Contract management software is designed to help law professionals to negotiate, create, gather and renew the data of existing business contracts. Developing contract management software like Ironclad is a beneficial tool to ensure that every contract your organization deals with is perfect.
The performance of the contract is maximized, accelerates the cash flow, and ensures contract enforcement on commercial terms by reducing the risk of non-compliance. The global market value of contract management software is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 12.5% and reach $5 billion by 2032. (SOURCE)
The adoption of contract management software has increased due to the pandemic, as there was a need for a secure solution to manage contracts. Surging demand for a safe vendor agreement during the pandemic also increased the demand for contract management solutions just like Ironclad software.
Integration of Artificial intelligence within the contract management software has emerged as the most lucrative reason for increasing demand for this software. Through this blog, we will learn about various significant aspects of developing contract management software that is similar to Ironclad.
What is Ironclad Software?
Ironclad is software that believes the legal team must focus on legal work, not the paperwork. Adopting ironclad contract management software is the world’s most advanced way to fast-track contract-related processes. By balancing speed and compliance, this software helps in empowering multiple businesses. It is the software that manages the contract creation to execution and helps in maximizing the organizational performance. Having contract management software like this would be wonderful to support your business growth.
Essential Features Within Contract Management Software like Ironclad
It can be frustrating to manage your contracts manually, which is why considering contract management software adoption is the best choice. It helps in digitizing and improvising the process related to the contract. We can agree that the success of ironclad software can be credited to the features it is laced with. Here we have enlisted features you must consider while developing this software.
1. Powerful Search Capabilities
Having every contract detail in your database is very resourceful but will only be of use if your search capabilities are powerful enough. By adding the feature of powerful search capabilities, you can enhance your searching power by automating optical character recognition (OCR). It helps in scanning and indexing the document and enables the quick search feature. It is a huge time-saver and reduces the lengthy process of looking for any particular contract.
2. Automated Alerts
You need to complete all contractual obligations and deadlines to ensure your enterprise’s growth. So, the next useful feature is integrating automated alerts for the key dates. With contract management software users can set alerts for any important dates related to the contract. The alert can be customized and set according to the need easily. Having an automated alert eliminates any possibility of missing important dates such as autorenewal requirements and others.
3. Template Libraries and Contract Clause
Any enterprise solution is adopted to save time and reduce the hassle of any process. Adding this feature to your software can speed up the process of contract creation with pre-approved language and relevant templates. It helps the organization by reducing training costs. Yes, with this feature, even staff with minimal training can generate a valid contract in a short time. This saves time for law professionals, which they can divert and use it for more complex legal matters.
4. Contract Repository
Adding this feature to your contract management software will help you centralize and intelligently organize all the contracts. The cloud-based contract repository allows your team to have easy access to every contract and its related document, from anywhere through any device. Users can have a hassle-free experience if they have to access any contract-associated data.
5. Contract Request and Intake
By adopting contract management software like ironclad, you do need to rely on traditional methods like emails to request new contracts or submit the existing ones. It can be done with ease, and advancement offered by contract management software. You can easily design the custom request form without any major training required. With a single click, the request can be converted into a contract. This feature works as a major time saver as it eliminates the long and tiring process of emails and also offers accuracy to the information that is being transferred.
6. E-Signature
One of the other significant features that contract management software must have, is the power to make you go paperless. It offers the control to track the entire contract process from its initial draft to its review, approval, and execution. Integrating the e-signature feature enhances the user experience by allowing them to sign the contract safely anywhere using their laptops or smartphones.
Ways through which Contract Management Software Helps your Business
After learning about the Contract management software’s features, it is time to understand how this advancement will help your business to grow. There are multiple perks that your business will experience after the adoption of this solution. Here we have offered you a glimpse of how this software escalates your business growth.
1. Creating a Contract Becomes Easy Via Automation
The enterprise software development company is hired to integrate automation within the contract management process. Without automation working with contracts and assembling them by placing every clause and another vital aspect can be a hectic task. But with the automated process, you have a library with pre-approved templates, and the contracts can be easily assembled. With the advancement of contract management software, businesses can auto-build contracts based on the required rules and other data. An automated system for the contract process reduces legal operating expenses.
2. Reviewing Contract Becomes Completely Auditable with Cloud-based Approval
With the pandemic of COVID-19, businesses were adopting various technologies to keep their business running. Contract management software which is similar ironclad software helps businesses to automate their workflows. This software offers a solution like cloud-based software-as-a-service. It means that contracts can easily be reviewed from anywhere worldwide, and various teams can collaborate easily for this review.
3. Data for Contract Can Be Easily Accessible Through Dashboards
The contract data is captured continuously with the help of contract management software, as it is connected with every move of the business. This is the reason why users can easily surface the intuitive metrics through their configured dashboards. Now, a common dashboard metric means contract risk. But with contract management software, companies can easily detect the risks based on their third-party and internal data sources. It makes accessibility of the contract easy and also detects any threat early so that action can be taken against it.
Also Read: How to Develop Custom Legal Software?
Benefits of Contract Management Software Like Ironclad
Traditionally, businesses used to manage contracts through manual processes, and professionals have to juggle multiple applications. The traditional approach was prone to errors and exposed the organization to different threats, which affected its business growth.
Businesses have evolved globally by adopting contract management software like ironclad. It automates the entire process and makes it more accurate and safer. You would be aware of the growing trends modern businesses adopt by developing this software as per their needs.
Here we have presented some of the major perks of contract management software.
1. Improving Contract Compliance and Reducing Risk
The first benefit of contract management software is that it allows enterprises to streamline the processes related to the different contracts. It offers better contract accountability from request to its approval. Improving compliance is directly related to risk mitigation. The contracts govern every form of terms that has to be followed within any commercial relationship. It is why the contracts must showcase better visibility, and ignoring the risks related to the contracts being non-compliance can result in penalties. So, contract management software ensures compliance-related detail for any contract.
Reducing risks also include some crucial aspects within, and contract management software covers them efficiently. They are:
a. Data security
With contract management software, companies can eliminate any risks for their data. It offers data security at each stage and enhances the contract’s lifecycle. It enables two-factor authentication protocols. At the negotiation time, the contract owners can set the passwords and keep their documents safe while sharing them with negotiators. The CMS will also capture the data downloaded from the system along with the detail of the user who downloaded the data with the timestamp and other essential detail.
b. Audit Trails
With the digital contract management software, the admins can track every activity performed within the contract management platform. The tracking is completed on the user level and will be mapped with the respective timestamp relevant to the users performing the activities to improve the contract’s compliance and accountability.
2. Reducing Negotiation Cycles
Enterprise contract management software is adopted as it helps in reducing the negotiation cycle. The negotiation process within the contract lifecycle is crucial as it creates opportunities for the companies to set beneficial terms for their business relationships via contracts. If we talk about the traditional process, the negotiation was done by sending the contract documents via mail until both parties agreed to the terms.
It was a time-consuming process that involved multiple email threads, and operational challenges were faced. Tracking negotiation was a tough task with the traditional approach. But with the help of contract management software, the pain of tracking email threads is eliminated. Both parties can collaborate in real-time and then suggest the edits required within the terms and conditions by adding comments on the document. It has made the work easy, and the entire negotiation history can be witnessed in one click.
3. Fast Contract Execution
The process related to contract management becomes faster and more accurate by adopting contract management software like ironclad. From requesting the contract to reviewing it and taking approval from both parties till execution, every single step is automated. It saves lots of time as the feature of e-signature and third-party integration allows the smooth execution of the contract without delay.
4. Enhances Document Management
The contract management software allows outsourcing document storage, which supports better document management. The teams can scan any paper document, and an automatic image will be created within the system. The contracts and their relevant documents can be tracked from a single repository without any hassle.
Factors Determining the Cost of Developing Contract Management Software
Numerous factors influence the development cost for the contract management software like ironclad. Mostly these factors are connected with the size of the organization using it, but there are many other factors that directly impacts the cost of development for this software, and they are:
1. Number of Users
Some of the pricing models are chosen based on the number of users, which is why the size of the organization matters when it comes to setting the budget for this development. Large companies are expected to pay more than smaller companies for developing contract management software. It is because the monthly price for a certain software depends upon the seats or number of user licenses required. It would be best if you considered the various employees that are about to contribute within your contract lifecycle. From internal to external users, all have to be counted before setting the budget for the development.
2. Storage Size
The storage size also determines the development cost of solutions like ironclad contract management it offers to the enterprise. It would be best to evaluate the contract volume, which usually flows through the organization and then commits the budget for development. Sometimes the number of documents required to be stored is counted, and then the storage required is estimated. Or there are times when one can develop the software with a certain storage space and then upgrade it to a larger space per their need.
3. Features
Another factor that will influence the development budget of any enterprise contract management software is the required features. The companies have different operational requirements, which is why the contract management solution they adopted differs. The features are added per the business type and the issues the company is determined to solve using the software. Now the number of features integrated and implemented will increase or decrease the cost of the software development.
4. Security
The requirement for safety and security differs from industry to industry as some of them need to follow to the compliance standard when data storage or document storage has to be done. At the same time, there are others companies where the task is only to keep contracts or data safe from unauthorized access. Whatever the need, the significance of safety and security cannot be avoided. So, the level of security you choose will for sure influence the cost of the software development.
Conclusion
Being in any business does not change the fact that contracts are one of the critical components of any organization. The contract management process has to be well crafted so that the enterprise can manage every single business relationship smoothly without any dispute.
Earlier in this blog, we presented every important aspect to learn if you are willing to develop software like ironclad contract management. The experts have come up with a ballpark estimation for the cost you will require to develop this software, which lies approximately between $30,000 to $100,000. The factors influencing your budget are also mentioned above.
Businesses are adopting the latest trends to prepare themselves for the future. Choosing contract management software is one of the most sensible decisions that companies from any domain can make.
