How to Gain Real-Time Visibility into Your Contract Data
In today’s fast-paced business environment, lack of real-time visibility into contract data is a significant barrier for many organizations. From managing a growing portfolio of contracts to identifying financial risks, finance teams and other key stakeholders need better tools for proactive contract management.
In this article, we explore the challenges leaders face in accessing critical contract data, and how modern contract lifecycle management (CLM) software with advanced reporting and search capabilities can provide the transparency needed to drive more efficient, data-driven decision-making.
The pain of lack of real-time visibility into contract data
A recent survey we conducted in our Agreement Intelligence Market Report found that 100% of respondents identified lack of real-time visibility into contract data as one of the major pain points they face when managing their contracts. This problem goes beyond the simple challenge of locating contract files. The real issue is being able to access critical data within these contracts to inform strategic business decisions and drive operational efficiency. Without immediate access to up-to-date, comprehensive data, organizations struggle to manage their contract portfolios effectively and make informed decisions that affect their bottom line.
Gaia Olcese, Procurement Manager at Satispay, vividly illustrates this frustration. She explains, “Better visibility would be amazing. We have more than 12,000 contracts, and their data is not sorted.” The inability to quickly find, organize, and analyze contract data not only hinders proactive management but also leads to inefficiencies that can expose organizations to unnecessary financial risks. With the growing volume of contracts and the increasing complexity of business environments, the lack of visibility can quickly escalate from a minor inconvenience to a significant business risk.
This lack of transparency makes it clear that organizations need more than just document storage solutions — they need real-time visibility. The demand for better visibility directly translates into a need for robust contract management reporting and advanced search capabilities within contract lifecycle management (CLM) systems.
Finance teams, for example, require customizable dashboards, automated alerts, and advanced analytics to proactively manage their contract portfolio. With these tools, finance teams can track contract performance, ensure compliance, and identify potential risks — all without manually sifting through stacks of paper or digging through legacy systems that lack efficient searching functionality.
Granular search functionality: a game-changer for finance teams
One of the biggest challenges for finance teams is the inability to quickly pinpoint key clauses, specific terms, and financial obligations within lengthy contracts. Granular search functionality is essential to overcoming this challenge. It’s no longer enough for a system to simply retrieve an entire document when searching for contract data. As the CFO of a healthcare organization points out, “When I query in our legacy software, the search brings up the document, but it’s a hundred-page document. The software is not showing me where it is in the document.” This is a common pain point that significantly slows down the contract management process and makes it difficult to extract key data points in a timely manner.
By implementing advanced search features within a CLM system, businesses can quickly access the exact information they need without wasting valuable time. Whether it’s financial terms, specific obligations, or clauses that need renegotiation, improved search capabilities help teams make faster, more informed decisions and ensure compliance.
Scalability and performance: essential for growing organizations
Another important consideration in contract management is scalability. As organizations grow, so does the size of their contract portfolios. Without scalable systems in place, managing these increasing volumes of contracts can quickly become overwhelming. Jonathan Chang, VP of Finance at Kojo, emphasizes this point: “At the end of the day, we just need to make sure that we have that paper trail.” This need for scalability underscores the importance of having a CLM solution that can easily handle large volumes of contracts and maintain data integrity even as the business expands. Performance and data hygiene are critical to ensuring that contract data remains accurate and easily accessible as organizations scale.
Without robust search functionality and scalable solutions, businesses risk falling into inefficient manual processes, including data entry and reconciliation, which exacerbate the visibility problem. These processes consume valuable time and resources and can lead to costly mistakes. As businesses grow and contract volumes increase, contract visibility must be at the forefront of their contract management strategy.
Real-time visibility: a necessity for modern finance teams
Ultimately, real-time visibility into contract data is no longer a luxury but a necessity for modern finance teams that are focused on optimizing contract value and mitigating contract risks. With automated alerts, advanced analytics, and granular search functions, organizations can proactively identify and address issues before they become problems. CLM solutions that offer these capabilities ensure that business leaders can make informed decisions based on accurate, real-time contract data. This level of visibility helps businesses drive efficiency, reduce financial risk, and achieve better contract outcomes across the organization.
