Security contract management software contains all the technologies and systems used to safeguard contracts from unauthorized loss, access, or theft by outside or inside forces. Security infringements can result in the most extreme consequences for your company, especially in the modern hyper-connected and technologically advanced world of social media. Below are six best practices you can implement to safeguard your contracts.
Six Security Contract Management Best Practices
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Store All Your Contracts in a Safe Electronic Repository
Storing all your contracts in a cloud-based and password-protected repository is an essential measure of security contract management. Doing this will help you keep your documents organized and lower the risk of exposing them to the wrong people by storing them. It further enables you to safely access any document at any moment from anywhere on any mobile or web device.
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Intake of Contract Information through Secure Forms
Numerous companies still depend on email to receive the required information to bid on contracts. Regular email is the most prevalent way cybercriminals penetrate corporate networks with malicious or pirated software. However, with encrypted and pre-defined intake forms, your workforce can quickly and correctly submit an existing agreement, request an enterprise contract, or create one. An encrypted form guarantees the security and integrity of data captured for your arrangements, lowers the requirement for double data entry or hunting down missing information, and reduces errors.
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Leverage e-Signatures
Utilizing e-Signatures for your agreements expedites the authorization and implementation procedures and offers more robust security. Moreover, unlike physical signatures, electronic signatures give you secure authentication and an online audit track. They also allow signing agreements from anywhere and on any mobile or web device, which expedites the procedure and enhances the user experience.
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Make Sure Your Agreement Details Are Encrypted in Transit
An essential security contract management best practice to safeguard your contracts from unauthorized individuals is encrypting your record data. Furthermore, you would want to encrypt data in transit and at rest using the latest TLS 1.2 standards and AES 256-bit encryption.
Data at rest refers to any information held within your contract management software. On the other hand, data in transit is any information transmitted externally to or from your contract management software to a user or another system.
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Execute Role-based Protection to Your Contracts and Related Data
One of the challenges of holding contracts in multiple locations is managing multiple access tiers. Once you’ve stored all your contracts in one repository online, you can assign role-based approvals for improved safety. It lets the appropriate people read or edit documents but refuses entry to others. User protections also restrict unauthorized people from seeing contract elements.
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Deploy a CLM (Contract Lifecycle Management) Solution
Choosing an excellent security contract management software will save your company money and time and increase your company’s reputation for security.
Four Common Risks of Not Using Security Contract Management
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Missed Renewals or Deadlines
Manual data processing could result in missed deadlines or renewals because tracking and retrieval are tricky. In addition, a missed renewal or deadline date could be deemed a security threat in contract management, resulting in legal action or losing the client. Dedicated security contract management software can guarantee notifications of upcoming renewal dates and deadlines using features like push notifications or automated workflows.
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Cyber Data Threat
If you follow the security contract management best practices, you can remain assured that your data is secure in the digital space.
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Non-compliance Problems
You do not wish to be the one who infringes on the provisions of the contract. Non-compliance can damage the organization’s prominence and future business possibilities. However, with automated contract management software, you can effortlessly examine and offer updates to them without any hassle.
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Corporate Spying
With the practical security standards and audit trail elements of contract management software, you can ensure that your company’s vendor contracts and other agreement details are secure from corporate spying.
Key Terms
- Approval Phase: The approval phase is a stage of the contract management procedure where a contract is internally evaluated and ratified by, typically, high-level administration.
- Contract Archive: A contract archive is a dedicated repository service for signed agreements and a fundamental aspect of automated contract management software.
- Contract management: Contract management is the comprehensive procedure of handling contracts. In modern times, contract management uses automated tools that make the job more efficient and allow businesses to reduce expenses, concentrate their resources, and handle liabilities satisfactorily.
Conclusion
Contract security management is an essential procedure for any company. Security contract management software gives employees access to contracts essential to completing their assignments while barring access to everyone else outside and inside the company. This security software is designed to limit data breaches, ransomware, theft, and other cyberattacks.
If you are interested in making it easy to search through your contracts, LawInsider’s contract repository makes it easy for you to upload your documents and find the hidden contracts among them. From 100 to 100,000 contracts, there are no limits and no hidden fees for the amount of documents that you can organize. With secure access and encryption for all files, you can be sure that your contracts stay safe and private.
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Tags: Contract Management, Contract, Security