Navigating complex contract compliance: how automated workflows simplify capturing legal consent

Navigating complex contract compliance: how automated workflows simplify capturing legal consent

A common challenge of achieving contract compliance is that prolonged negotiation and approval processes increase the risk of losing deals and client interest. In addition, sales teams often see the legal department as a hurdle they aim to overcome swiftly.

A common challenge of achieving contract compliance is that prolonged negotiation and approval processes increase the risk of losing deals and client interest. In addition, sales teams often see the legal department as a hurdle they aim to overcome swiftly.  

Automated workflow templates address these challenges by enhancing visibility within departments and enabling independent and seamless collaboration among workers.  

This article will explore the editing, approval, signing, and delivery phases of contract creation processes across companies at different levels of digitalization, focusing on sales and legal teams. 

Automate contract workflows within your Salesforce CRM 

Salesforce CRM is tailored to manage customer relationship processes comprehensively, consolidating crucial data such as contact information, purchase history, and preferences.  

Authorized users can access relevant customer data seamlessly, aided by automation features like reminders and form auto-population. Combined with contract automated workflows software, this creates an efficient and reliable tool for managing document creation processes. 

The automated contract workflows that are created with such software offer numerous benefits for sales teams, making collaboration with legal departments easier and more efficient. Tools facilitating seamless document generation, editing, signing, and delivery are integral to various sales processes of different complexities. 

The in-house counsel, often perceived as a bottleneck in the contract creation process, can benefit from this user-friendly software as well. The tracked changes and the negotiation stages being visualized online in real-time help elevate the sales process and sales-legal collaboration to a new level. 

Editing process

In most companies, contract creation begins with creating a Word document. Sharing this document via email is then a common approach for companies in the early stages of digitalization. However, this method poses risks, especially for high-value contracts, as tracking and visualizing the contract creation process and ensuring the delivery of the correct file version can be impossible. 

Many companies opt to instead use Microsoft SharePoint or Google Drive to store and edit documents in, instead of relying solely on email. While this ensures there is one agreed-upon copy (providing that everyone uses a link to share the same file) and facilitates editing and finding the necessary documents, SharePoint and Drive are not designed to meet all contract management needs. It lacks features such as tracking deadlines, limiting access roles, and monitoring departmental involvement in document work. 

With Documill, contract creation, negotiation, and approvals are seamlessly handled between all parties involved. Beyond document generation through Salesforce, Documill facilitates collaboration throughout all the contract creation steps, for both simple and complex contracts.  

Editing process with Documill 

Documill can be used, for example, to save time by using agreed legal templates that auto-approve low-value contracts that meet the right criteria, allowing sales and legal teams to collaborate seamlessly and independently.  

With the right collaboration tools in place, legal teams become partners rather than obstacles, leading to shorter deal cycles, happier customers, and increased compliance for complex contracts. 

Account managers can also streamline their contract creation process by filling out a simple Q&A form which will then automatically populate the contract with the correct information.  

Fast-growing companies with lean legal teams no longer waste time drafting contracts or searching for data in Salesforce, as legal-approved contract templates tailored to specific sales cases can be generated with just one click in the Salesforce CRM. 

With contract generation, incorrect data entry and missing information from Salesforce data fields are eliminated, saving time and reducing human errors. 

Approval process

The editing and approval process, aligned with client negotiations, is often the longest part of the contract creation process. Each organization has its own unique rules and methods for managing contract creation.  

However, as the number of contracts increases, digitalizing the contract creation workflow becomes essential to avoid human errors, unclear processes, and missed deadlines, which can lead to a loss of client interest and deals. 

Manual handling of contracts leaves room for mistakes, missed deadlines, and overlooked legal obligations. Storing contracts in one place and using a consistent naming system can help maintain control over contract versions.  

Legal teams typically review and negotiate contracts through lengthy email chains with the counterparty, causing delays and frustrations for sales representatives tasked with processing the next steps.  

Challenges such as misinterpretation of terms, manual routing and approval, and limited collaboration possibilities often result in routine tasks being delayed, errors occurring, and misunderstandings arising. Even utilizing email or SharePoint for routing contracts and maintaining an active copy may not fully address these challenges. 

Approval process with Documill  

Accuracy and consistency save time and satisfy customers, reducing the need for manual contract routing and updates and freeing up time for negotiations and approvals. 

With Documill, real-time updates and visibility into contract creation project statuses, along with automated notifications in Salesforce and Slack, revolutionize how you work on digital contracts. Unique workflow templates tailored to your contract creation needs can streamline the drafting and reviewing process, minimizing errors and increasing efficiency. 

Different parties, including external departments and contract stakeholders without access to your Salesforce CRM, can have tailored access to the contract.  

Signing and delivery  

The signing and delivery phase typically does not require active legal involvement. However, optimizing the relationship between sales and legal teams is crucial. Firstly, implementing automated final reviews by legal representatives before automatically sending documents to customers and other parties for signing is essential.  

Traditional methods like email and SharePoint make this process challenging, particularly with manual signing involving printing, scanning, or using external e-signing operators. As businesses increasingly engage in cross-border relationships, relying on wet signatures can hinder finalizing agreements, especially with non-local clients. Wet ink signatures often involve emailing contracts, saving as PDFs, printing, signing, scanning, and returning via email—a tedious and slow process. 

Signing and delivery with Documill 

Documill streamlines electronic contract signing within the same workspace where contracts were created and negotiated, ensuring compliance with enterprise security standards. After signing, Documill can automatically deliver PDF documents to the legal team, either to their preferred storage location or directly to Salesforce, complete with audit trails. 

With Documill, legal and sales representatives no longer need to manually handle documents once all stages are complete. Documill can automatically store signed PDFs in Salesforce, SharePoint, or Google Drive. This enhances visibility across the organization, ensuring a single source of truth for deals. 

Automated contract workflows offer numerous benefits, including increased visibility for contract managers to estimate the contract creation process and analyze relevant metrics. By analyzing contract workflow data, such as editing, approval, and collaboration phases, companies can identify areas for improvement in communication and collaboration among departments, making it a valuable tool for all team members. 

Documill Leap: better collaboration between sales & legal 

Contract creation with Documill: 

  1. Use contract generation with preapproved legal templates. 
  2. Go from initial draft to final contract: Utilizing pre-built templates with adaptable clauses tailored to specific cases, considering potential income through dynamic logic forms prior to contract creation. 
  3. Convenient access to contracts for both internal and external parties or stakeholders throughout all phases of the contract creation process. 
  4. Provision of templates for various document types, facilitating sharing between departments or across departments, in alignment with regulatory standards. 
  5. Quickly create workflows complete with editing, tracking, notifications, approvals, e-signing, and integration with Slack or Microsoft Teams. 
  6. Direct visibility of specific tasks and deadlines within Salesforce. 
  7. Sales and legal teams can monitor contract modifications and renewals, staying informed of any changes. 
  8. Ensure security compliance through robust features like access controls and audit trails. 

Documill customer support offers assistance with implementation and ongoing technical support, streamlining digital contract creation, routing, signing, and delivery for enhanced online efficiency. This enables faster deal closures and facilitates more strategic decision-making.   


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