Top contract management software in 2022

Contract creation, negotiation, and management are essential for nearly all companies regardless of their size. However, each step of contract management takes a significant amount of time and can result in errors for e.g. during data entry. Contract management software that enables contract lifecycle management (CLM) can make the process more efficient, and also helps in reducing financial and audit risks. 

What Is contract management software?

Whether you need a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) or a third-party agreement, contract management software allows you to handle every step of the process online and have complete visibility and control over things. Contract management software includes support for:

• Preparation of documents
• Transmission of agreements
• Editing of documents
• Contract terms discussions
• Getting approvals
• Changing or renewing contracts
• Compliance audits

Key features of contract management software 

Although there are several types of CLM software products in the market, nearly all of them support business owners during all stages of the document lifecycle. Here are some key features that most contract management softwares will have:

• Easy functionalities such as adding smart fields, obtaining client details and choosing from standard fields, and also the option to create custom contracts.
• Enterprise-level software has integrated workflows that help you set up automated approval processes. This enables you to pass your documents to the right people quickly.
• Automated reminders keep everyone in the loop throughout the process, from email notifications of contract changes to milestone alerts. 
• All parties can edit the contract after it has been redlined while keeping track of any modifications. Documents flow between parties with changes accepted or rejected as part of the negotiation process in the digital world. 
• CLMs generally offer native eSignatures, which are interwoven into the software. Some companies integrate eSignatures from third parties into their software. 
• The OCR capability lets you quickly search for contracts, clauses, and client information within your storage. 
• CLM software keeps track of all version changes, conversations, and edits if you need to check the changes or revert to the previous version. 
• You also don’t have to print and file thousands of contracts. You will often keep your standard clauses in a content library along with all your contracts. 

FAQs regarding contract management software 

1. Do contract management software programs help manage contracts?

Contract management software aims to help organizations manage, store, and organize contracts. These tools often include an online contract repository and capabilities for the author and other parties to collaborate on contracts. Enterprises can automate contract creation and management processes using contract lifecycle management (CLM) software.

2. What is the importance of contract management software?

Two of the biggest benefits are organization and digitization. Unlike physical copies of contracts which are easily misplaced, digitization safely stores them for later retrieval with contract management solutions. They also reduce storage space. Organizing and tracking contracts digitally make it easier for businesses to locate and access them in the future.

3. Contract management versus contract analysis: What’s the difference?

Contract analysis is a subunit that falls under contract management, which encompasses contract creation, storage, tracking, and management. Alternatively, contract analysis only focuses on analyzing the terms of contracts in-depth with textual analysis. Products designed to analyze contracts use language processing technologies that can be rules-based or artificial intelligence (AI) technology-based, like natural language processing (NLP). Legal services providers, government organizations, and companies use contract analysis tools frequently.

Benefits of contract management software

1. Speeds up the approval process
CLM software is designed to manage contracts and they help to completely automate the process. The review process is accelerated and made more efficient with customised automated workflows. They also help to gain a better sense of the current financial state of your business, create a dynamic workflow to-do lists and scan all contracts instantly.

2. Make contracts more visible
A central, digital repository for all contract-related files allows for better compliance and reporting than paper-based systems. When you centralise the contract repository, you can ensure your employees use templates and clauses that are up to date.

3. Prepare audits more effectively
You should be able to access your entire contract history with a single click of a mouse. Contract management software also provides access to a centralised portal with options such as audit trails. In addition to maintaining accurate contracts for auditing, your business can also maintain an audit trail for Sarbanes-Oxley compliance.

4. Ensure timely renewal
Increasing renewal awareness is possible by automatically archiving contracts upon expiration and notifying your clients according to your rules. An organization’s best opportunity for contract renewal is often missed, yet it is the lowest hanging fruit. As long as you use contract management software, you can specify alarms that will be enabled or disabled by your preferences.

A list of top contract management software

1. Signeasy (Best for Fast-growing Teams)

Electronically signing, filling out, and sending documents is simple with Signeasy, and it is available for smartphones, tablets, and the web. With more than 40,000 corporate and 10 million individual users, Signeasy is also used by the real esigestate, legal, accounting, marketing, and logistics industries. Users reduce printing costs, increase customer satisfaction, and eliminate paperwork with the product.

Some of the robust features offered by Signeasy include

• Legally-valid and secure signatures

With Signeasy, you can collect eSignatures that are legally valid and fully compatible with international electronic signature legislation like the ESIGN Act and eIDAS.

• Mobile Signing

Document management is one of the most complicated processes but Signeasy makes it super convenient. With the user-friendly Signeasy mobile app, you can sign documents on the go without any hassle.

• Sign via QR code

Collecting individual signatures from various people and entities is quite difficult in a busy schedule. But if you have Signeasy, then you can collect signatures from different legal parties with an easy QR code system. 

• Advanced signer authentication

Signeasy enables highly secured signer authentication, ensuring strong data system security by providing a second layer of authentication via sending an OTP to the signer’s mobile number.

• Real-time activity

Monitor and track your document status easily with Signeasy. It offers real-time notification regarding when documents are signed, viewed or declined. 

• Automatic reminders

Do not manually follow up on signed paperwork. Automatic reminders are sent to signers by Signeasy. 

• Supports multiple file formats

With Signeasy, you can upload a wide range of document formats. Approximately 25+ document types, including Word, PDF, Excel, Open Office, JPG, HTML, PNG, and more.

• Instant savings 

By choosing Signeasy, you can save up the entire cost of paper-based workflows.  Signeasy can eliminate wet-ink signatures and dramatically decreases incidental expenses incurred from printing, scanning, and storing contracts.

• Enhanced user satisfaction

Signeasy’s easy-to-use interface is loved by 10 million users worldwide who rate us highly on independent review sites. You can sign, send, and manage documents effortlessly from the web or mobile with zero hassles. 

• Accelerated growth

Signeasy helps businesses collect signed documents for automated payments quickly and thus avoid desertion. It also boosts cash flow, which is essential for companies. With Signeasy, documentation processes can be completed in minutes instead of days.

• Custom workflows

A custom workflow facilitates the elimination of errors caused by repetitive human actions. These errors might range from document collation to signing documents appropriately in several locations. Signeasy saves a lot of time and effort than manual signing or a complicated eSignature workflow.

• Enterprise-grade security 

Signeasy offers the highest levels of trust, confidentiality, security, and accountability compared to wet signatures and adheres to the eIDAS and ESIGN ACT. These signatures are accepted in the US, EU, Switzerland, India, UAE, and other Latin American countries.

• Seamless integrations

Signeasy has a host of powerful integrations for modern workplaces. You can sign and send directly from your favorite business tools—Google Workspace, Microsoft Teams, Outlook, Salesforce, and more.

2. Concord

Concord provides enterprises with a simple yet powerful way to monitor compliance and changes throughout the contract lifecycle. Concord is a viable solution for large businesses due to its unlimited volume and integrations. 

Concord appears to be similar in design to Gmail at first glance. All plans include full onboarding support and can be set up in minutes. Whether you prefer the Google Drive or Concord dashboard, you can work in the program you are most comfortable. A few of the top features of Concord’s CLM are:

• Editing in real-time
• Redlining, commenting and chatting
• Storage of templates
• Intelligent field filling
• OCR search of full-text documents
• Reminders for deadlines
• Integration of electronic signatures

3. ContractWorks

Since 2012, ContractWorks has offered intuitive software that users can install in just minutes. The intelligent automatic document tagging provided by ContractWorks makes it a good choice for automation-related requests. 

It also has a text-based search system with OCR that resembles the Google browser and lets users drag and drop files. Users appreciate its ease of use. Some features you get are:

• Smart contract outlines that are automatically generated
• A repository for contract documents
• Alerts when milestones are reached
• Records are kept automatically
• Quick and easy annotations
• Comprehensive search capabilities
• Notifications are sent automatically
• Integration of electronic signatures

4. Mitratech

The contract management technology provided by Mitratech is designed to improve efficiency in the signing and collaboration parts of the contract management process. It lets you implement and automate CLM across your organisation. It will help you save time and decrease liability while increasing compliance with legal requirements and procedures. EraCLM is Mitratech’s guided solution for all contract management activity with leading advanced analytics, online negotiation capabilities, automated document assembly, and enhanced contract management workflow automation.

EraCLM helps organisations with an end-to-end CLM solution delivering analytics to accelerate business agreements, realise revenue faster, optimise savings, and promote efficiency. Some of the key features offered by Mitratech’s EraCLM are as follows:

• Easy and efficient contract management alongside reduced execution time and costs.
• Complete control over the contract lifecycle as it is visible and transparent. Seamless management of CLM transactions.
• Workflow automation that leads to Improved organisational alignment.
• Alerts all stakeholders about important contract events, dates, remarks and renewals.
• Allows integration with Microsoft Office.

5. Trackado

Trackado is a cloud-based software created to help organisations streamline the contract lifecycle. From storing your contracts securely to financial auditing services to receiving all contract and billing details on a single platform, Trackado offers easy contract management by combining them onto one platform. You can access any contract without hassle. Through automatic reminders and remarks, you can effortlessly operate within deadlines. 

Some of the features of Trackado are as follows:

• Trackado provides a contract repository alongside an organized overview of all your contract management activities. The repository makes it easy to search and retrieve contracts, upload them and manage the contract lifecycle
• It helps you keep track of events and activities by providing reminders of upcoming renewals or terminations. You can also keep track of open tasks.
• Workflow modules with predefined templates, activity logs, and tracking help route contracts through required review and approval steps.
• There is an option for eSigning, which helps reduce time and cost.
• You can also access reports, contract data overviews, and dashboards, which will provide insights into the contract portfolios.
• The business partner module brings together all your external and internal contract parties in one platform with their contact information.
• It provides financial transparency by incorporating in-depth maintenance of financial reports, cost and revenue budgets, and billing details.

6. ContractSafe

ContractSafe helps you store and manage contracts, speed search and scan them, set email reminders, and much more. This CLM allows access to unlimited users through simple permissions. ContractSafe enables your data and document migration as well as onboarding support. They have dedicated customer success managers who can guide you through implementing features, support, and training. 

Some of the features of ContractSafe are as follows:

• ContractSafe provides the automatic setup for organizing contracts and extracts important information for you.
• ContractSafe has extremely sophisticated search capabilities. It sorts through and highlights contract name, counterparty, company entity, date, renewal information, and so on in a few seconds. This information is extracted and presented to you for verification to avoid mistakes.
• ContractSafe’s CLM provides an effortless organization where you can arrange, run reports, set reminders and find solutions. It increases efficiency by reducing errors and establishing a better contract review process.

7. DealHub

DealHub allows you to streamline your sales process, gain necessary approvals, and provide professional proposals to customers in a few seconds. It helps you convert deals and negotiations with one automated workflow for contract management. Through automation and streamlining of the creation, redlining, and approval of contracts, DealHub increases the efficiency of your company. 

DealHub simplifies contract generation by enabling all the stakeholders to collaborate within one digital DealRoom, where they can initiate agreements and legal documents, revise contracts, manage redlines, and provide real-time status and transparency. 

Some of the other features of DealHub are as follows:

• Contracts can be generated in various formats like Word, PDF, and HTML. You can reuse previously amended documents via a contract repository. Contracts can be edited, remarked upon, and set into pre-approved templates.
• DealHub enables standardized collaboration and approvals, triggering parallel approval workflow based on customizable standards. It sends email notifications and status updates.
• It provides streamlined revisions and contracts redlining, allowing you to provide feedback and make necessary changes. 
• You can track contract views, edits, and real-time notifications and enhance buyer transfer with faster responses.
• DealHub provides eSignature services for single or multiple parties. It also ensures contract storage.

8. Agiloft Contract Management Suite

Agiloft’s Contract Lifecycle Management Suite is a comprehensive contract management solution that streamlines the contract approval process and ensures that consolidated information used in all business processes is always up to date. Some key features include:

• Creating contracts in one click: Dates, fields, and formulas are automatically entered into Microsoft Word or Adobe PDF templates for fast and easy contract creation.
• Multiple approval workflow options, including parallel, sequential, and conditional approval.
• Capturing all changes to your documents and viewing redlined edits is useful for comparing versions and streamlining the contract review process.
• Provides complete audit trails, reduces risk, and ensures compliance for Sarbanes-Oxley, as well as eliminating the need for manual document gathering.
• OCR built into the software enables you to convert images from JPG, PNG, and PDF formats into searchable text documents on the fly while still retaining the original graphic quality.
• Permissions can be configured down to the field level for the most stringent privacy standards.

9. Chameleon by Exigent

A powerful, adaptable platform backed by experienced legal and commercial expertise, Exigent’s contract management solution makes it easy to manage contracts and related documents. Modules of CLM include those for creating contracts, managing contracts, and analyzing contracts. The dashboards included in the platform have been designed to help customers mitigate risk, limit revenue leakage, and enhance their buying power. Other important features of this CLM software include:

• Easy progress tracking at every stage
• Compliance management
• Electronic signatures
• Full-text search option

10. Sirion CLM by SirionLabs

CLM (Contract Lifecycle Management) from SirionLabs is an AI-driven tool for drafting, analyzing, and governing contracts. It provides seamless functionality from contract creation to termination, including authoring and signature, to meeting the complex needs of legal and contract management teams. A wide range of AI automation capabilities is available with SirionLabs CLM, allowing users to accomplish more in less time, including:

• Contracts for specialty services
• Contract lifecycle management software
• Contract analytics
• Authoring and negotiation
• Contract review and redlining
• Electronic contract and eSignature
• Contractual obligation management

11. Contract Insight Enterprise by Cobblestone

As one of the industry’s leading contract management software platforms, CobbleStone’s Contract Insight Enterprise is used by several organizations worldwide. Using the intelligent contract platform provided by CobbleStone can help businesses simplify and streamline contract processes and their contract management workflows. This CLM allows for:

• Management of contracts and vendors
• Access to all contracts in a central location
• Management of workflows and tasks
• Contract performance rating/score cards

12. ContractPodAi

With ContractPodAi, in-house corporate legal teams can access an all-in-one legal platform. With ContractPodAi Cloud, you’ll have a smart repository, guided workflows, easy-to-use templates, collaborative tools, eSignatures, auto-document generation, third-party document review, reports, AI analytics, and notifications and reminders for important dates. Some critical features include:

• Easy data import/export
• Complete document management
• Hassle-free document storage
• Drag & drop fields
• Pre-built templates
• Real-time data
• End to-end contract automation

13. CLM Matrix by Wolters Kluwer, ELM Solutions

CLM Matrix is an easy-to-use contract lifecycle management (CLM) solution that helps companies manage their end-to-end contract management processes efficiently and securely so that they can improve their business outcomes.

With its intuitive and modern user interface and a fully configurable platform, CLM Matrix is extremely easy to use with minimal training for new users. A few notable features include:

• A central contract repository to establish consistent contract storage practices.
• A pre-approved legal language to help create fast, compliant contracts that free up legal resources.
• Automated workflows to keep track of status and speed up the negotiation process and increase revenue.
• Actionable insights and notifications that boost post-execution contract management.

Conclusion

In the article above, we curated some of the best contract management software in the market and evaluated them based on their features and abilities.

Choose Signeasy as your contract lifecycle management management solution and also benefit from its combined eSignature capabilities.