Effective Contract Management for Small Business

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Effective Contract Management for Small Business
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Anything that can help us to make our small
business lives more efficient is a welcome
addition.  In my job, I often find that email
discussions and instructions can result in lost
information and misunderstandings. Collaboration
tools like contract management systems are one of
those software solutions that were invented by
people who had come to the end of their tether
with other methods of trying to manage
information. And, as our small businesses become
ever more digitized, so our everyday business
processes, like creating e contracts, also become
digital. This is where contract management steps
up to the plate, giving us the tools to take
normal offline processes and makes them digital,
efficient and cost-effective. ApproveMes digital
signing platform is part of a fully-fledged
contract management system. It was designed to
ensure the small business has the most cost
effective and capable tools for taking offline
contracts and making them into e contracts.
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What is Contract Management? Contract management
is a way of automating the creation, handling,
and signing of a contract. Its kind of why
software and computers were invented to make
your life easier.  It also comes with some extras
that manual contract management doesnt have,
such as stronger signing capability, alerts for
signatories and audit trails. But well discuss
these more as we look at the different aspects of
contract management and what the ApproveMe
contract management system offers. How to Use
Contract Management Software Effectively Like
everything else in life, the devil is always in
the detail and using any system, including
contract management, needs to be done optimally.
Choosing a suitable contract management system
should be based on how easy it is to use, as well
as the depth of features it offers. The guide to
using contract management software, shown below,
have within them the requirements needed to
choose a good solution, these include
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1. Get your stakeholders on-board  who is needed to
   get the contract signed, sealed and delivered.
   Make sure that all of the people involved in the
   contract approval and signing process are
   on-board with the use of a contract management
   system.
2. Use the power of a contract management e contract
   system through alerts and reminders  Set up your
   contract process so that your stakeholders get
   automated alerts during the lifecycle of the
   contract. This keeps everyone engaged in the
   process without you having to micro-manage them.
3. Labelling is your friend. Contract management is
   also about using administrative processes to
   create good working relationships with clients.
   Poorly labeled or mislabeled contracts can be
   easily lost or misused, resulting in a lot of
   headaches for you. This includes loss of revenue,
   contract delays, the breakdown in client trust,
   and ultimately penalties. Contract management
   should help prevent mislabeling and its
   consequences.

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• 4. Automation makes our digital lives
  complete. Well designed systems,
  like ApproveMe, will be intuitive to use. They
  build in steps, such as the automation of
  contract sending to all parties. The signing of a
  contract should similarly be simple. No need for
  a separate signing device, or complex signature
  steps.
• 5. Make it legal. The e contract management
  system should allow the signing to be done in a
  legal manner. This means the digital signature
  technology used by the contract management
  platform should abide by signature laws such as
  ESIGN.
• Archive and audit. Keeping an audit trail of the
  events of an e contract throughout its lifecycle
  may stand you in good stead if you end up with a
  disputed contract.
• The Pros of Using e Contract Management
• So now youve found your perfect contract
  management system, which is hopefully ApproveMe
  you can reap the benefits, which include

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1. No more paper Digital contract management means
   you arent held back by paper problems, like
   having to file documents or losing them
2. Speed e contract processes are much faster than
   the old ways of emailing, printing, scanning and
   so on
3. No more email hold-up Not being dependent on
   email to communicate contracts means you know
   they have been seen (audit trail) and you dont
   end up losing them in multi-user email trails.
4. Everything in its place e contract management is
   about keeping everything in one place. A central
   repository for your contracts, during and after
   signing, means you can easily locate contracts
5. Easy and simple signing Having integrated
   signing facility in your document management
   process and WordPress site, means it is part of
   your normal day to day operations. Signing
   becomes simple and a part of the overall contract
   lifecycle process. No more printing out and
   scanning.

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As small business owners, we need to ensure that
our working lives are organized so we can get on
with our core work. Contract management systems
are one of those god-sent methods of taking
complex, time greedy, multi-party, business
processes, and making them easier. Just make
sure that when you go to source your contract
management system that it has been designed with
the small business in mind, and has the type of
features that you need to make signing e
contracts a breeze. Article Resource https//www
.approveme.com/e-signature/contract-management-for
-small-business/