

Many organizations are struggling with this. "The first source of value lies in getting all your contracts into a single repository where everyone can get access to them," said Andrew Bartels, vice president and principal analyst at Forrester Research. In the meantime, enterprises will have to settle for tools that make it a little easier for legal and financial analysts to estimate risks and revenues. In the long run, he believes more advanced AI tools will make it easier to translate the implications of individual contracts into plain English. Vendors like Kira Systems are in the early stages of using AI to add metadata to large portfolios of contracts, which can make it easier to bring older contracts into an integrated contract lifecycle management repository, Misterman said. A CFO needs to make sure an upfront payment for these complex offerings is appropriately translated into a revenue stream that is realized in the appropriate quarter and taxes, commissions and royalties are paid out accordingly.

This may in part be due to surging interest in new as-a-service models, in which complex business products are packaged around recurring revenue streams. Misterman said his company is seeing more interest in revenue recognition than in responding to changing regulations like GDPR. Large enterprises, in particular, are using contract analytics tools from vendors like Kira Systems to bring large volumes of legacy contracts into a common CLM repository on the Apttus platform. One of the biggest reasons for contract lifecycle management initiatives is to improve revenue recognition processes, said James Misterman, managing consultant at Mainspring Consulting Group, in an interview.
Aptus contract management software#
Apttus, which hosted the conference, announced contract management software called Omni that is designed to address these problems by serving as a "middle office" repository for managing information across ERP and CRM functions, including contracts.

The underlying problem is that people with these different roles often use disparate tools to interact with separate parts of the business's software environment. Why is one rep in Brazil selling 85% of all keyboards?.What are our current risks, and how do they change in response to new regulations and economic trends?.Things only grow more complex as enterprises look for ways to manage portfolios of thousands or millions of contracts - and the revenue, risks and individual incentives associated with them.Īs a result, when businesses look at contract lifecycle management, they approach it with questions like: This is no easy task since CFOs, chief risk officers, legal teams, sales people and business app developers all look at individual contracts through different lenses, and their objectives and interpretations don't always line up. In response, they're implementing contract lifecycle management initiatives to bring more clarity and consistency across their organizations. Performance and behavior, and remedies in response to deviations."īut at the Apttus Accelerate conference, it soon became clear that enterprises are struggling with differences in what contracts really mean to different stakeholders.
