Business consultant working in a company - COSMO CONSULT

The reasons that contract management is so important

Contracts are the legal basis for economic action. Every company concludes contracts on a daily basis. However, this often takes place in an uncoordinated fashion: Between the sales department and customers, between the purchasing department and suppliers, between facility management and service providers. Because each of these establishes its own rules, in the end, an overview is lacking. How long does it take you to get your hands on an overview of your contractual obligations for the next two weeks? An hour? A day? Even longer?

Decentralized contract management leads to inconsistent processes. This is not only inefficient, but also entails enormous risks:

  • lack of transparency leads to relevant dates and deadlines being missed. This may lead to warranty entitlements lapsing or late payment surcharges being incurred.
  • when process requirements are lacking, there is the danger that contract negotiations do not have optimal legal support.
  • There is an increasing focus on operational contract management within the framework of risk and compliance audits. This could lead to negative evaluations.

The centralized archiving is an important aspect of modern contract management. This alone, however, is not sufficient to adequately respond to potential risks.

Contract management for all life’s situations

COSMO CONSULT’s contract management system supports your employees from the first draft to the final long term archiving. It helps you to monitor contracts and to evaluate them in detail. Predefined masks and individual workflows help ease the administrative burden of this. These are available through the entire life cycle of the contract file and ensure transparency and consistently high process quality in every situation.

With COSMO CONSULT’s contracting management system you can manage your contracts centrally in one place. The portal system is the perfect platform for this. Already in the standard version, SharePoint comes with

  • comprehensive document management features
  • comfortable task management
  • an optimal search and research environment and
  • clearly structured version management

Thanks to its web technologies, your employees can access important contract documents on the go or at their home office. You gain an efficient tool to optimally manage your business relationships with customers, suppliers and partners.

The most important functions at a glance

  • Guidance for users
  • Complex contractual relationships
  • Permissions and employee roles
  • Individual masks and workflows
  • Dates and deadlines
  • System Integration
  • Create contract documents
  • Reporting

Guidance for users

Looking for a contract? You found it.

A few clicks are enough to find the relevant file - either via the directory structure or the efficient full-text search. For example, you can search for contract partners, duration, jurisdiction, or several factors at once.

The contract file contains all relevant documents, emails, or pictures belonging to the respective contract. In this way, you can quickly get an overview. The masks for document management and workflow management are identical in SharePoint. This helps your employees feel at home in both areas right away.

Advantages: 

  • efficient search features reduce the administrative burden
  • transparent, complete contract files give you a comprehensive overview
  • ease of use reduces training costs and increases acceptance

User-friendly Interface

Screenshot - To enlarge the picture, please click on it.
To enlarge the picture, please click on it.

Complex contractual relationships

When things get a little complicated

Missing information can quickly lead to miscalculations. The contract file therefore gives you a complete overview of all important documents. However, complex partnerships are based on more than just an agreement. COSMO CONSULT’s contracting management system keeps track of intertwined contracts and shines a light into the thicket:

  • Linked contracts - in addition to the main contract, you will gain an overview of all associated side agreements such as confidentiality statements.

  • Subordinate contracts - starting from the framework agreement you have a direct route to subordinate contracts.

  • Subsequent contracts - if contracts are replaced by follow-up agreements, the contract history remains comprehensible.

Advantages:

  • transparent view of complex contractual relationships
  • easy search
  • ability to correctly assess business partners

Permissions and employee roles

Protection from prying eyes

Contract data is sensitive. It is therefore essential for companies to protect this information from unauthorized access. Through the authorization concept, you determine which employee have access to which files. The integrated permission editor helps you to set user roles to define rules for dealing with contract documents and to build permission structures. You set the standards that your company follows.

Advantages:

  • Effective protection of sensitive business data
  • Standardization of rules for a variety of business cases
  • Effective access control and transparent protocols throughout the life cycle

Individual masks and workflows

React quickly whenever it is necessary

Contracts follow the laws of the respective industry. In addition, each company defines its own processes. The supplied contract types and workflows can therefore be adapted to fit individual needs. If that is not enough, you can add an unlimited number of additional variants.

The integrated form designer takes care of mask changes. Only a few steps are necessary, for example, to define required information or specify additional fields. In creating the workflow, however, the new rule editor comes into play. It lets you, for example, define standardized approval processes for the approval of contract drafts. All changes can be made on the fly. If need be, you can thus respond immediately.

Advantages:

  • Company-specific processes guarantee high productivity
  • Quick responses to new requests and suggestions for improvement
  • Graphic editors provide for low customization costs

Dates and deadlines

Make the right decisions at the right time

Contracts always have something to do with dates - even it is just not letting cancellation period slip by. But with the increasing number of contracts, it is increasingly difficult to keep track of them. COSMO CONSULT’s contract management system automatically calculates dates and deadlines. In addition to this, you can add more milestones and tasks with dates, either individually or based on fixed rules.

During your hectic daily routine, you will be reminded of upcoming events via email or task management in Outlook. Both systems can synchronize automatically when needed. So, you are always up to date and can respond in a timely manner.

Advantages:

  • better use of the potential of individual contracts
  • taking advantage of favorable options at the right moment
  • being perceived in the market as a reliable actor

Term and deadline easy managed

Screenshot: Sharepoint - Contract Term and Deadline easily managed
To enlarge the picture, please click on it.

System integration

Made for SharePoint, Office & Co.

Contract management runs on SharePoint Server and Office 365. If you already use SharePoint, no additional investments are required. The additional module "Outlook DMS connector" integrates contract management with Outlook. If you are on the road using Outlook and like to work with a compact view under one interface, you can use it to access all important functions of COSMO CONSULT’s contracting management system:

  • search in contract files, and view or edit them
  • Add new emails, attachments or documents
  • Send content from the contract documents by email
  • Track dates and deadlines via to-do's in Outlook.


Useful for business travelers: If required, documents can be available offline. Changes are first all stored locally and synchronized with SharePoint during the next connection. Another advantage is the ease of connection to adjacent systems - for example, from the commercial environment, via bi-directional interfaces. These include such solutions in the areas of:

  • Enterprise Content Management (ECM)
  • Customer Relation Management (CRM)
  • Enterprise Ressource Management (ERP) and
  • Scan & capture workspaces.

Advantages:

  • No migration necessary, contract management integrates into the existing infrastructure
  • Your employees continue to work in a familiar environment
  • The integration with Office ensures efficiency when active working with contracts

Create contract documents

Always find the right words

Via another additional module, COSMO CONSULT’s contract management system automatically generates standard documents such as letters, emails and contract templates. This takes a burden off your staff, increases process quality and reduces the processing time, all at the same time. Your company is more quickly ready to act - while you can be sure that everything is in order.

The contract management system creates new documents from saved text blocks, the metadata of the contract file, or imported data. Simple integration with adjacent systems opens up new horizons.

Advantages:

  • the standardization ensures security and uniformly high process quality
  • reduced processing time is achieved through a high level of automation
  • Relief from the burden of time-consuming routine activities

Reporting

Screenshot - SharePoint - Contract Reporting
To enlarge the picture, please click on it.

A 360-degree view of your contracts

You can view your contract management from different perspectives with the 18 standard reports of the additional module "reporting": How many draft contracts are in circulation? What contracts are ending in the near future? When are the next cancellation deadlines? These and other questions can be quickly answered via the contract reporting function. And if you actually do to do more than you can with the standard version, you can add your own reports easily - as tables or graphs. The close integration with Excel ensures easy distribution and processing of the information.

Advantages:

  • Reports provide a quick overview of major areas of contract managemen
  • individual reports can be produced for company-specific requirements
  • fast and efficient processing of information, for example in Excel.

Contact Us!

Cosmo Consult

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