How to process contracts faster? Opinion and approval in a nutshell
How does your company go about the process of reviewing and approving new contracts? Everything goes like clockwork, or do you feel that the best description of this process could be the word “chaos”? Most problems with the smooth processing of contracts occur in large companies with extensive structures. It is in them that a document often passes through several departments and a minimum of several people work on it before it reaches the approver or the contractor. How can these activities be streamlined?
Table of content:
Opinion and approval – what’s the difference?
Once the content of the new agreement is created, the document is passed on – most often to the legal department, which adds its parts or verifies that the content of the agreement complies with the law. The contents of the documents are also reviewed by the managers of each department. After checking, the content of the agreement with amendments goes back to the person creating the agreement or coordinating the process of its creation.
When, after all comments, the content of the agreement is ready, the document goes for approval. In company structures, the content of the document is accepted by, for example, the board of directors, and then the agreement is sent to the contractor, who checks and accepts the content or sends back any comments.
Learn how to process company documents faster
Full email inbox and frequent mistakes
Achieving an Inbox Zero state seems impossible to many of us. Nothing surprising about that. Often, most of the intra-company processes take place right through the email inbox. There, documents are attached and sent, arrangements between departments are transferred and messages from managers are relayed. It is difficult to keep order in such a jumble of messages.
According to data provided by Deloitte, in 80% of cases during classic contract processing by e-mail, at some point someone will make a mistake and send on an outdated version of the document.
How does this happen? Imagine a standard process of reviewing and approving the content of a contract in a large company. The person in charge of coordinating the process sends the content of the agreement to 5 people who are supposed to read it and determine whether the content is correct, in accordance with the law or the company’s policies. These 5 people send the documents to the coordinator after inputting their notes and comments. This one has to merge the 5 new versions into one and send it again to the same people to check the content after corrections. It is estimated that in a standard process there are 9 such cycles in which someone sends, attaches, downloads, uploads or merges. Usually by the 3rd or 4th cycle someone makes a mistake and attaches the wrong version of the document. This disrupts the whole process, creates chaos and mess, and prolongs the review and approval even further.
How can Hatiroo® do it better?
Processing contracts by creating their contents on disk, attaching them to an email, uploading, downloading and similar attachments generates a lot of errors. How can these processes be streamlined?
- Office 365® + Teams (or other tools with similar functionality) – this is a solution that will primarily benefit small businesses. Wherever the processes are not very complex, a big improvement will be the ability to work simultaneously on a single document and a teamwork tool that allows you to skip the email route. It is worth remembering that simultaneous work rarely means that two people simultaneously create the content of one document. More often it looks like one person writes, while the other person can read and give an opinion on the content of the agreement at the same time. Such a mode of work greatly speeds up the whole process.
- Electronic document workflow system integrated with Office 365®. In larger companies, where the path that most documents have to go through is longer and more complicated, a good electronic workflow system will be useful. Such a tool ensures that each contract has a predetermined path to follow, and those involved in creating, reviewing or approving the document always know when they are supposed to perform an action and where to forward the contract next.
Documents workflow in a company – what tools are worth using?
The more complicated and time-consuming an activity is, the more we procrastinate. Simplify your company’s processes and minimize the risk of endless procrastination of tasks. Contact us – automating and increasing work efficiency is our specialty.
Author:
Krzysztof Rosół, CEO Hatiroo®
Expert in workflow and electronic signatures. He has been designing business processes and advising his clients on workflow efficiency for more than 15 years. He is the architect of many workflow system solutions, including the Hatiroo® system.
Author:
Krzysztof Rosół, CEO Hatiroo®
Expert in workflow and electronic signatures. He has been designing business processes and advising his clients on workflow efficiency for more than 15 years. He is the architect of many workflow system solutions, including the Hatiroo® system.
