7 contract management best practices to streamline workflows

Contract management is the process of creating, executing, storing, and tracking agreements to ensure businesses meet their obligations and reduce legal or financial risk.

Contract management best practices

When done well, it protects revenue, enforces compliance, and improves team collaboration. On the other hand, poor contract management can lead to missed obligations, delayed contract renewals, and revenue lost to unfavorable terms.

1. Centralize contracts to improve visibility and control

A centralized contract repository is a single, organized location where all your business contracts are stored, tracked, and managed. It replaces scattered storage systems with one secure, searchable hub that is accessible to the right people at the right time.

Centralizing contracts gives your team visibility into key terms, renewal dates, and contract compliance obligations. Legal, finance, and operations stay aligned without digging through folders or chasing status updates.

An average of 9% of annual revenue is lost each year due to contract mismanagement. A centralized system helps close those gaps by keeping critical information in one place.

Structuring access and permissions

Structuring access and permissions means setting clear rules for who can view, edit, approve, or delete contracts in your repository. Without this structure, a centralized system would become free for all. This might create confusion, expose sensitive information, and increase the risk of error.

Access controls keep your repository organized and secure. Legal teams might need full editing rights. Finance may only need to view payment and contract terms. Sales may only need visibility into finalized agreements. Assigning access based on role keeps the system efficient and prevents unauthorized changes.

Use role-based access controls (RBAC) to group permissions by job function instead of by individual user. Most contract management software let you set granular permissions by document type, contract stage, or department. This makes it easier to onboard new team members or adjust access when roles shift.

Activity logs and audit trails add accountability by tracking who did what and when. This is especially important when multiple teams work on the same contract. When access and permissions are clearly defined, your centralized contract repository works as intended. It stays clean, reliable, and useful.

2. Use standard templates to reduce legal review time

Manually creating contracts from scratch slows down deals and clogs legal review. When every team creates documents their own way, inconsistencies and errors are bound to happen.

Standard templates are pre-approved contract formats that use consistent language, structure, and terms for specific use cases. These include vendor agreements, NDAs, or partnership contracts. They give teams a reliable starting point and reduce the need for constant legal input.

Templates ensure compliance and reduce unnecessary back-and-forth. Using standardized templates also helps shorten your overall contract cycle times. That’s time saved for legal, sales, and procurement alike.

They also help enforce consistency. Key clauses like payment terms, termination rights, and confidentiality stay aligned with your company’s risk tolerance, irrespective of who’s creating the contract.

With Ramp’s AI-powered categorization and vendor tracking, companies can tie expense types directly to contract templates, like software subscriptions or vendor agreements. When every transaction is tagged consistently, enforcing standardized language and templates across recurring agreements is easier.

3. Assign clear owners for every contract stage

Contract delays often come down to one issue—no one knows who’s responsible for what. Without clear ownership, reviews stall, approvals go missing, and deadlines get pushed.

A contract goes through several stages: drafting, internal review, external negotiation, approval, electronic signatures, storage, and renewal or termination. Each stage involves different teams, priorities, and risks. Contracts sit idle or move forward without proper checks when no one owns a step.

Map ownership across the contract lifecycle

Mapping ownership means assigning one accountable person or team to each phase of the contract lifecycle. This prevents confusion and builds accountability into your process from day one.

• Contract creation: This is where the initial contract is created. Legal teams are best equipped to handle language around risk, liability, and compliance. In some cases, procurement may lead to the creation of vendor contracts using approved templates. Ownership here ensures the contract reflects company standards before it reaches external parties.
• Review and negotiation: The contract often goes through internal and external reviews once drafted. Legal handles compliance and risk, while the business unit (such as sales or operations) ensures the terms match deal expectations. During contract negotiations, both parties collaborate to make edits and manage redlines. Shared ownership ensures nothing is agreed upon without both legal and business input.
• Approval: Before a contract is signed, someone must approve the final terms. This step typically sits with department heads, finance teams, or executive leadership. Approval owners are responsible for checking that the contract aligns with budget, policy, and strategic goals before giving the green light. Tools like Ramp’s streamlined approvals make it easy to build approval workflows that reflect deal size, department, or internal policy. This ensures the right stakeholders review and approve each contract before it moves forward.
• Signature and execution: Once approved, the contract moves to signature. The deal owner—usually someone in sales, procurement, or account management—coordinates signatures from all parties and ensures the contract is formally executed. This person confirms that the latest version is signed and that contract execution happens on time.
• Storage and tracking: The contract must be stored in a centralized repository after signing. Legal or operations teams manage this step, ensuring the document is filed correctly, searchable, and linked to relevant systems (e.g., CRM, accounting). This team also ensures the contract is accessible for audits, renewals, or reporting needs.
• Renewal and termination: As contracts approach their end date, someone needs to track deadlines, evaluate performance, and decide whether to renew, renegotiate, or terminate. This ownership often falls to procurement, finance, or a dedicated contract operations team. They are responsible for triggering internal reviews before key milestones and avoiding auto-renewals that no longer serve the business.

Assigning clear owners to each stage keeps the process moving and prevents gaps. Legal should own drafting and compliance reviews. Sales or procurement may handle initial inputs. Finance can verify payment terms. Operations might manage renewal tracking.

A lack of defined roles slows down their contracting process. Clear ownership helps avoid that by setting expectations from the start.

4. Automate routine steps in your contract process

Manual contract workflows slow teams down. Chasing contract approvals, tracking deadlines, and re-entering the same data across systems eats up hours and increases the risk of errors.

Automation in contract management involves using software to handle repetitive tasks. These include collecting approvals, sending contracts for signatures, reminding teams about upcoming renewals, or pulling key details from contracts. These tasks don’t need legal input but are essential for keeping contracts on track.

Around 45% of contract management processes can be automated with existing tools. That includes tasks like status updates, version tracking, and notification alerts.

Automation keeps contracts from stalling in inboxes. Approval workflows can trigger automatically based on contract value or type. Once signed, the system can auto-store the agreement and schedule a renewal alert months in advance.

It also improves accuracy. When contract data syncs with your CRM, ERP, or billing platform, you avoid retyping terms and reduce the chance of mismatches.

Connect contract workflows to your existing tools

Automating contracts works best when they fit into your teams' tools. Instead of managing contracts in isolation, connect your contract platform to systems like your CRM, ERP, accounting software, or eSignature tools.

This eliminates duplicate work. For example, once a contract is signed in your eSignature platform, it can automatically sync to your CRM and trigger onboarding steps in your ERP.

It also gives every team visibility. Sales see contract status directly in the CRM. Finance can pull billing terms without digging through PDFs. Legal gets alerts on renewals without relying on email chains.

Ramp connects directly with systems like QuickBooks, NetSuite, and Sage to auto-sync contract-related expenses and approvals. For example, when a vendor contract is signed, Ramp can trigger payment workflows, categorize the transaction, and sync it to your ledger without manual input.

5. Monitor contract performance in real-time

Monitoring contract performance in real-time allows you to stay on top of key obligations, deadlines, and financial terms as they occur. This includes checking whether vendors meet service levels, whether customers pay on time, and whether internal teams follow through.

Real-time performance tracking gives you a live view of how contracts are working. You can catch missed SLAs, late payments, or renewal risks before they escalate. It also helps identify contracts that are underperforming or no longer aligned with business goals.

Track the right metrics across active contracts

Start by defining which metrics matter most based on the contract type. This might include delivery timelines, service-level agreement (SLA) adherence, and total spending against budget for vendor contracts. For sales agreements, focus on billing accuracy, renewal status, and customer usage data.

You should also track internal compliance. This will help you understand if your own teams are meeting contractual obligations like payment terms, reporting deadlines, or performance reviews.

You should also map each metric to a data source. This could be your CRM, ERP, invoicing platform, or vendor portal. When data flows automatically into your contract system, you get real-time visibility without manual tracking.

Ramp gives finance and procurement teams real-time visibility into vendor spend by linking transactions to individual contracts. This makes it easier to spot when actual spend exceeds agreed terms. For example, you can catch overages on prepaid software licenses or recurring service fees and adjust budgets or renegotiate before the contract renews.

6. Break down silos between legal, finance, and sales

In many organizations, contract work stalls because teams operate in silos. Legal reviews language. Finance checks payment terms. Sales own the deal. But without coordination, contracts bounce between teams, which can cause delays, confusion, and missed details.

Breaking down silos means creating shared visibility, defined roles, and connected workflows. This lets the teams work together instead of in isolation.

Start by mapping out who owns each stage of the contract. You should make all the responsibilities clear, not just for drafting and approvals but also for negotiation processes, compliance checks, and renewal tracking. Establishing alignment early helps prevent delays and back-and-forth down the line.

Then, bring everyone into a shared system. Tools like Ramp help connect legal, finance, and sales by centralizing vendor records and contract-linked spend in one place. Ramp automatically extracts key contract details, like SKUs, start and end dates to keep teams aligned. Custom fields also let each department track what matters most to their workflow, whether it’s payment terms, usage limits, or compliance notes.

This unified setup removes duplicate work, reduces miscommunication, and ensures everyone is working from the same version of the contract in real-time. It also speeds up turnaround times and helps you catch risks before they impact the business.

7. Maintain compliance and stay audit-ready

Contracts often include obligations tied to regulations, industry standards, or internal policies. Your business risks non-compliance, missed deadlines, and audit failures if those obligations aren't tracked.

Staying compliant requires ongoing oversight across the full contract lifecycle. That includes monitoring deadlines, tracking obligations, and following documented review processes.

To stay audit-ready, you also need organized records. This includes signed contracts, approval logs, change histories, and related correspondence. When everything’s accessible and clearly documented, your team can respond quickly to audits, resolve disputes, and prove compliance without scrambling.

Schedule policy-based contract reviews

Not all contracts require the same level of scrutiny. A low-risk vendor agreement doesn’t need the same oversight as a high-value strategic deal. That’s why review schedules should be driven by contract type, value, and risk profile, not just expiration dates.

Policy-based reviews involve setting rules for how often each contract should be revisited. For example, you might review high-risk contracts every six months and low-risk ones annually. These checkpoints help confirm whether obligations are being met and whether terms still align with your business goals or compliance requirements.

Use automated reminders to trigger reviews before key milestones. This ensures reviews happen on time and nothing gets overlooked.

Centralize documentation for faster audits

Audit readiness depends on access. If supporting documents, like approvals, amendments, and communications, are scattered across inboxes or local folders, your team wastes time pulling them together.

Keep everything in a centralized system that links related records to the contract itself. That includes change logs, signed copies, compliance checklists, and internal approvals. A clear audit trail proves that you’ve followed policy, maintained oversight, and kept the contract compliant throughout its lifecycle.

With organized documentation and a structured review process, you reduce audit risks and avoid surprises.

Run smoother operations with effective contract management solutions

Contracts shape how money moves, how risk is managed, and how teams work together. However, without the right structure, they create bottlenecks instead of value.

When contracts are centralized, use consistent templates, and move through clearly defined workflows, teams spend less time tracking details and more time executing. Automation keeps things moving, while real-time performance tracking helps catch issues before they grow.

Tools like Ramp bring structure to your contract workflows by automating vendor tracking, syncing real-time data, and reducing manual work. This helps you focus on scaling your business with confidence.