Retail property management organisations handle many different types of requests and contracts – including construction contracts, leases, rental agreements, retail management contracts, vendor contracts, maintenance agreements and property management contracts etc.  With the need to handle numerous contracts every year and support updated lease accounting standards, manual contract management processes might just not cut it and could lead to contract lifecycle delays, missed key dates, lost revenue, unsatisfactory lease accounting and wasted time.  If this sounds like you , you can make the most of integrated contract management software for enhanced retail property contract management.  Here’s how.

Establish a secure contract repository

With the need to manage a high volume of different contracts, if retail property management organisations like yours are still storing contracts in filing cabinets, emails and disorganised digital storage, then you might struggle to keep your contracts secure, adhere to key dates, maintain version control, stay on top of milestones and establish and enforce contract archiving and retention rules.

But you don’t need to miss out on a key strategy that can reduce risk, promote contract control and increase contract performance.  Now you can use a source-to-contract management contract repository that allows them to make contracts work on their behalf, increase savings and revenue, and succeed in meeting contract management KPIs.

Retail property contract management software administrators can control user access to PII (personally identifiable information) and other sensitive data by establishing a permissions standard that restricts specific pieces of critical data to particular people.  Which will stop sensitive data entering the hands of unauthorised personnel.

Overall, the use of a unified, online contract repository benefits organisations by:

• optimising and safeguarding the location, organisation, protection, searching and sharing of contracts
• centralising contract, document and data control
• improving productivity
• increasing accountability
• and simplifying contract management.

Arm yourself with the consolidated contract repository system your organisation needs with a leading contract management software solution.

Automate contract workflow

Contract management software that offers contract workflow automation cuts contract lifecycle delays by keeping the right entities informed and engaged at the right time with automated alerts, virtually unlimited notifications and helpful task reminders.  Managers of a variety of retail properties can configure a contract management process that employs user-defined fields, data mapping and data extraction, audit trails and reports and contract process management etc.

Contract writing, contract collaboration, negotiation, signatures and approvals can be more efficiently managed with an intelligent workflow process that helps businesses keep track of all stages of the contract lifecycle.  Automated alerts help you meet key dates and milestones all the way through contract renewals.  Additionally, audit trail history offers an up-to-date, easy-to-access record of contract changes.  Reports provide valuable information about contracts at a glance, sent to assigned employees on a scheduled basis.

Enrich workflow-initiated contract writing

An organisation handling thousands of retail property management contracts per year needs a streamlined contract writing process with secure, simple collaboration and clause management.  Luckily, leading contract management software can expedite and automate the contract writing process.

A unified, organised process leverages intelligent contract writing with automated, dynamic field data merging with clauses from a pre-approved clause library.  This dynamic library should include specific document templates for repeated use and easy updating.  With trusted contract management software solutions, the input of new contract, vendor, request, solicitation, employee, or purchase order records can easily be written and exported as standard file formats such as PDFs and MS Word documents.

Transform contract negotiations

With automated contract negotiation provided by robust contract management software, document collaboration and version control are automated and simplified with a detailed log of changes and numbered version tracking.  Collaborating parties can maintain document control with the ability to upload and download updated document versions easily.

Clause ownership functionality allows organisations to assign clause owners.  If a negotiating party tries to edit an assigned clause, contract management software will add the clause owner to the approval process.  So only relevant parties are included in the negotiation process, per rules-based clause ownership.

Contract negotiation between external parties, internal parties and employee non-users of contract management software is more efficient when organisations can configure a rules-based process for stakeholders.  A pre-configured workflow allows stakeholders to receive an alert that takes them to a contract collaboration portal.  Once there, they can access relevant documents for review.  This way, employees without access and external parties can view and edit contracts assigned to them, but not extraneous and unnecessary core system features or contracts.  Necessary documents are isolated so that stakeholders can make changes directly from the portal.  Additionally, parties can collaborate on the approval process in a central location and receive notifications, in the interest of avoiding bottlenecks.

With a contract negotiation portal, the collaboration between retail property management parties is easy and efficient.

Streamline eSignature collaboration

An intelligent electronic signature tool can help you quickly navigate from the negotiation process to signing.

A fast signing process for digitised signature collaboration and electronic approvals can cut send-to-sign time by as much as twenty percent.  You can send documents for signature after the contract negotiation process is complete.  The unified contract repository detailed earlier assists with end-to-end management of partially or wholly executed signatures.

Organisations can send thousands of documents in bulk out for signatures.  Contracts and documents are easy to send, and signatories can sign from virtually anywhere at virtually any time.  They also receive an email that quickly takes them to the relevant signing portal without the need for them to download any software.

With the correct source-to-contract management software platform, signature collaboration is rapid, centralised and efficient.

Make the move to Contract Insight today

Now that you know how contract management software can positively transform contract automation for retail property management, it’s time to choose a solution that has your contract management needs covered.  That solution is Contract Insight®.

Contract Insight provides comprehensive contract lifecycle management.  The software’s surplus of helpful features allows retail property managers and the like to store contracts securely, optimise contract workflow, easily collaborate on contract writing and contract negotiation, and enjoy post-approval contract management success.  User-friendly and straightforward collaboration keeps stakeholders engaged throughout the contract lifecycle.

Contract Insight from Four

Contract Insight is a cloud-hosted (SaaS) or deployed (on-premise) contract management solution.  The acclaimed platform is trusted by thousands of professionals for their contract management, legal document management, procurement and sourcing needs.  Used by many Fortune 500 companies, Contract Insight gives you real time visibility into your contracts. It doesn’t just shore up your security; it will help you meet contract compliance regulations, centralise your contract management and improve your overall contract administration process.

For more information, contact John O’Brien, CEO at Four Business Solutions, global business consultants and software integrators providing business processes improvements in Finance, Supply Chain and Operations, across a broad range of industries.