How to Get Contract Approval Quickly and Efficiently
According to recent research by management consulting firm KPMG, 76% of organizations now say digitizing their contracting processes is a top priority. That’s a good thing to help mitigate risk and increase compliance and adopting contract management software will help set the proper foundation to achieve those goals and improve your contract approval processes.
But implementing the software is only the first step. You also need to ensure the appropriate people in the organization are using it to accomplish the various steps on your contract lifecycle management process. And, since different roles in the organization will have different uses for the software, you want to make sure their experience is a good one, otherwise, adoption and use will suffer.
That’s why Contract Logix supports several different User Subscription Types as part of our contract management software solution. Each user type is designed to address the various needs of different users in an organization. This includes Full, Submitter, Read Only, and our new Approver Users. In this blog, we’ll take a look at a common use case for this new Approver user type – ensuring compliance – and how it can benefit your organization by getting contracts approved quickly, efficiently, and cost effectively.
Approver Users – A Great Way to Ensure Compliance
To enforce compliance with your business processes as well as external regulatory requirements like Sarbanes-Oxley or HIPAA, you can easily get contracts approved in Contract Logix by always routing them to the right person for approval using automated workflows. However, in most businesses, it’s very common for those contract approvers to be someone on the management or executive teams like a CFO, especially for contracts over a certain dollar value. These are typically occasional users of the solution and don’t require the same level of access as a Full User. An Approver User Subscription would be ideal in this example because they get many of the same capabilities as a Full User, but at a much lower cost and rate. With the main differentiator being Approvers must leverage Request functionality to initiate new contracts and therefore cannot manually add new records out of process.
In this example, let’s say you have a business rule that requires contracts over $50,000 to be approved by the CFO. When that contract is submitted for approval, the automated workflow in Contract Logix will automatically route it to the CFO. The CFO will get a notification that they have a contract to be approved and with the click of a mouse they can review it, approve it, or reject it.
In addition, Approvers leveraging the Contract Request functionality can submit requests for new organizations, contacts, or contracts – including amendments, right in the software. However, they have much greater visibility than Read Only or Request Users because Approvers can access and manage existing contract records in Contract Logix. This includes making changes to key items such as contract stages, performing reviews and approvals for associated contract documents and supporting materials, and completing any required tasks and decision step as part of the business process.
By leveraging the Contract Logix Approver user type, you can ensure contract approvals always comply with your business and regulatory requirements, enable those users to make requests and complete tasks in the software and give them the right level of visibility into your contracts and where they are in your process.
Contract Approval Takeaway
Many organizations around the globe are adopting contract management software to digitize their contract approval processes and help realize their organization’s digital transformation goals. However, a critical component of success is getting the right people in the organization using the software. At Contract Logix, we’ve developed different user types to ensure a cost-effective and positive user experience which will help facilitate and accelerate user adoption. For example, our new Approver User types are a great way to get contracts approved quickly and efficiently while ensuring compliance with your business and regulatory rules.
If you’re interested in seeing how Contract Logix can help your business, please schedule a contract management software demo today!
