Best Contract Management Software in 2023 and How to Pick the Right One

Manually managing contracts can be time-consuming and frustrating. 

It requires you to pay attention to even the littlest details during the entire process to avoid legal issues later on. From its inception to its creation until its expiration, you must constantly keep an eye on all your contracts. And don’t forget about contract renewals.

As your business grows, the volume of contracts you need to handle increases. This can become burdensome to those on your sales team, who usually deal with many contracts to seal deals with clients, sponsors, and partners. 

A manual approach will no longer be sustainable in the long run. Therefore, you need to invest in the top contract management software to keep up with your business growth. This can help your teams, especially those in sales, seal the deal with clients, sponsors, and partners without a hitch.

Contract management software, defined

Contract management software is designed to help you handle all the contracts that bind your company. 

It allows you to track the life cycles of your contracts—from its negotiation stage until its perfection and consummation, including creation, organization, and retrieval.

One of the most important features of contract management software is its automation. You can automate contract creation, renewals, tracking, and retrieval. 

Additionally, you can also use it to streamline negotiations by allowing all the parties in the contract to collaborate in contract creation, give their feedback, and sign digitally afterward. 

This way, you can boost your sales team’s efficiency while maintaining legal compliance.  

Choosing the best software for your business

Thanks to its many benefits, the demand for contract management software will have a healthy growth rate of 13.5% over the next few years. 

Choosing the best software for your business can be overwhelming due to the growing market, especially if you don’t know where to start. 

Here’s a simple guide to ensuring you find the best one for your business.

1. Determine your business needs

It can be tempting to invest in the market's most popular contract management software just to be done with it. But, there is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all solution for every business. 

What works for other companies may not necessarily work for yours. 

When selecting a contract management software for your business, you must consider your business’ needs above all else. This way, you can invest in software that fits well with your organization.

Knowing your business needs will also give you an idea of what to look for. You can even make a contract management system requirements checklist by answering some of these questions:

• What type of contracts does your team deal with?
• How many contracts does your company handle?
• Who will be using the software?
• What other solutions are your team using?
• Do you have the resources to run/maintain the software?

Having your own checklist will give you the head start you need when choosing the best software. Moreover, it will ensure that you won’t be at a loss during your search.

2. Know the features to look out for

Every contract management software is unique. It can be hard to know what software to choose. Nonetheless, there are some essential features that your contract management software must absolutely have. 

Here are some of the contract management system requirements and features to look out for:

Automation

Automation is the heart of contract lifecycle management software. It puts all contract tasks on auto-pilot, such as contract creation, renewal, and retrieval. 

All you have to do is set up a trigger to put the entire process in motion. This feature also syncs all data across your documents, ensuring everything is up to date.

Customization and templates

Customization allows you to draft contracts your way—not only to their content but also to the document’s format. 

On the other hand, a templates feature makes it easier and faster to create new contracts since you don’t have to start from scratch every time you need a new one. 

Other contract management software like Contractbook can even auto-generate contracts using questionnaires.

Trackers

Contracts undergo different stages during their life cycle, and each stage is crucial. 

You need to pay attention to every little detail to make sure that nothing goes wrong along the way. 

Your contract management software should be able to track all your contracts and update you on their statuses. This way, you won’t miss out on anything important throughout the process.

Centralized repository

In this digital age where almost all contracts are digitized—many in PDF format—having a unified platform for all your legal documents is a must.

Fortunately, your contract management software can serve as a centralized repository for all your contracts, making it easier to organize and retrieve them whenever you want.

It also enhances collaboration within your sales team, across departments, and with your client by making contracts more accessible.

Digital signature

One of the advantages of digital contracts is that you can go through the entire process virtually, including signing the contract itself. 

Hence, having a digital signature feature in your contract management software makes the process more seamless and convenient. 

You don’t need to invest in another software just so your sales team can complete transactions with clients.

3. Think about collaboration

Collaboration is critical to any contract. A contract cannot be perfected without meeting the minds of the parties involved. To make sure that you and the other party get the most out of the agreement, you need to be able to communicate effectively with each other. 

Choose a contract management software that enhances collaboration when making contracts. It can serve as a one-stop platform where your sales team and clients can work together in drafting the contract, reviewing it, and signing it in one go.

4. Look into support and training

Dealing with new software can be intimidating at first. 

First-time users won’t even know how certain features work and what they are for. 

Therefore, another factor to consider is support and training. 

Invest in software that offers proactive assistance to its users. Ensure you can easily ask for the vendor's help if software issues arise. 

5. Consider integrations

Your contract management software is just a part of your digital ecosystem. In this digital age, it’s normal for teams to use other software in their workflows. 

For example, your sales team handles numerous tasks that would need different sales software and tools. 

Your contract management software should fit into your current digital ecosystem. 

You can do this by checking with the vendor what software is compatible with theirs.

You can also check out these examples of sales tools to find out which ones you can integrate with your chosen contract management software.

Why you need contract management software

Seventy-four percent of businesses digitize their operations because it's more practical and convenient. To keep up with the times, do away with traditional and manual contract management. 

By following these steps, invest in the best contract management software for your business.