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Before you sign: What should great contract management software actually do pre-sign?

pre-sign and contract management software

It’s all well and good saying that contract management software is great for business, but what does that actually mean in practice? For the sake of time, we’ll keep the answer to that question related only to what it should be able to do before that all-important signature is made on the dotted line in this guide.

We’ll cover:

  1. Drafting your contract
  2. Making use of great templates pre-sign
  3. Get it approved internally – and smoothly
  4. Integrations for a one-click pre-sign process
  5. Make the pre-sign process uncomplicated

1. Drafting your contract

Drafting contracts can take time. You need to create it in a doc, make sure all of the necessary information is in there, then get it signed off internally. That takes time and costs money in terms of time and hours worked. 

Even if you have copyable frameworks you can use, it still takes time to draft your contract. And, in that all-important pre-sign phase, it could mean that your prospect slips away, particularly if they’re being prospected by your competitors. 

All of that sounds not great, doesn’t it? Well, that’s where great contract management software comes in. It’s not just about getting that signature, it’s also about managing the whole process, and making it as seamless as possible. 

And, when it comes to pre-signing, that starts with templates.

Read also: Oneflow’s handwritten signature feature

pre-sign bubble

2. Making use of great templates pre-sign

Great contract management software should come with good-to-go templates as standard. Templates for all sorts of contracts, from employment contracts, to codes of conduct, to procurement agreements. 

All you have to do is choose the one you need, then get editing. But templates in contract management software shouldn’t be immutable. They make up a key part of the pre-sign process, so you need to be able to add your own as and when you need them. This becomes particularly important if you’re operating within a niche. 

For example; if you’re a procurement broker, then that can be a niche B2B space. You’ll need all sorts of procurement contracts, NDAs, and financial agreements. With great contract management software, you can set up templates for all the different types of contracts you might need. 

With templates, you can go through the creation part of the pre-sign process. All you have to do is put in stakeholder details, set up section rules, if goods or services are involved, and set up a signing order if there are multiple stakeholders involved in just a few clicks. 

pre-sign - contract templates - Oneflow

3. Pre-sign: Get it approved internally – and smoothly

When you’re drafting contracts yourself, it can be a headache for your legal team, or your senior sales team. However your approval process is set up, if you’re drafting your contracts yourself, it can be lengthy and can easily lead to backlogs. And we can all agree that backlogs often lead to lost revenue. 

Great contract management software can help eliminate that backlog. You can send the contract internally for a quick check, then send it straight over to your prospect. Once your templates are standardized to your business, you might even be able to eliminate the approval process if all that’s needed is the details of your stakeholders. 

However your approval process works at the moment, contract management software can turn it into a smooth, easy workflow. 

4. Integrations for a one-click pre-sign process

The backbone of all good contract management software is its integrations, ideally native integrations. Whichever CRM you use, be it HubSpot, Salesforces, or Pipedrive, your contract management software needs to integrate seamlessly with it. 

Native integrations allow you to draft your contract and see it in your CRM, without having to manually download it, then upload it again to your CRM. 

Integrations can form an invisible, but vital, part of your pre-sign workflow. By having your contracts going directly to your CRM, a lot of things can be avoided, including: 

  • Having to manually move documents
  • Losing documents 
  • Accidentally causing data breaches by saving or storing documents in the wrong place

In short, a lot of the possible human error in the process can be avoided altogether. 

Read also: “If it’s not in Salesforce, it doesn’t exist” – Oneflow for Salesforce update

pre-sign - integrations - Oneflow

5. Make the pre-sign process uncomplicated

We can all agree that pre-signing is a vital part of the contract process. After all, that signing process is the first customer experience your prospect will have with you. Great contract management software can help make that process the best it can be. 

By removing a lot of the admin work involved in the pre-sign process, it also allows your sales team to spend more time talking to their prospects, getting to know them better, and building even more of a relationship based around their business needs. 

But it can also impact the bottom line. Put simply: if your sales team has more time freed up from admin, they’ll have more time to sell. 

The key takeaways

Great contract management software can assist you throughout the entire pre-sign process. It should have your back from drafting, to getting it approved, to integrations. It should also come with a whole host of ready-to-go templates that will help you get started on day one.

But that’s not all. Great pre-signing features should remove a lot of the admin tasks your sales team faces. This allows them more time to build on their relationships with their prospects and customers, and, crucially, to sell more. 

When it comes to pre-signing, the right contract management software is good for business.

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