How to manage contracts with excel (template included)

Why do I need a contract management template excel?

Excel is one of the most accessible and widely used software platforms in the world, and as a result is used by many organizations to capture and collect the data contained in contracts. However, Excel is not optimally designed for this purpose and is therefore mostly used only at the very beginning of the contract management activity as a temporary contract database.

In this article, we will show how to use the basic functions of Microsoft Excel to create a contract database and also directly provide a contract management template excel for free.

If you are ready for a modern and easy-to-use SaaS solution for contract management and its automation, we recommend you to take a look at our contract management software fynk directly. Otherwise, please read on here and download our contract management template excel!

Download: Contract management template excel

If you are planning to manage contracts in Excel without using any special contract database software to keep your documents under control, you can use this free contract management template excel template to manage your contracts:

Why do we need contract management?

Contracts are an essential foundation for businesses to generate revenue. Without focused contract management, valuable agreements can be lost, which can have serious and expensive consequences. As the volume of contracts increases, effective contract management becomes even more important because it saves parties time and money and offers numerous benefits in terms of business strategies and procedures.

Many companies invest significant time and resources in creating and negotiating contracts. Despite these efforts, once a contract is signed, parties sometimes fail to properly monitor and oversee the implementation of the agreement. Effective contract management fosters better relationships between parties, helps with compliance, and mitigates risk.

Why could a contract management template excel be the solution?

A professional contract automation software solution is not the right solution for every company. It depends on the size and stage of the company’s development, as well as the type of contracts it typically handles. In the beginning, when looking for an easy way to get started in terms of contracts, a contract management template excel can play a useful role during the contract management lifecycle.

Below are some reasons why companies use a contract management template excel to manage contracts:

• It is cost-effective to work with existing tools.
• Microsoft Excel is widely used throughout the world.
• Excel can be very powerful - if used properly.
• A contract database Excel can be easily shared, and it is not too difficult to edit.

A contract management template excel can be an easy starting point for individuals in an organization to capture data from contracts. However, one should be aware that simply managing contracts with Excel can lead to hidden risks depending on where the spreadsheet is stored, who has access to it, and whether unexpected changes or duplicates can be made.

What to look for in a contract management template excel?

Effective contract management with a contract management template excel requires accuracy and awareness of critical data within contracts. If Excel is to be your solution for securely managing contracts, you must also restrict what data can be entered into certain fields on the spreadsheet, track changes so that updates requiring approval are highlighted, and lock the spreadsheet to ensure that no changes are made without approval.

A robust contract storage system that ensures current versions are linked and previous versions are kept for comparison is essential.

Advantages and disadvantages of Excel contract management

Many companies use Excel for contract management for one simple reason: they already have it installed on their computer. Excel has several features that can be used for contract management - when used correctly, it gives a quick overview of the number of contracts, the liability cap for each contract, and you can also easily track the status of individual contracts. A contract management template excel template for contract management can be used to create a basic system that performs important tasks and is relatively easy for employees to use.

However, although spreadsheets have changed the world and revolutionized the way business is conducted, studies indicate that the vast majority of Excel sheets contain errors and just under half of spreadsheets used by large companies even have significant errors. Contracts are among the most important documents a company handles - and any source of error is difficult to justify.

Excel is mostly unsuitable for contract management for the following reasons:

1. Limitations

Excel does not provide an overview of the entire contract lifecycle and has no actual contract management functions.

2. Cumbersome

Excel spreadsheets must be created and maintained manually by copying and pasting data from one spreadsheet to another, which makes searching, collaborating, and sharing extremely difficult.

3. No contract creation function

It is obvious that Excel is not capable of designing or creating documents, so it can only assist in managing documents if they have already been created.

4. No signature function

This feature also requires the use of a separate e-signature platform to sign and thus validate documents before actually managing them in Excel.

5. Lack of metadata

An Excel spreadsheet is a static file, which means that the data it contains cannot be easily transferred between systems in an integrated workflow.

While a free contract management template excel can get you started, it is generally not a long-term solution for creating, agreeing on, and managing the contracts that come with a growing business.

Are you ready to leave the contract management template excel behind?

Do you want to gain more control over your contract process? Do you need a robust contract management solution that automates the entire process from contract creation to signing and storage? If you’d like to learn more about securely managing contracts from start to finish in your browser, feel free to contact us anytime.

Author:

Markus Presle