What is contract management and how to make it more efficient with e-signatures?

According to a survey conducted by EY Law and the Harvard Law School Center on the Legal Profession in January of 2021, on average, large organizations tend to manage around 350 contracts each week.

This number is especially gruesome for those who manage more simple contracts, without proper processes for repeatable tasks, including the whole admin around those documents.

Because of that, many companies dislike managing these low-complexity contracts—it lowers employee morale, leaving talent feeling underutilized.

They may lack sufficient staff to handle these tasks, would prefer their talent to focus on more high-value contracts or tasks, find it increasing the overhead costs, and feel it’s less efficient in the long run.

If the number of contracts your business is managing starts to count in dozens, hundreds, or even thousands—it’s time to seriously think about introducing proper contract management to deal with those documents, especially repeatable ones, as efficiently as possible.

In this article, we’re going to cover the basics of what contract management is, touch on the benefits and challenges, talk about the strategy, KPIs, and analyze how to improve your contract management with an electronic signature software in place.

Table of contents

1. What is contract management? Explained with Autenti
2. Contract management vs contract lifecycle
3. Real example: audit trails in Autenti
4. Signature Card
5. How can you use audit trails and Autenti’s Signature Cards?
6. Keep your documents and signatures secure with Autenti
7. Frequently asked questions

What is contract management? Explained with Autenti

Contract management explained in the simplest of ways is essentially the process of creating and organizing contracts—from negotiating individual terms, through agreeing and signing, all the way to storing the document and executing its terms.

It involves handling tasks like negotiating, signing, monitoring deadlines, and making sure the contract's obligations are met. The goal is to keep everything on track, avoid misunderstandings, and resolve any potential issues as efficiently as possible.
ven in court cases.

Contract management vs contract lifecycle

Another closely-related to contract management term is contract lifecycle, which is the journey a contract goes through from start to finish.

It has a few key stages:

1. Creation: writing and drafting the contract based on what both parties agree to.
2. Negotiation: discussing terms to make sure everyone is happy with the deal.
3. Approval and signing: getting the right people to approve the contract and sign it.
4. Execution: putting the agreed terms into action—both sides start doing what the contract says.
5. Monitoring: keeping track of deadlines, payments, or deliverables to ensure both sides stick to the agreement.
6. Renewal or close: deciding whether to renew the contract, update it, or let it end when everything is completed.

So it’s the same as contract management?

Not exactly.

Contract lifecycle is more of a long-term strategic approach to contract management, all done to make your processes operating smoother and more efficiently.

It may include some form of automaton, well-thought-out and optimized processes, and even technology to cut costs and streamline every single stage of managing contracts to the T.

Benefits of contract management

Contract management offers some pretty obvious benefits, from keeping things tidy and organized, to ensuring the terms and conditions of signed contracts are actually executed, all being advantageous for running businesses.

Some more subtle benefits of proper contract management include:

• Clear expectations: contract management ensures all parties understand their responsibilities and obligations, reducing confusion and even potential disputes.
• Risk reduction: by carefully reviewing terms, deadlines, and compliance, contract management helps avoid legal, financial, and operational risks.
• Cost savings: contract management prevents overspending by tracking budgets, deadlines, and payment terms, and helps identify opportunities to save money.
• Stronger relationships: managing contracts well builds trust and stronger partnerships between parties through clear communication and accountability.
• Better efficiency: organized contract management streamlines processes, reduces delays, and ensures nothing gets overlooked.
• Compliance assurance: it helps make sure contracts follow laws, regulations, and internal policies, protecting businesses from penalties.
• Improved decision-making: by analyzing contract data, organizations can spot trends, track performance, and make better strategic decisions.
  
  
  

Benefits of digital contract management

Managing contracts with technology, instead of completing everything on paper, offers even greater advantages by automating and simplifying the process. Here are the key benefits:

• Improved efficiency: dedicated technology, like a Contract Lifecycle Management software or an electronic signature software, like Autenti, can greatly improve the efficiency of the crucial parts of contract management.
  
  For example, instead of meeting the other party to complete the signing process in person or mailing the documents to them, with the right software in place, you can complete the whole process online, in a few minutes instead.
• Centralized storage: digital tools also provide a secure, searchable repository for all contracts, making it easy to access and manage agreements from anywhere.
  
  Compare that to a physical archive that’s vulnerable to acts of gods scenarios, like fires. It can also get cumbersome to search through such archives—after all, you won’t find a search bar there.
  
  
• Faster approvals: digital workflows streamline approval processes by sending reminders and routing contracts to the right people quickly.
  
  
• Enhanced collaboration: cloud-based platforms allow multiple stakeholders to work on a contract simultaneously, improving communication and reducing delays.
  
  
• Real-time tracking: contract management software provides updates and insights into the status of contracts, such as progress, deadlines, and key milestones. Electronic signature software allows you to overlook the whole process of signing, gives you seals with exact time stamps of each signature, and even sends out notifications to signers about pending documents.
  
  
• Scalability: as businesses grow, technology makes it easy to handle larger volumes of contracts without overwhelming staff or letting them focus on more high-value deals instead.

How to do efficient contract management? From signing to archiving

Review the contract types

Before you even start going into strategy, KPIs, challenges, and actual steps to manage your contracts, it’s important to establish what type of contracts you’re going to be dealing with.

Because the type of contracts you’re going to manage may influence the exact steps you should take.

There are many types of contracts, each designed for different purposes. But here are some common contract types examples:

• Fixed-price contracts: the price for the work or service is set upfront and doesn’t change, even if costs go up later. For example, a builder agrees to renovate your house for €50,000, no matter how long it takes. Best for projects with clear expectations and stable costs.
• Cost-reimbursement contracts: the buyer agrees to cover all costs plus a fee or profit for the contractor. For example, a company hires a researcher and agrees to pay all expenses (materials, travel) plus a profit percentage. Best for projects where the exact cost is hard to predict.
• Time and materials contracts: the buyer pays for the time spent and materials used to perform the set out job, usually at an agreed hourly rate. For example, hiring a plumber who charges €50 per hour plus the cost of parts. Best for small or flexible projects without fixed timelines or budgets.
• Service contracts: agreements between a service provider and a customer to perform specific tasks. For example, a cleaning company signs a contract to clean an office weekly. Best for ongoing services like maintenance, consulting, marketing.
• Employment contracts: a contract between an employer and an employee outlining job responsibilities, salary, and benefits. For example, an office worker signs a contract agreeing to work full-time for a set salary. Best for formalizing work relationships and expectations.
• Non-disclosure agreements (NDAs): a contract where one or both parties agree to keep certain information private. For example, a startup shares its business idea with an investor but requires them to keep it confidential. Best for protecting sensitive information.
• Partnership agreements: contracts between business partners outlining how the business will run, profits will be shared, and responsibilities will be divided. For example, two friends start a bakery and sign an agreement on how to split profits and manage operations. Best for setting clear terms for business collaborations.
• Sales contracts: contracts for buying or selling goods or property. For example, you sign a contract to buy a car or sell a house. Best for formalizing large purchases or sales.
• Lease agreements: contracts where one party rents property or equipment from another. For example, renting an apartment or office space for a year. Best for short- or long-term rentals of property or equipment.
• Government contracts: agreements between a government entity and a business to provide goods or services. For example, a company wins a contract to build a highway for the government. Best for businesses working on public projects.

Now, each type of contract serves a specific purpose, and the right one to choose depends on the specific situation, the parties involved, and the goals of the agreement.

The differences of strategy to take between different contract types are based on their unique needs.

For example, fixed-price contracts require strict monitoring of deadlines and deliverables, while cost-reimbursement contracts focus on tracking expenses and staying within budget caps.

NDAs prioritize protecting sensitive information, whereas partnership agreements need clear roles and dispute resolution plans. Meanwhile, government contracts demand strict compliance with regulations and detailed documentation.

Define the strategy

Knowing the type of documents you’re going to handle, it’s time to dive into the strategy.

Contract management is all about efficiency and proper organization and it's hard to achieve those goals without laying out your strategy first.

So start with a clear plan. Think about how you’ll manage each step of the contract lifecycle—from creating, signing, and monitoring to closing or renewing the contract.

Key questions to ask yourself:

• Which teams or specific team members will take part in the process?
• How many contracts do we sign on a weekly basis?
• How complex are those contracts? Do they need individual reviews, clauses, legal talks or are they mostly simple and repeatable?
• What tools or systems will you use to stay organized?
• How will you ensure deadlines and obligations are met?

Write down the process for each stage of contract management, include the responsible team members and tools you’ll be using.

Set your KPIs

Laying out a strategy just for the fun of it doesn’t necessarily align with the whole maximizing efficiency of contract management thing.

So to be able to check whether or not your carefully curated strategy is working as you want it to, you have to somehow measure its results.

And to measure the results, you want to set your KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) first.

Some examples of good KPIs to set to see if your contract management strategy is working are:

• Average time to finalize contracts, aka how long does it take to finalize a contract,
• Number of disputes that arose from signed contracts,
• The overall number of signed contracts,
• Average contract value,
• Number of renewed contracts,
• and more.

Be aware of the potential challenges

Managing contracts can come with some obstacles too. But if you address them realistically ahead of time, you’ll be in a much better position at the start.

Come prepared for these common challenges:

• Missed deadlines: forgetting contract renewal dates or payments can lead to penalties. Use reminders or technology to stay on track.

• Compliance issues: contracts need to follow laws and company policies. Make sure you double-check all terms and obligations.
  
  
• Poor organization: losing track of contracts can cause delays. Keep everything stored in one secure and easily searchable location, preferably digitally.

Now, instead of just catastrophizing and making a list of potential challenges that may arise for the type of contracts you need to manage, follow it all up with dedicated solutions and processes set in place.

That way, you’ll not only accept the challenges as they arise, you’ll also be well-prepared to handle them.

Set out the terms and conditions

Now it’s time for finding solutions for actually dealing with each contract more efficiently. And one of the first things to do with each document is to set out the terms and conditions applicable to its type and specific requirements.

Establishing the terms and conditions of a contract usually starts with a conversation between the parties about what each side wants or needs.

For example, if a company is hiring a contractor to build a website, they might discuss things like the timeline, the cost, and what features the website should have. Both sides share their expectations and agree on details, like when payments will be made or how changes to the project will be handled.

Once everything is discussed, the terms are written down clearly in a draft. This draft is shared, so both parties can review it, suggest changes, or ask for clarifications.

At this point, it’s important to leave room for negotiations.

If adjustments are needed, they are made until everyone is happy with the agreement.

💡 Here, it’s mostly structured and clear ready-made templates that help you make that specific stage of contract management more efficient. But it will also be well-organized cross-team collaboration, for example, from HR to the legal team, and then back to HR.

Digitalize the signing process

Now when it comes to actually signing the contract you’ve created, with the set-out contract terms and conditions, the best way to make that whole process more efficient is by turning from traditional paper signing to a digital one.

To sign the contract using traditional methods, you’ll usually have to:

1. Print the agreed-on document,
2. Review it,
3. Sign it with a pen, making an actual wet ink signature,
4. Scan the document,
5. Print it out,
6. Go to the mailing office to send it to the other party,
7. Or even physically visit the other party to complete the signing process in the first place.

Signing digitally removes many obstacles from that process and ensures even more security, efficiency, organization, and speed.

Here’s how signing a contract electronically typically goes on a basis of Autenti:

1. The signer receives an email with a link to the document that needs to be signed.
2. The link takes the signing person to the Autenti platform where they can review and sign the document, all online.

Senders of the document may require extra verification, adding one more step to the whole process—identity or email address/phone number verification. But even with that added step, the whole thing remains as simple as possible.

With Autenti, identity verification also takes place online and consists of numerous methods to be completed, such as photographing your ID or taking part in a short video conference from the comfort of your own home.

Check out how Bank Millennium, one of our customers, digitized their document signing process.

“Signing documents now takes just a few minutes, which significantly shortens HR processes. It also optimises our involvement and minimises the risk that the recipient will not receive the document on time or at the specified address. Additionally, we save on courier costs, which were previously used to deliver documents. The environmental aspect is also noteworthy – there is no need to print paper documents, store them, or archive them.”

Monika Ruraż-Lipińska, Head of the HR team.

Or how another customer, TZMO reduces contract management for up to 90%.

E-signatures vs security and versatility

Now, you may think that electronic signatures are not as secure or not as applicable to different types of documents. Both of those statements are not true.

Electronic signatures are even more secure than traditional wet ink signatures, because of the advanced cryptographic technology they come with.

Providers of e-signatures solutions have to abide by government set-out regulations, including eIDAS and numerous online data security provisions and regulations, such as ISO.

Moreover, it’s extremely easy to track those signatures, with a well-documented audit trail in place that shows the exact information you’d need to check to verify each signature—even checking the IP address of the device used for signing.

And when it comes to the types of documents you can sign, the limit doesn’t necessarily exist. What may change with some of the more intricate documents is the type of electronic signature you’ll use to complete the signing process.

Electronic signature types vs contracts you can sign

A simple rundown of electronic signatures goes as follows:

• Simple Electronic Signatures (SES): are the most commonly used e-signatures for signing documents online. SES are very straightforward to be completed, require a simple two-step verification process to complete the signature, and are regulated by eIDAS and other world-wide provisions—making them fully secure.
• Advanced Electronic Signatures (AES): are a type of e-signature that verifies the identity of the signing person, differing from SES in the authorization process. AES may require photographing your ID card to help verify your identity.
• Qualified Electronic Signatures (QES): are used for the most intricate clauses and documents. With this type of signature, the identity of the signing person needs to be verified with a Certificate Authority, which may sound complex, but in reality usually consists of joining a video conference.

When it comes to the actual usage of each e-signature type, we can confidently say that 90% of business documents can be signed with SES signatures, which are the most simple and quick to perform, making electronic signatures extremely versatile.

Review the table below to check exactly which documents should best be signed with which e-signature type:

Simplify the process of finalising contracts - sign online

Fast, safe, 100% remote.

Review the contract’s execution

Once you’ve sped up the whole process with an electronic signature software in place, focus on reviewing the contract’s execution.

Regularly review progress and ensure both sides are meeting their commitments.

The exact steps for this stage of the contract management process depend heavily on the type of contracts you’re signing.

For example, for employment contracts you’re going to have to verify whether the employee is doing their job, laid out in the contract. For sales contracts, you simply check for payments or other requirements and pass the sold item to the person who purchased it.

You can create workflows to follow, have dedicated teams for reviewing contract execution, use contract management software, and more.

Archive the contract

The contract management process doesn’t end with the contract ending, though.

When the contract ends, make sure to store it securely for future reference.
If it should be needed for audits or legal purposes, you’ll be quick to find it—essentially, saving you time and costs.

Deciding on an electronic signature software gives you the one place to not only upload your documents for signing, easily sharing them with dedicated persons, getting them signed conveniently online, but also archiving them for future reference.

Simplify the process of finalising contracts - sign online

Fast, safe, 100% remote.

Successful contract management: what does it look like?

When you’ll know you’re doing a good job managing your contracts?

You can tell your contract management efforts are in a good place when your contracts are being executed on time, minimal errors or missed obligations appear, and there’s clear ownership of responsibilities.

But also there are more tangible signs of effective contract management, such as saved time or reduced costs, which is particularly why you should set out the KPIs and measure them in the first place.

Otherwise, it may be difficult to notice the improvements, especially at first when they’re more subtle.

Going off of a real-life example, EcoVadis—a company that specializes in sustainability assessments, helping over 130,000 businesses worldwide improve their environmental, ethical, and social responsibility performance, successfully digitized their contract management with Autenti.

Marta Krzywicka, People Operations Director at EcoVadis, said: 

“We were looking for a flexible solution that would streamline our document workflows, particularly in a hybrid or remote working model. It was important for us to find a solution that would reduce our carbon footprint, which is a key priority for EcoVadis, but one that would also be cost-effective and suited to our specific needs.”

EcoVadis implemented the Autenti platform and qualified electronic signatures to digitise their HR processes, including employee lifecycle documents and civil-law contracts specifically.

Results?

• HR team noticed major time savings and optimisation of their work,
• The whole document flow Improved  within the company’s widespread structure,
• They gained greater control over their documentation.

Besides clear benefits in terms of the contract management workflow and time savings, EcoVadis also noticed cut costs thanks to the reduction of printing and mailing costs—not to mention the environmental benefits.

Take control of your contracts with Autenti.

Start a 14-day free trial and see just how easy signing and managing signed documents can get.