Contract management software, also known as contract lifecycle management (CLM), is far from sexy. It’s the sort of unglamorous software solution you would associate with large corporations or municipal councils, and would only draw interest from those who might get over excited by a well put together spreadsheet.
Although huge organisations like these would absolutely need CLM software because of the sheer number of contracts they have in the air at any one time, it doesn’t mean that smaller outfits, like web agencies, would not find them beneficial either.An agency is a business, and contracts are the life blood of a business. Before you build a new site or app, you need to make sure that you have the necessary agreements in place. There’s also hosting agreements, maintenance contracts, service level agreements, Non Disclosure Agreements, freelancer’s contracts, employment contracts… lions and tigers and bears, oh my. The point is, contracts are everywhere, in every part of your agency’s business. Many of these agreements move through several stages and/or eventually expire or require renewal. Unless you keep on top of this stuff, you leave yourself open to major headaches, or even potentially business destroying liabilities.
When you only have a handful of clients, this can be kept track of easily enough and you can manage it by keeping your email organised, and setting up calendar reminders for when you need to take action.
But when you have dozens or hundreds of clients, and they’re all in different stages, this approach just doesn’t cut it. Trying to keep track of everything manually is extremely stressful and wastes your mental energy. This can be where contract management software comes to your rescue. A good CLM solution can almost behave like a member of staff, taking a large amount of work off of your hands and keeping it under control. Which one suits your agency best is probably down to the volume of business you are handling. Most small to mid sized agencies would probably do very well with a solution like Docusign or PandaDoc, which both have inexpensive plans and simple flexible workflow configurations. Mid to large scale agencies will more likely want to look at something as scalable as Agiloft which is firmly established and offers the highest service level agreements found in their field.
Whichever system suits your agency best, you’ll find it reduces unnecessary work and stress on your part. That alone makes it worth looking into.
Posted by: Jean Paldan
Dec 10, 2021