Moving from traditional pen-and-paper agreements to digital contracts is an important step in improving contract management processes.

Many organizations have already taken this step, but the earliest adopters among them are likely working in self-hosted legacy systems rather than a cloud-based contract management solution.

Cloud contract management platforms provide greater security and flexibility and enable a whole new world of collaboration.

This article will explore exactly that. We’ll answer all of your burning questions:

• What is cloud contract management?
• Who should use cloud contract management platforms and why? 
• What are the benefits of cloud contract management?
• What to prioritize when choosing a cloud contract management solution?
• What types of cloud contract management software are available?

What is cloud contract management? 

Cloud-based contract management software refers to any internet-hosted tool designed to support your organization's entire contract management process.

What this means is that rather than having the software tool installed on your computer or other work device, you access the tool over the internet. 

This might take place within a web browser or via a dedicated desktop or mobile app. In either case, the software itself is hosted on the internet.

The same goes for everything you store within that platform, such as your company's contracts, customer data, and other important documentation. Nothing is hosted or stored by your organization—it's all taken care of by the company that provides the solution.

Now, on to the software itself.

Cloud contract management systems are used to streamline and optimize contract lifecycle management processes. Collaboration, automation, eSigning, and contract creation functionality are all features that support this optimization.

They also act as a secure and searchable contract repository and can provide important reports and insights into the effectiveness of your contract management processes.

Also read: Contract Repository: Everything You Need to Know

Who should use cloud contract management platforms and why? 

One of the most important benefits of cloud contract management platforms is that they enable collaboration across a number of departments and users, from inside legal teams to HR departments.

Internal legal teams

In-house legal departments can use cloud contract management tools to power processes like eDiscovery, approval workflows, and automated signing of standard contracts.

Sales teams

Sales teams can speed up sales cycles by closing contracts with electronic signatures. 

A good cloud contract tool will also allow teams to create contract templates with pre-approved wording and a dynamic clause library to streamline contract creation.

Small business owners

Small business owners can leverage cloud contract management software to execute investor contracts and partnership agreements.

AI-powered tools can support business leaders in the contract creation and drafting process without the need for prior legal knowledge or internal legal operations.

Procurement departments

Procurement departments can improve supplier relationships and ensure contract compliance by handling all vendor agreements in a single cloud-based platform.

Procurement leaders can program automated renewal reminder notifications to get ahead of contract renegotiations and secure better deals, reducing costs and driving profitability. 

“At Next Insurance, we wanted to avert risks before they turned critical. I figured the only viable solution was to use a CLM tool. Once your contracts are centralised, it becomes convenient to manage procurement processes, professional services, and NDAs.”

~ Nadia Louis Hermez, Legal Ops Manager, Next Insurance, Inc.
Building a Robust Legal Ops Function

Human resources 

HR departments use cloud contract solutions to deliver contracts to new employees and allow team members constant, secure access to their employment agreements.

Contract amendments and addendums are easily actioned in the same platform, saving the need for large swathes of physical employee paperwork.

Also read: Rolling Out An Employment Agreement - Key Clauses

What are the benefits of cloud contract management? 

Shifting from physical contract management to a cloud-based solution provides benefits to teams of all sizes and use cases.

Cost savings

Compared to pen-and-paper contract administration, cloud contract management is a much more cost-effective affair.

Since everything is managed digitally, there are no costs associated with printing or the storage of physical agreements (something that only becomes more expensive and cumbersome as your company grows).

Remote-work friendly

Let’s face it: Having to physically sign a contract isn’t exactly compatible with modern work.

Many businesses are operating remotely, and those responsible for signing sales contracts might not have access to a printer.

But with a cloud solution, everything happens digitally. Contracts can often be signed via mobile device like a smartphone or tablet and can be accessed at any time via the same platform.

Thus, switching to a cloud-based solution helps bring your company into the 21st century and makes you more appealing to potential employees and customers alike.

“My team also, for the most part, gets to work completely remotely, which is not true for all the other teams at Away. But to me, that's a retention lever. I also try to offer the opportunity to learn and to do new kinds of work. Even when interviewing or recruiting for my team, I always base the role on two things: the needs of the business and what the job applicant is interested in doing.”

~ Lydia Cheuk, GC at Away
Brand Building for Legal Teams 

Greater security 

Traditional pen-and-paper contracts are held under lock and key, but cloud-based solutions provide several additional layers of security that help protect your business from the threat of a data leak.

A good cloud contract management solution will allow you to create role-based permissions such that employees can only access documents and features that pertain to their specific positions in the organization.

It will also provide security by way of data encryption, and help ensure your agreements hold up in court (should you need to make that case) by providing an audit trail of who accessed, edited, and signed documents and on what devices.

Also read: Contract Security: Hacks and tips for safeguarding your contracts

A central point of truth

The biggest problem with a non-cloud-hosted contracting tool is that data and documents are spread across multiple devices.

Each sales rep has their own customer contracts stored on their laptop, and should legal need to access a given document, they have to manually request it to be sent over.

But a cloud contract management solution provides a central storage solution, where all documents are instantly accessible (to those who have the authority). The best solutions offer advanced search functionality to make it easier to locate a specific agreement.

Improved visibility and reporting 

With all contract data stored safely and securely in a single location, you’ll benefit from improved visibility into contract management performance.

With this, you can track metrics like contract and renewal rates, as well as average time to signature.

Many solutions offer deep reporting and analytics capabilities. Some even allow you to create custom dashboards, providing instant access to the specific reports you want to see on a regular basis.

Faster sales cycles

Cloud contract management enables faster sales cycles through pre-built contract templates, automated approval workflows, and a customer-facing eSignature portal.

Sales reps can pull up the relevant contract template, auto-fill customer data from their sales CRM, activate the approval workflow to receive sign-off from legal, and then ship it over to their customer for redlining and a digital signature to seal the deal.

Also read: Faster Contracts Make Shorter Sales Cycles: 1st-Hand Experiences At SpotDraft

How to choose the best cloud-based contract management software for your team

Considering investing in a cloud contract platform? We’re going to dive into a few popular solutions shortly. First, here’s what you need to keep top of mind when determining which software tool to go with:

Collaboration and accessibility 

Here are the collaboration features you’ll want to keep an eye out for:

• In-platform redlining
• Tagging and comments
• Automated approval workflows
• Customer-facing portal and eSignature function 
• AI-powered intake forms
• Integrations with platforms you’re already using

“Leveraging a CLM has been key because it has reduced a lot of friction from handoffs between legal and business. Rather than going back and forth over email, Slack, Word, Zoom, DocuSign, and a whole tech stack, the CLM acts as a single source of truth. We have a whole intranet with resources and a legal services request form with 10 different questions so we get all the information upfront and don't have to go back to ask follow-up questions.”

~ Jonathan Franz, Head of Legal, Crunchbase
Navigating Economic Turbulence and Thriving in Chaos

Support for multiple document types 

Your first step in onboarding a cloud contract management solution will involve migrating all of your existing non-cloud contracts.

That's going to mean importing Google Docs and Microsoft Word documents and potentially scanning and uploading physical contracts in PDF format.

You’ll want to find a cloud platform with support for all of these file types that can convert them all to digital contracts within the platform. This will save you from going through the time-consuming and tedious task of file conversion.

Compliance with local legislation

A good cloud contract management system helps you ensure contract compliance and capture eSignatures that meet international requirements.

You should also consider what kind of support a given cloud-based contract management software provides for local, country-specific compliance.

For example, if you’re doing business in India, you’ll need an Aadhaar eSign-compliant tool like SpotDraft.

Additionally, if you’re selling in the European Union, then you’ll want to look for a cloud-based contract management system that stores data in the EU to stay GDPR-compliant.

Integrations with other software platforms

Before you sign on the dotted line yourself and onboard a cloud contract management solution, make sure the tool has native integrations with the other platforms you’re already using.

Say, for instance, that you’re using Salesforce as your CRM tool. 

You’ll want to make sure the contract platform you choose integrates smoothly with Salesforce so you can pull important customer details directly into agreements during drafting and minimize tedious manual work.

Also read: 6 Must-Have CLM Integrations for Streamlined Workflow and Higher ROI

Workflow automation

Prioritize a contract management software solution with workflow automation capabilities that are both customizable and easy to use.

Customization is important for building automated workflows that match your existing processes. The last thing you want to do is change processes that are already working for the sake of an inflexible software platform.

More than that, though, you want to make sure that workflows are easy to create and don’t require too much technical know-how. Look for a solution with a drag-and-drop no-code editor and, ideally, one with pre-built workflow templates to help you get off the ground quickly.

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

Customer support

Lastly, you’ll want to look into what the platform’s customer support looks like.

Here’s what you want to ask:

• Is support available 24/7?
• Are there additional charges associated with accessing support?
• Do we get a dedicated customer success manager or support rep?
• What contact formats are available? (e.g., email, phone, chat, video)
• What do current customers have to say about the quality of the platform’s customer support?

Five best cloud-based contract management software to consider:

1. SpotDraft

SpotDraft (yours truly) is a powerful CLM software platform built for the entire team.

With robust automation features to simplify time-consuming tasks like contract renewals and approval processes, as well as contract drafting driven by artificial intelligence, you’ll work faster and smarter.

Key features of SpotDraft include:

• A searchable central repository for storing and managing contracts 
• An intuitive and familiar interface with Microsoft Word editing
• Customizable contract templates
• In-platform eSignature
• Deep reporting and insights into contract performance 
• Support for local regulations like Aadhar eSign

As a cloud-based solution, SpotDraft is accessible via your web browser, with support for Single Sign On (SSO) for enterprise companies.

Interested to learn more about SpotDraft? Get pricing here.

2. Juro 

Juro is a contract collaboration platform with a particular focus on using AI to help stakeholders better create and manage agreements.

These are a few of the AI-powered features Juro offers:

• Contract drafting
• Clause revision
• Risk monitoring 
• Agreement summaries

The platform also offers some important contract negotiation functionality, such as in-browser redlining, split internal and external versions, and threaded commenting and suggestions.

Learn more about how Juro compares with SpotDraft here.

3. PandaDoc 

PandaDoc is a contract lifeycle management platform with built-in eSignature capabilities.

Like many cloud-based platforms, PandaDoc offers features for contract drafting, collaborating with internal teams and external customers, and a configurable contract database.

‍Also read: Building a Scalable Contract Database (Why, How + Templates)

Here are PandaDoc’s most important features:

• A library of pre-built templates
• Proposals, quotes, contracts, and invoicing
• Payment integrations with Stripe, PayPal, and Square
• Customer-facing forms 
• Native eSigning 
• Contract renewal reminders 

4. Linksquares 

Linksquares is an AI-powered contract management platform designed specifically for legal teams.

It offers great post-execution features and analytics, though some find it a little lacking in end-to-end contract automation and management.

The following are the most important features you’ll find in Linkqsuares:

• Contract creation support
• Integrations with tools like Salesforce and Word
• Legal team project management functionality 
• Native eSignatures
• Powerful reporting and analytics suite

Learn more about how Linksquares compares with SpotDraft here.

5. DocuSign CLM 

DocuSign CLM is the contract lifecycle management platform offered by the well-known eSignature tool Docusign.

DocuSign CLM offers a pretty standard set of contract management features:

• Auto-population of contracts from within Salesforce
• Automated workflows with conditional rules
• Pre-approved clause library 

One standout feature is its AI-powered negotiation capability, which can help speed up contract review processes.

Learn more about how DocuSign CLM compares with SpotDraft here.

Master cloud contract management with SpotDraft 

Moving from a physical or even self-hosted contracting system to a cloud-based contract management system is a critical step in driving success across the contract lifecycle.

By making this move, you’ll benefit from enhanced security, improved collaboration, faster contract cycles, lower contract management costs, and more efficient and effective contract lifecycle management.

For all these benefits and more, let us introduce you to SpotDraft, the cloud-based contract management solution built for teams of all sizes.

From contract drafting to execution to renewals, SpotDraft’s intuitive cloud-hosted CLM platform is with you every step of the way.

Discover for yourself with a free demo.