Implementing Document Automation for Faster Contract Drafting

Efficiency is everything in today's high-speed business world, extending to contract drafting, where time kills deals. Manual and often labor-intensive processes for traditional contract drafting can slow the process of contracts, reduce legal accuracy, and increase ambiguity in a law-filled area, which is simply unacceptable. A document automation tool can finally solve these challenges, making the process faster and more accurate. In this article, I explain what we gained from allowing document creation automation, which sped up the contract process and its implementation procedures, alongside tips to ensure they are followed correctly.

What is Document Automation?

Document Automation or Document Generation/Contract Automation uses software tools to create and manage documents based on predefined rules, templates, and content libraries. Businesses use automation tools to draft, not make each contract afresh, but generate documents by filling templates with specifics. It can be used with different types of documents, but it is beneficial for contracts as they require consistency and quick responses.

The Perks of Document Automation

Improved Efficiency: Document automation dramatically accelerates the contract drafting process by automatically handling menial templating tasks. Rather than hiring lawyers to draft contracts over hours or days, automated tools can generate a document in mere minutes, freeing up valuable time for legal teams.

Better Accuracy: Manual contract drafting is always associated with some human error. Automation helps minimize such risks as standard clauses and provisions are automatically applied thanks to automation. Its regularity lowers the possibility of mistakes and guarantees that all contracts are aligned with organizational and legal variations.

Cost Savings: Automating the contract creation process saves costs by reducing the time and effort required to draft a contract. Less legal work also means less time spent creating those contracts, which in turn leads to more savings associated with administrative overhead (such as sales admin and finance chasing the business for approval) on high-volume contract organizations.

Upgraded Compliance: Managers can automate tools to reflect the newest legal and regulatory updates. This ensures that the contract complies with current laws and standards, thereby significantly minimizing risks of disputes or penalties.

Scalable: As the business grows and workloads increase with more contracts, document automation can expand quickly. Organizations that are becoming more service-centric or entering new markets value this flexibility.

Consistency and Uniformity: Automated tools can enforce a common choice of language and clauses across all contracts. Consistency is key in this respect to creating a consistent contract management regime for all parties operating under the same parameters.

How to Choose a Document Automation Platform

For an efficient changeover and to successfully implement document automation, one has to incorporate strategic measures. Here, we sketch out how automation can generally be incorporated into contract drafting:

1. Assess Current Processes

Before building automation, make sure you know your present contract drafting flows. Research and understand your current inefficiencies and opportunities automation provides. One handy thing about this evaluation is that it will help you identify what should be automated and your specific goals from automation.

2. Set Goals and Standards

Define your Document Automation Objectives. These objectives may include improving drafting time, reducing errors, providing better compliance, etc. Further, map out the exact needs of the automation system to include what kind of agreements need to be automated, selling points by which systems, and access criteria, such as who should get it.

3. Select an Automation Tool Properly

You are choosing the right document automation tool. Consider things like useability, integration with your existing systems, scalability, and customer success. You can look at different tools and compare them regarding features, price points, and reviews. Well, here are a few popular document automation tools:

DocuSign CLM: Renowned for its excellent UI/UX and contract management capabilities.

ContractExpres: is an enterprise-grade solution for creating and managing templates and integrating them into other systems.

HotDocs:  comes with robust automation and potential for customization.

Agiloft: Famous for its highly customizable, flexible nature.

4. Develop Templates and Rules

Develop templates for the contracts you intend to automate. Such templates should contain pre-defined contractual clauses, provisions, and text format styles. You also want to define how data will be rendered in your templates, such as if/else logic for rendering a specific part of the template based on contract type or customer requirement.

5. Systems should be able to grow to different places and still work together as always.

See if the document automation tool integrates well with your existing systems, including CRM software, a document management system, or an e-signature platform. It allows for a fantastic workflow, your apps are integrated well, and system data moves well.

6. Train Your Team

Train your team members who will be using the automation tool well. The training should teach them what the tool does, how to use templates properly, and some common problems they might face. Appropriate training helps with the hands-on such that the transition is seamless and will get you ROI from automation.

7. Test and Refine

Be sure to test extensively before you run the automation tool course. Use the tool for different contract types and use cases to verify that it suits your needs and acts as you desire. Collect user feedback and modify the app accordingly.

8. Monitor and Evaluate

After implementation, constantly check on how your document automation system is faring. Measure the amount of time it takes to draft, accuracy, and user satisfaction. Periodically review how practical or valuable the system is and adjust as appropriate if there are problems you need to resolve or that require change.

9. Update and Maintain

Creating an automated document is not a set-and-forget activity; tuning the automation requires continued coordination with IT. All templates should be reviewed and updated regularly to keep up with changes in law, internal company policies, or practice. Finally, be aware of the new features and developments in automation technology to keep your system relevant.

Document Automation Best Practices

To fully obtain the value of document automation and successfully implement it, follow these best practices.

1. Standardize Templates

Create and maintain standard contract templates. With templated screens, all operations go through the same UI, which reduces scripting and also maintains a standard look and feel throughout entire files. Review and update templates frequently to capture changes in legal compliance or policy configuration for the organization.

2. Implement Version Control

Track changes to templates and documents with version control. Version control simplifies change tracking and preserves an accurate version history for documents, ensuring that the most recent versions are always used when drafting.

3. Ensure Data Accuracy

Data input is also vital for accurate document automation. Validate and verify the data being used to generate templates to confirm their correctness and completion.

4. Provide Ongoing Training

Provide continuous training and support for document automation system users. Keep users updated with the latest capabilities as well. Users always love it when they know what they can do better nowadays, given new features are easily released into circulation from time to time.

5. Regularly Review and Improve

Measure the performance of your document automation system regularly and get feedback from users. This allows you to see what areas need work and make adjustments, which will both save time and improve accuracy, giving value back to your users.

6. Prioritize Security

Design document automation around strict security to maintain the safekeeping of sensitive data. Access controls, encryption, and ongoing security audits are vital to availing data safely while protecting controlled information.

7. Leverage Analytics

Analytics tools can give you an idea of how your document automation system is performing. Review statistics such as drafting time, error rates, and user activity to recognize patterns where improvements can be made.

How AI fits into document automation

Although the role of artificial intelligence (AI) has gained momentum in domains such as document automation, innovations still revolve around eliminating manual contract management from our to-do list. AI extends document automation with elements like natural language processing (NLP), machine learning, and predictive analytics.

Artificial Intelligence & Natural Language Processing

Natural Language Processing (NLP) allows automation tools to understand and interpret human language, which is essential for reading complex legal documents. AI-powered natural language processing (NLP) solutions can read through contracts, detect specific clauses, understand the information in documents, and recommend modifications based on context. This saves significant time from manual reviewing and ensures that contracts are correctly written and legally compliant.

NLP can automatically flag clauses that deviate from a standard or anchor inconsistent language in legal documents before they reach a law team. Taking a proactive stance such as this keeps things more uniform and minimizes the possibility of errors that might give rise to legal controversies.

Predictive Analytics with Machine Learning

Using historical contract data, machine learning algorithms can detect patterns and steer Down Systems. This information allows automation tools to forecast risks, offer the best contract deals, and advise on negotiation strategies. For instance, machine learning models can examine prior contract negotiations and suggest more optimal conditions that led to successful outcomes in the past.

Similarly, predictive analytics can help firms predict risks in advance by extracting clauses or provisions that are high risk and thus have a higher chance of disputes or non-compliance. This kind of projection allows legal teams to act before the issue arises, translating into more robust and safer contracts.

Predictions for the Future of Document Automation

Several key trends will shape the future of document automation:

The rise of AI: As artificial intelligence evolves, so will its adoption in document automation. Thanks to AI-driven tools, we will have more advanced and intelligent automation solutions that can better analyze complex documents.

Improved User Experience: Next-generation automation tools will also work to improve user experience by offering more intuitive interfaces, easier integration possibilities, and greater customization. The designs must be user-friendly to increase the adoption and use of automation technology in organizations.

Strong Tilt Towards Data Privacy: With automation becoming more prevalent every day, we will now focus extensively on data security. Reining in DnaNudge Law Solicitations in the future, these solutions will focus on keeping such sensitive contract information very secure and guaranteeing compliance with data protection laws.

Automating Beyond Contracts: Document automation will extend beyond contracts to compliance documentation, reports, and internal policies. The wider use of automation will increase general business productivity and mitigate several administrative duties.

Hello, I'm Sam Momani, the Chief Revenue Officer of iBridge. Our company is reshaping the future by merging cutting-edge technology with human ingenuity, allowing businesses to thrive in the digital age. With a friendly approach, we empower our clients to make informed decisions and drive sustainable growth through the power of data.  Over the past twenty years, our global team has built a proven track record of turning complex information into actionable results. Let's discuss how iBridge can help your business reach its goals and boost its bottom line.

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