I believe that at the top of this wish list for efficient contract management is reliable deadline control and deadline management. After all, contracts that have been running for years are particularly problematic for administrators. Only digital contract management prevents nasty surprises. For example, if a contract has a minimum term of one year, a good solution will automatically remind the employee responsible. They then receive an email about the contract conditions 30 days before the contract expires, for example, and can either terminate or extend the contract. And if they do not make a decision within a certain period of time, the software can automatically escalate the contract issue to a second person.

Of course, the corresponding interfaces are also essential, whether to SAP ERP or other information management systems for managing supplier and customer data. Only then will the data in the contract system be up to date at all times. It should also be possible to transfer documents from the billing systems directly and automatically via appropriate interfaces.

Documentation requirements demand new ways of working

Paper-based contract management almost always means a media disruption: additional documents, such as letters of termination, are created on the PC, edited and then printed out, signed and sent or filed. Unfortunately, many digital solutions also require this: The employee creates a document in Word, prints it, has it signed, scans it, uploads it back into the system and files it with the relevant contract. This does not make sense. The process only becomes truly efficient with integrated document creation. The employee can then create documents directly in the digital file in which the document is stored - and transfer the necessary contract data directly from the system.

Strict compliance requirements, also driven by the EU GDPR, now demand that everything is fully documented and traceable: drafts and subsequent changes to contracts as well as the editors. Versioning documents in the contract system does exactly that. Previous versions, including all metadata, are saved in the document history - from the processing time to the employee who made the changes to the specific changes. For example, if an employee negotiates new contract terms, the amended contract document is simply stored as a new version of the contract.

Mobility indispensable

And there is another point that is practically indispensable in contract management today: mobile access. Ultimately, this means hosting in the cloud. Mobility is necessary, for example, when employees have to conduct contract negotiations with customers or suppliers on site. The study on cloud usage in German SMEs conducted by Forcont and the Berlin School of Economics and Law (HWR) at the end of 2017 also confirms that mobile working is becoming increasingly relevant. At almost 90 percent, mobility is actually the most frequently cited reason for moving to the cloud. However, my advice would be to pay close attention to data protection and data security. For example, the cloud provider must be obliged to comply with German or European data protection guidelines so that sensitive data is not passed on. I am convinced that the future belongs to contract management systems. Preferably from the cloud.