While Salesforce excels as a platform for managing customer relationships, sales teams often hit a snag when handling contracts with its built-in functionalities.

This is understandable because the core functionalities of Salesforce are tailored to suit its primary role as a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platform. You could draft and manage a handful of simple contracts on the ecosystem, but the process becomes a hassle when you begin to scale your contract volumes and onboard more complex deals.

You will  often find yourself doing lots of manual entry tasks, struggling to keep up with multiple versions of the same contract, chasing after stakeholders for approvals, and running into compliance risks.

Thankfully, Salesforce, being a robust CRM, allows integration with SpotDraft CLM. So you don’t have to struggle with scaling your contract volumes and managing complex deals.

The basics of Salesforce CRM?

Salesforce ranks as one of the finest CRMs for sales teams and other customer-facing departments. It offers a comprehensive suite of tools and services to help businesses manage various aspects of their business relationships with customers and partners.

With the platform, organizations can streamline sales, marketing, and customer service operations, leverage data for strategic decisions, and ultimately accelerate growth.

The main features of Salesforce CRM

Salesforce offers a plethora of beneficial functionalities for businesses of all sizes, encompassing diverse areas of customer engagement, from customer account management to marketing automation.

Let’s look at them in more detail.

#1 Contact management

Salesforce allows you to seamlessly collect and store relevant information from customers and prospects in one unified repository. That way, you can access and update each account’s information while keeping track of their conversion journey.

#2 Sales automation

The platform offers tools for managing multiple sales processes, from lead and opportunity management to sales forecasting and quote generation.

#3 Marketing automation

With Salesforce, you get access to marketing tools for creating targeted campaigns, automating email marketing, and optimizing campaign performance.

#4 Customer service

Salesforce offers customer service functionalities to help businesses provide timely and efficient support to their customers through various channels, such as email, chat, and social media.

#5 Analytics and reporting

It provides robust reporting and analytics capabilities, allowing organizations to gain insights from their data and make data-driven decisions.

#6 Third party integration

Salesforce can be seamlessly integrated with other applications and systems, enabling businesses to extend its capabilities to suit their unique needs (more on this soon!)

Should you use Salesforce CRM for managing your contracts?

So, your sales team just moved a prospect from “lead” to “opportunity,” and all that’s left is for you to roll out a contract document to formally lock in a deal with this prospect.

The entire customer journey has been managed in the Salesforce ecosystem, so you are ’re curious about the possibility of leveraging its native tools for contract management processes.

Managing contracts with Salesforce’s native tools is feasible only if you are dealing with simple contracts in small volumes. However, But for growing businesses, this can be a counterproductive move because, at that point, your contract volumes are growing fast, with new complexities getting introduced to the pipeline.

Salesforce, being a CRM, does not prioritize contract management as a core functionality. So, you will have no access to flexible contract templates and a robust clause library for efficient contract drafting experience.

Additionally, contract management often contains complex routine processes, like approval workflows, template-based draft generation, compliance tracking, risk assessment, and more. Salesforce’s automation capabilities aren’t sophisticated enough to automate most of these procedures. So, your overall contract management experience will be obstructed riddled  by with delays and inefficiencies.

Salesforce also falls short in redlining and version control capabilities, as you can’t easily manage changes and keep track of all the modifications your contracts undergo throughout their lifecycle.

Furthermore, ensuring compliance with contract terms and governing regulations, as well as generating reports and analytics related to contract performance, can be tough to accomplish using Salesforce’s native tools.

Your goal is to manage contracting processes as productively as possible. But while Salesforce’s built-in tools cannot help you with that, you can still enjoy productive contract management without leaving its ecosystem.

The next section explains how.

CLM integration: Making Salesforce fit for contract management

Salesforce is built to seamlessly integrate with various third-party applications, enabling businesses to extend its features to meet for their unique needs. This makes it possible for you to supercharge its contract management capabilities beyond the limitations of its native functionalities.

A CLM is specifically built to help business teams streamline end-to-end contract management processes, automating complex routine tasks and empowering them to scale contract volumes with consistent efficiency.

Integrating a CLM with Salesforce CRM means you will be able to draft, negotiate, execute, and track contracts at scale without leaving the platform’s ecosystem.

Here’s a breakdown of some of its major upsides:

#1 Streamlined and scalable contract creation

Integrating a CLM with Salesforce streamlines contract creation processes. This is done by offering a plethora of templates, clause libraries, and standardized processes, heavily reducing the time and effort required to generate contracts. This allows your organization to efficiently scale contract volumes, grow its customer base, and ultimately make more revenue.

#2 Improved decision-making

Having contract data integrated into Salesforce provides a holistic view of customer relationships and contract performance. This enables better decision-making by allowing you to analyze contract data alongside customer interactions, sales data, and other relevant information. With this comprehensive insight, you can make informed decisions regarding contract renewals, negotiations, and customer management.

#3 Enhanced collaboration

Integrating CLM with Salesforce promotes collaboration among teams involved in the contract management process. Sales, legal, finance, and other departments can access and collaborate on contracts within the same platform. This real-time collaboration minimizes delays, reduces miscommunications, and ensures everyone is on the same page throughout the contract lifecycle.

#4 Access to advanced automation

CLM systems offer advanced automation capabilities beyond what Salesforce is capable of achieving. This significantly reduces manual and repetitive tasks, cuts out delays, reduces the risk of human errors, and ultimately helps business teams close more deals more quickly.

#5 Improved customer relationship

CLM integration allows sales and customer service teams to access contract information within Salesforce, enabling a more comprehensive view of customer interactions and agreements.

Additionally, automated contract creation and approval processes enable business teams to respond to customer requests and negotiate contracts more quickly. All this results in more personalized engagements, enhanced customer experiences, and higher customer retention rates.

SpotDraft CLM + Salesforce: Leveling up your contract management productivity

SpotDraft is a top-tier Contract Life Management (CLM) platform specifically designed to help you manage contracts from end- to- end. It comes with all the tools you will ’ll ever need for your contracts, from robust templates and clause libraries to custom automation and tracking functionalities, allowing you to seamlessly manage contracts at high volumes and varying levels of complexity.

Its compatibility with Salesforce means you can now perform all kinds of contract management tasks and close deals at scale without leaving the Salesforce ecosystem.

Also read: Simplified CRM Contract Management: Practical Approaches & Tips

How it works

SpotDraft is listed on Salesforce AppExchange, so you can easily find and integrate it into your Salesforce account in a few clicks.

Once integrated, you will find the SpotDraft card on the right-side panel under the "opportunities" tab. The SpotDraft card displays every contract associated with your selected customer account.

To create a new contract, you simply hit the button that says "+ New Contract." This takes you to a window where you can choose to create a contract from SpotDraft's robust templates repository or upload a third-party contract document.

Assuming you have 've selected the template option, the next window will present a list of templates suitable for various contracts. Select the one that applies to that opportunity.

Upon selecting the template, SpotDraft will automatically scan through the details of the selected business deal and autofill the contract template with relevant information.

Afterwards, all you need to do is check for necessary edits and send it over to the relevant stakeholders for review and approval.

Additionally, you can upload a contract document from your business partners and customers to SpotDraft for reviews and signatures. SpotDraft supports major document formats like .doc, .docx, and .pdf.

We have a detailed guide in our help section, where we show you everything from setting up the integration to launching your first contract on Salesforce. Click here to access it.

Features of the SpotDraft-Salesforce integration

Integrating SpotDraft with Salesforce gives you access to the best of both worlds, offering an impressive mix of efficiency and scalability. You get to enjoy each platform's comprehensive functionalities while adapting a combination of features for even better results.

#1 Bi-directional data sync

A two-way data sync between Salesforce and SpotDraft ensures that both platforms are constantly leveraging and mirroring data in both directions. This keeps your contracts consistently updated. If there is a change in Salesforce opportunity data, it automatically reflects in the corresponding fields in the SpotDraft contract document. Similarly, when an update occurs in the contract, SpotDraft sends the information to Salesforce in real-time.

With this, you enjoy enhanced data accuracy, access to the most recent business data, and minimal duplication of effort.

#2 Sophisticated contract workflow automation

SpotDraft allows you to automate various contract management processes far beyond Salesforce’s native capabilities.

Complex routine processes, like approval workflows, template-based draft generation, compliance tracking, risk assessment, and more, can be automated within the Salesforce ecosystem once it gets integrated with SpotDraft.

Also read: What is Contract Automation? Expert Tips & Insights

#3 Accelerated contract generation with auto-filled templates

SpotDraft offers a robust collection of templates enriched with legal guardrails and structured to meet the unique requirements of a wide variety of contracts. The templates are automatically populated with data from Salesforce’s deal information, significantly accelerating contract generation processes.

“The absence of contract templates leads to non-standardizsation and makes contracts prone to errors. The legal team, therefore, is required to delve deep into contracts and proofread all clauses with a fine-tooth comb to identify and rectify the simplest of human errors.”

~ Igor Poroger, Director of Legal, EMEA, Vectra AI
‍The Counsel Corner: How CLMs Empower Legal Teams in B2B SaaS Companies

#4 Robust contract storage solution

SpotDraft provides access to a repository designed explicitly for contracts and contract-related data. It is 's equipped with easy search functionalities that allow you to sort, filter, and locate contract files quickly. Additionally, its robust security implementation enables you to control and monitor who accesses each contract as well as what they can do with the documents they have access to.

Think about how many contracts sit on someone's laptop or in multiple databases, and then think about the value of contract management. The importance of simply being able to locate all of the company's contracts and relevant amendments in one place without significant effort cannot be minimized."

~ Sterling Miller, CEO and Senior Counsel, Hilgers Graben PLLC
‍Ten Things: Minimizing Risks in Commercial Contracts

Also read: Contract Storage—Tips to Store Your Contracts Effectively

#5 Data analytics and reporting

“Insights can help the legal team identify gaps in the system and work toward improving workflows and building solutions that would increase efficiency.”

~ Igor Poroger, Director of Legal, EMEA, Vectra AI
The Counsel Corner: How CLMs Empower Legal Teams in B2B SaaS Companies

With your entire contract data in one place, it becomes easier to perform advanced contract analytics. SpotDraft comes with a powerful reporting and analytics tool that allows you to track key contract metrics, such as contract value, expiration dates, most occurring contracts, renewal rates, and revenue impact.

On the other hand, Salesforce offers some of the industry's best reporting and dashboard capabilities. By integrating the strengths of both systems, you build a hybrid system that takes you on a deep dive into your organization's contract data, helping you optimize for far better results.

Also read: How to Use Contract Analytics Software to Uncover Insights

#6 Enhanced compliance and risk management

SpotDraft is fitted with several tools that ensure compliance with obligations and established regulations. It tracks key dates, performance obligations, and compliance milestones, sending alerts and notifications to ensure that contractual commitments are met on time.

The platform also streamlines risk management processes through AI-powered contract review modules, comprehensive audit trail functionalities, and advanced compliance tracking.

Its integration with Salesforce results in a well-rounded ecosystem that offers the whole nine yards of functionalities required to manage contracts from end-to-end with minimal risks.

Also read: Tracking Contract Compliance: Best Practices + Tools

Wrapping up

SpotDraft is a cutting-edge contract management platform that seamlessly integrates with Salesforce, enhancing its contract management capabilities and helping you close deals several times faster. 

By leveraging the strengths of both platforms, you will be able to build a powerful ecosystem that not only creates risk-free contracts but also enhances customer experiences across the board.

Want to see a general demo of how the SpotDraft-Salesforce integration works? Click here to check it out.

Do you prefer to get a personalized demo of how the integration fits into your unique business needs? Click here to get in touch and schedule a quick session with us.