What are the essential features that top contract management systems should have? Here’s a checklist that you can use for finding the best contract management software that makes your work easier and more efficient.
Our humble goal is to develop the very best cloud-based contract management software in the world. In our opinion, the following features are essential for building a smooth contract management process. Check out the list and see if your current system ticks all the right boxes!
#1 Smart full-text search
Finding the right contract quickly is one of the most frequent and therefore most important needs most contract management system users have. A good search tool literally puts your contracts at your fingertips. The presentation of the search results matters, too – you should be able to browse and compare the results quickly.
Based on customer feedback, Zefort’s Google-like search is one of our most loved features – it’s not just any keyword-based search but a smart full-text search that covers your entire contract base and all related files. Also, you can use filters and target searches to specific elements, such as titles, to narrow your results. Search results are presented visually with matching text highlighted.
#2 Effortless contract upload
In many organizations, getting people to follow specific processes, such as contract archival, can be challenging. If archiving a contract takes any effort, chances are we hit snooze and simply won’t do it. So, effortless contract upload is essential to make sure that your contract management solution is actually used widely in your organization.
To fight the challenge of lost contracts, we made contract archival really easy: you can archive a contract with a single email. Simply forward your contract to a dedicated email address and let Zefort’s processing engine do the rest. Naturally, you can also upload contracts in Zefort’s web dashboard or auto-archive them directly from your favorite eSignature service.
#3 Team sharing and access management
Collaboration and information sharing are essential in a modern organization. Instead of being a one-person gatekeeper for your company’s contracts, you should be able to allow others to discover and work with contracts relevant to them while keeping the confidential content off-limits.
Zefort gives you flexible sharing tools on contract and binder levels. You can allow individuals or groups to discover, view, or edit just the contracts they need. We made checking and managing user access simple to make your work easier.
#4 Automated reminders
What was the project delivery deadline? When will our IT service contract renew? Most contracts come with many contractual events that are simply impossible to remember. Instead of jotting down notes on your to-do list, you should be able to rely on your smart contract management software to keep you up to date.
Zefort lets you set up automatic alerts and reminders for any contractual events. You can send email notifications to individual people or view all open contract activities from a dashboard or through a calendar view.
#5 AI-assisted metadata discovery
Contract metadata – titles, contract parties, contractual dates and so on – is really important. However, manually entering these details is really tiresome and time-consuming. Today, you should be able to let your contract management software do the work for you.
When you add a contract to Zefort, our smart software processes the entire document (this step also powers our full-text search mentioned above) and automatically picks up the important metadata from the contract. Simply review what our smart AI suggests and you’re done!
#6 Easy integrations with other contract tools
Chances are, you are currently using a variety of applications and services for your contract management process. And that’s perfectly fine – there really is no single, one size fits all solution for the entire contract management process. That’s why you should ensure that all pieces of the puzzle work nicely together today and in the future.
Zefort’s APIs and integration options let you use the smart archive together with your existing tools and processes. You can build your own custom data flow, use our existing integrations to your favorite eSignature service or even use Zapier to zap data and events between Zefort and your other systems.
#7 Great UX and low learning curve
“Fantastic, we get to learn a new IT system and user interface!” – said no one ever. Making an easy-to-use, snappy service that does not require hours of learning or a thick user manual was one of Zefort’s key design principles from day 1.
That’s even why we named our service Zefort – short for zero-effort contract management!
#8 Bank-level security
While not the most visible of features, security is a key building block for a modern enterprise contract management solution. When you add a highly confidential document to your system, you’ll want to have high confidence that your data is safe at all times.
Zefort’s ISO 27001 certification ensures that our working processes are in check. We use AES256 encryption, 2-factor authentication, and secure server-to-server communication to keep your data safe. What’s more, we’re fully GDPR compliant and let you manage the personal information in your content, too.
#9 Committed customer support
When you don’t know the best way to do something or hit a bump down the road, good support is golden. Today, some customers prefer self-service resources such as articles or videos, while others want to get a live person on the line.
We take pride in providing best-in-class, personal customer support. Making our customers succeed makes us succeed, which means we want to get you back on the road as soon as possible. What’s more, we do our best to share contract management best practices so that you can learn from others.
#10 Built-in eSignatures
Electronic signatures are rapidly replacing pen and paper. That’s no wonder, as the benefits are overwhelming: being able to sign anywhere, anytime makes contractual processes easier and faster. As eSigning is becoming more and more common, you can start looking for these features built-in to contract management systems, too.
Zefort’s smart contract management solution comes built-in with Zefort Sign, an easy eSignature solution. With Zefort Sign, you can select any document, send a signing request and automatically archive the signed document.
