Contract Automation Basics
New technology, like contract automation software, makes it possible to automate your manual contract generation process and free up your employees to focus their time and energy on high-value activities like innovation, customer relationship building, and other things that help your company grow.
It starts with document automation software
Document automation software improves contract generation and assembly for business owners and employees in fields such as law, insurance, finance, and publishing. If you work in one of these fields, you know how heavily your business depends on contracts, how much time it takes to create and assemble each one manually, and how easy it is to make errors that derail the process.
Fortunately, the development of contract automation software has changed everything about contract assembly — for the better.
What is contract automation?
Contract automation is one of the most common applications of document automation software. In simple terms, contract automation means using specialized software to create automated workflows for every part of the contract process.
With the help of contract automation software, you can automate generating new contracts, review, editing, distribution, signing, storage, renewal, and every other task in the contract management cycle.
How does contract automation software work?
You can deploy contract automation software as a standalone platform or integrate it with other applications such as CRM software and email systems. Either way, it’s a powerful way to boost productivity. The best solutions are also easy to use and deploy a series of interactive information-gathering wizards to walk you through the process and make sure you complete all the necessary steps.
What contract automation software can do
Let’s take a look at how contract automation software makes contract development better:
- Establish a single source of up-to-date contract templates
- Auto-fill data and information fields and check for errors
- Automatically track changes and versions during negotiation and review
- Distribute contracts for review and approval without the need for multiple emails or physical letters
- Auto-generate and distribute required collateral documents in various formats
- Send automatic reminders about required actions and pending deadlines
- Keep stakeholders informed about progress with automated status updates
- Facilitate electronic signatures
- Provide centralized storage location for all in-progress and completed contracts
- Automate renewal and expiration notices
Want to see document automation software in action?
HotDocs is the market-leading provider of document automation software. Get your free demo today!
Why you should automate your contracts
The following five benefits of contract automation are hard to ignore. They apply to both small businesses and large organizations and make an excellent case for why you document automation software can support your day-to-day operations.
1. Provides better visibility
With automated version and status tracking, you always know exactly where each contract is in the contract management process. You can easily track progress and quickly identify and resolve issues when needed. The same goes for other stakeholders in the process — automated reminders and status updates keep them in the loop, too.
2. Makes contract management faster and less expensive
Contract automation streamlines the entire process and eliminates the need for time-consuming manual data entry, back-and-forth email attachments, manual status checks or updates, and other labor-intensive tasks. As a result, automated contracts are much faster and less expensive to create and manage.
3. Reduces errors
One of the biggest benefits of contract automation software is the reduction in errors. When you automate your contract management process, you significantly reduce the chances of incorrect dates, addresses that don’t exist, misspelled names, missing clauses, repeat revisions, missing attachments, signing the wrong version, and all the other little mistakes that cause delays and frustration.
4. Enhances customer experience & contract value
Your customers will appreciate the speed, efficiency, and accuracy of your contract process and be delighted with things like automatic status updates and renewal reminders. This demonstrates your competence, builds trust, and increases the chances they will continue to do business with you — and pursue higher value contracts in the future.
5. Establishes efficient processes & leads to happier employees
Your customers aren’t the only ones who will be delighted by your automated contracts — your employees will love them, too. Nothing is more draining for workers than inefficient manual processes, and your team will reward your efforts to streamline the contract management process with increased engagement and productivity.
Finding a contract automation tool you can trust
Contract automation is a game-changer for law practices, insurance offices, banks, mortgage lenders, service companies, and other contract-heavy businesses. You have plenty of options, but the process of researching and comparing all the available solutions is often time-consuming and overwhelming.
We suggest skipping the headache and starting with HotDocs! With over a million customers in 60 countries, we’re an established leader in the field of document generation and automation. We offer contract automation tools specifically built for the legal, insurance, banking, publishing, and government industries.