5 Ways to Improve Contract Compliance in Your Organization

Want to avoid costly mistakes and legal risks? Here’s how to improve contract compliance in your organization today:

1. Centralize Contracts in a Secure Cloud: Store all contracts in one place with encryption and access controls for easy, secure access.

2. Use Standard Templates and Workflows: Simplify compliance by creating pre-approved templates and formalized processes.

3. Automate Alerts for Key Dates: Set reminders for renewals, payments, and performance reviews to stay on track.

4. Schedule Regular Reviews: Conduct audits quarterly or annually to catch issues early.

5. Train Your Team: Educate employees on contract obligations and use tools to manage tasks efficiently.

Tools like Trackado make compliance easier by centralizing documents, automating alerts, and streamlining audits. Start building a compliance framework to reduce financial, legal, and reputational risks.

How to Safeguard Compliance with your Vendors and their …

1. Store All Contracts in One Secure Cloud Location

Keeping all your contracts in a single, secure cloud repository simplifies compliance and ensures authorized users can access them instantly through a browser ^[2]. When evaluating cloud storage solutions, focus on key security features.

Key Security Features for Cloud Storage

• Encryption: Protects documents with TLS/SSL during transmission and file encryption while stored ^[1].

• Access Control: Sets different permission levels to manage who can view, edit, or handle specific contracts ^[2].

How Trackado Simplifies Contract Management

Trackado goes beyond basic cloud storage by offering tools designed to streamline compliance and organization.

Efficient Organization

• Easily sort contracts by department, partner, or custom fields to track compliance ^[2].

Easy Access

• Access contracts instantly through a browser – no software installation needed ^[2].

Once your contracts are centralized, consider using templates and workflows to maintain consistent compliance across all agreements.

2. Use Standard Contract Templates and Processes

Centralizing contracts is just the first step. Using standard templates ensures consistency, simplifies reviews, and can lead to savings of up to 80%.

Build a Template Library

A well-organized template library ensures all contracts meet regulatory requirements and minimizes compliance risks. Start by creating a contract manual that includes:

• Required permits and regulatory standards

Pre-approved templates allow legal teams to review documents more efficiently, reducing the risk of non-compliance. Standardized templates also help build confidence and secure better contract terms.

Set Up Trackado Contract Workflows

Trackado’s standardized workflows simplify the contract lifecycle by leveraging cloud-based tools to ensure compliance in real time.

“With Trackado, we were able to analyze and draw insights from our contract library, seeing common types of contracts and being able to draw efficiencies from this. It proved to be the right choice for our business. We like that Trackado is simple to use and that we could fairly easily tailor it without costly development time.” ^[1]

For companies managing numerous contracts, Trackado offers several benefits:

Streamlined Uploads

“The email-in feature is also something we use extensively. When our sales team confirms a new contract, they simply copy in the Trackado email address, and the contract is then uploaded directly to our repository. A slight change in our process has made the whole experience much more streamlined and easier to navigate.” ^[1]

Process Formalization

“Going through the different stages of business input, drafting, approvals, and signature was difficult without a formalized process and tool. And Trackado also improves our audit processes!” ^[1]

To stay on top of deadlines, set up automatic alerts for key dates and milestones.

3. Set Up Automatic Alerts and Tracking

Using templates and workflows as a foundation, automate alerts to ensure compliance and avoid missing important deadlines.

Schedule Key Date Reminders

Tout Terrain streamlined its patent management by consolidating records in Trackado. This allowed the company to set up renewal reminders and avoid costly penalties for missed deadlines. Here are some key dates to monitor:

• Renewal deadlines: Set reminders well in advance to manage auto-renewals effectively.

• Compliance review dates: Schedule regular checks to stay aligned with regulatory requirements.

• Payment milestones: Keep an eye on payment schedules and financial commitments.

• Performance reviews: Track service-level agreements and deliverables to ensure everything stays on course.

Track Progress in Trackado

Yiannis Karavassilis, COO of CloudKid, highlighted how Trackado’s email alerts helped avoid unwanted auto-renewals. Here’s what makes Trackado stand out:

• Customizable automated reminders for important dates.

• A centralized dashboard offering insights into performance and financial metrics.

• Quick and easy audit exports, a feature praised by Rakuten Europe.

4. Schedule Regular Contract Reviews

Stay on top of compliance by pairing automated reminders with scheduled audits. These audits help identify and address potential compliance issues before they escalate into expensive problems.

Setting Up an Audit Schedule

For larger organizations with a high volume of contracts, aim to conduct audits quarterly or semi-annually. Smaller organizations can often manage with annual reviews.

Here’s what to focus on during audits:

• Define clear objectives: Look for areas like cost overruns, late deliveries, or penalties.

• Set a manageable scope: Decide how many contracts to review and how much time to allocate.

• Engage stakeholders: Approach audits as opportunities to improve processes, not to assign blame.

Simplify Audits with Trackado

Trackado makes audits faster and more efficient by providing exportable reports and centralized access to all contract documents. With features like standardized templates and automated alerts, it ensures a smooth compliance process.

For example, Rakuten Europe significantly reduced their audit time by using Trackado to export partner reports in just seconds.

Key features of Trackado’s audit tools include:

• Comprehensive compliance reports that can be exported easily.

• A centralized repository with workflows to track actions and updates.

5. Train Teams on Contract Requirements

To ensure contract compliance, it’s essential to train your teams on recognizing and managing contract obligations effectively. With Trackado, this process becomes much easier.

Use Trackado for Training

Equip your teams with the skills to:

• Access and retrieve contracts from Trackado’s centralized system

• Set alerts for renewal or termination dates to avoid missed deadlines

• Assign tasks and responsibilities to specific team members for better clarity

• Manage contract reviews and approvals using the workflow module

• Track all contract-related activity through the platform’s activity log

• Act on automated reminders to stay ahead of upcoming deadlines

Keep Teams Updated with Trackado

Trackado’s workflow system simplifies the review process, ensures contracts reach the right stakeholders, and logs every step for transparency. Automated reminders help your team stay on top of key dates, making it easier to plan for renewals or terminations without any last-minute rush.

Conclusion: Boost Compliance with Cloud Tools

Using the five methods discussed earlier helps you create a strong compliance framework. These approaches – centralized storage, standardized workflows, automated notifications, detailed analytics, and team education – work together to enhance contract compliance.

Cloud-based contract management plays a key role in achieving this. Tools like Trackado not only improve compliance but also help lower financial, legal, and reputational risks.

Take the first step with Trackado today to strengthen compliance and minimize risk.