box, PayPal, Slack, and other apps. This contract management software is suitable for companies of all sizes.

price range: $9 for individuals to $49 for companies.

Why choose PandaDoc?:

  • PandaDoc provides a complete contract life cycle management system with strong security features.
  • It allows you to share documents and use electronic signatures for a smooth flow of paperless transactions.
  • The software includes automatic reminder features to ensure that no deadlines are missed.
  • It has content blocking options and granular user permissions to ensure that sensitive documents cannot be viewed by unauthorized people.
  • It includes an integrated document creator, so there is no need for a separate platform to create contracts.

You can also read this article where we have the imitations of Investigate Pandadoc for legal issues and contracts.

ContractWorks

ContractWorks provides a cost-effective solution for managing your contacts with minimal effort. It has a simple and intuitive user interface. The system is easy to set up and requires no special knowledge. It offers artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to help you automate some of your workflows. ContractWorks is suitable for a wide range of industries and company sizes and can be implemented across departments or companies.

price range: $600 to $800 per month for unlimited enterprise users.

Why choose ContractWorks:

  • It acts as a secure contract repository and stores all documents of your written agreements.
  • It has a robust suite of reports to help you gain insight into your contract lifecycles.
  • It has OCR text search and contract tagging tools to make it easier to find files.
  • It allows you to brand the entire contract management database to give it a more professional look.
  • You don't need to use a third-party application as the program has a built-in tool for electronic signatures.

Ironclad

This software is designed to help legal teams automate workflows and generate relevant reports. Processing contracts is also child's play thanks to the platform's intuitive and easy-to-use drag-and-drop interface. The best thing about Ironclad is that you don't need any technical knowledge to use it. This is due to the drag-and-drop system we mentioned earlier, which allows you to preview everything and make changes without leaving the platform.

price range: No pricing information on the website.

Why choose Ironclad:

  • It has a workflow designer and a drag-and-drop user interface.
  • Users have access to powerful in-app editing and negotiation tools.
  • It has a dynamic repository that makes contract data accessible in real time.
  • Features like Activity Feed, Word Native, and email integration allow users to trigger multiple approvals and track activity.
  • It includes a contract repository with automated naming and storage capabilities that enable users to organize, search, and control data across platforms.

Concord

With this contract management software, you can create contracts and manage all of your negotiations from a single location. Users can upload an unlimited number of contracts to the platform, use templates to create documents, chat with anyone, automate workflows, and generate custom reports. Salesforce, DocuSign, Word, Google Drive, Box, and Dropbox are all integrated into the system and your data is automatically backed up. You can also invite anyone to review, edit, and sign your documents with Concord. It is best suited for large companies.

price range: Prices range from $100 to $195 per creator per month plus $50 to $95 per employee per month.

Why choose Concord:

  • It includes a document editing feature and a version control system.
  • Advanced change management and custom identification policies are available to users.
  • It provides deadline alerts to help you keep track of contract renewals.
  • It has tools for data export and localization.
  • It comes with an API tool that allows you to adapt its features to meet your changing business needs.

Icertis

Icertis is an easy-to-use and intuitive cloud-based contract management solution that allows you to turn your contracts into high-quality assets that move your business forward. This contract management platform enables companies to manage their sales, purchasing and corporate contracts more efficiently, and provides open interfaces for seamless integration with the most popular ERP and CRM systems on the market.

price range: No pricing information on the website.

Why choose Icertis:

  • It includes a step-by-step assistant and self-service tools, as well as a very modern and intelligent interface.
  • With your smartphone or tablet, you can easily create, edit, and negotiate contracts, submit proposals and changes, and approve contracts.
  • Works seamlessly with popular Microsoft applications, including Microsoft Office.
  • It offers extensive multi-language support.
  • The software provides an intuitive and role-based experience for all users.

Conga

Conga is a comprehensive contract management platform that manages every aspect of the contract life cycle. It has a cutting-edge system that allows contracts to be created using standard company agreements, secure online negotiations, and more.

The CLM solution has helped companies become more efficient by reducing the amount of data, documents, contracts, and reports. It is known for its suite of solutions that meet the requirements of the entire business life cycle by streamlining and automating tasks performed from Salesforce, such as data management, automated creation of enterprise-quality documents, contract life cycle management, and comprehensive reporting.

price range: Starts at $50 per user per month.

Why choose Conga:

  • Integration with CPQ, CRM, and EPR providers is seamless.
  • Financial and legal compliance reports can be retrieved in real time.
  • This software is easy to use thanks to AI insights and simple step-by-step assistants.
  • You can create a clause library with pre-approved clause bundles

ContractSafe

This contract management software comes with a range of useful features and offers various pricing options. It's easy to set up and use the platform. ContractSafe focuses on storage and sharing, as well as security and messaging.

With ContractSafe's advanced search functions, you can search for any document by keyword. You can assign tags to your contracts to quickly group them using the tagging feature. The company does not provide complete life cycle management. Small and medium-sized companies benefit the most from this.

price range: Prices for the Basic plan start at $299/month for 500 active users and range up to $899/month for 5,000 active users on the Enterprise plan.

Why choose ContractSafe:

  • It can support an unlimited number of users and is free from the typical complex user rights found in other applications.
  • Offers a simple and intuitive keyword search feature to quickly find contracts, reports, and other business documents.
  • All stored and transmitted documents are encrypted. Features to detect malware, viruses, and intruders are also included in the software.
  • Offers free implementation, in-product support, and personalized training
  • It includes a quick search feature that also works with scanned documents.

SpringCM

SpringCM (acquired by DocuSign) creates, automates, manages, and stores your documents and contracts, streamlines your business processes, and enables you to close deals faster. It also makes it easier for your customers to work with you: When your documents flow, so does your work. SpringCM goes beyond contract management by integrating a robust and scalable workflow engine that can automate even the most complex document processes. It allows you to standardize your business processes and make them more visible at every stage.

price range: From $40 to $80 per user per month.

Why choose SpringCM:

  • Enables you to quickly create new contracts by using ready-made templates to read and populate metadata from other systems.
  • The software is accessible via mobile devices and offers various self-help options that support various work processes.
  • The easy-to-use folder structure makes organizing and tagging documents in a single, searchable location a breeze.
  • For an accurate audit trail, you can track all changes and view multiple versions of the same contract.

SAP Ariba

Although SAP Ariba is a cloud-based procurement platform, it has an excellent system for managing the contract life cycle. Designed for both buyers and sellers, this tool helps users avoid paper and ink when creating and managing contractual arrangements. It allows you to digitally manage procurement and sales contracts, intellectual property licenses, and internal agreements. With this application, you can even automate the life cycle of contracts and standardize processes.

price range: No pricing information available.

Why choose SAP Ariba:

  • It includes automatic alerts and customizable reports to manage the contract life cycle.
  • It has tools that aren't just for contract management.
  • It has integrations for electronic signatures so you can manage contracts electronically.
  • It strengthens compliance management by overseeing the contract management process from creation to completion.
  • It provides end-to-end commerce solutions that enable you to manage the life cycle of contracts in line with your business processes.

Conclusion

Choosing contract management software for your business shouldn't be taken lightly. This is one of the aspects where it has to work and function properly right from the start. Proper contract management is not only important for any legal issues, but also helps your company close deals more easily and increase sales.

If you feel overwhelmed by the various options and have further questions about the features and benefits of contract management software, we are happy to help. Click below to schedule a free demo with top.legal.

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