A Beginner's Guide to Contract Management: Laying the Foundation

Why Chaos in Contract Management is Costing You Big Time

Picture this: you’re sitting in a board meeting when someone asks, “What’s the renewal date on our biggest vendor contract?” Cue the awkward silence. Yep, it’s happened to the best of us.

Without a clear system, managing contracts turns into a time sink (and a stress generator). Studies show that teams without centralized tools spend up to 30% more time searching for documents. And let's not even get started on the potential compliance risks when deadlines slip through the cracks. 

Why Legal Teams Need to Crawl Before They Walk or Run in Contract Management

Let’s face it: managing contracts can feel like trying to organize a closet that’s exploded across your living room. Contracts get lost, deadlines are missed, obligations are forgotten—you know the chaos. But good news: there’s a better way. The "Crawl > Walk > Run" roadmap takes all that legal chaos, reigns it in, and sets you on a path from basic order and organization, to full-on super-team efficiency.

Sound too good to be true? Stick with us. In this blog, we’re focusing on the first phase—the “Crawl” phase—where your legal team can lay its foundation and take the first step toward better contract management. No intimidating overhaul required. Just smart, practical advice to turn your contract clutter into clear, searchable excellence.

Let’s Talk Crawl: The Essential First Step in Contract Management

Every journey begins with a single (but confident) step. The 'Crawl' phase is all about mastering the basics, getting organized, and setting your team up for win after win. Think of it as training wheels: not glamorous, but absolutely essential. The Crawl phase is about working smarter—not harder.

Here’s the crux of the Crawl phase:

Clear the Chaos: Everyone hates hunting down a signature page from 2018. Centralize all your contracts and legal data into a single, organized repository. Consider it the “sock drawer” of your legal house—it’s where everything starts to make sense.

No more rogue spreadsheets or desperate email dives! Once upon a time, you kept hard-copy contracts in a filing cabinet. There were inefficiencies to this system (obviously!) but it was reliable and everybody knew where to go to find what they needed. With the introduction of email, it became faster... but also slower on the tail end, as the final executed contract ended up in somebody's inbox, but not centrally stored and therefore difficult to find.

It's time to bring efficient and reliable together. No, you don’t need to reinvent the wheel here. You just need to get rolling.

Step 1: Gather All the (Messy) Pieces

• Dig into the nooks and crannies of your legal team’s workflow. Find those scattered contracts: digital files, paper copies, stray Post-it notes from three years ago. They all matter, and they all belong in one place.

Step 2: Adopt a Matter and Contract Repository

• Enter the ultimate game-changer: a centralized contract repository. This can be digital (spoiler: it should be), searchable, and designed to save your team’s sanity. Start small; even a spreadsheet beats scattered chaos.

Step 3: Assign Roles and Responsibilities

• Designate the go-to people for managing key contracts. Use tools that allow permissions and visibility settings to make ownership clear.

Case in Point: Small Tools, Big Results One in-house legal team started their Crawl phase by organizing 500 contracts into an entry-level contract management software tool. In six months, what used to take 45 minutes to locate (and often misplaced) took less than 2 minutes—freeing up critical time to focus on bigger priorities.

The Immediate Wins of Crawling in Contract Management

You might be thinking, “Sure, this sounds good. But show me the results.” Don’t worry, we’ve got you.

1. Visibility Like Never Before—One search bar, endless clarity. You’ll always know which contracts are active, overdue, or up for renewal.
2. Time Savings That Add Up—Shave hours from your weekly “search and rescue” missions.
3. Stress-Free Compliance—Deadlines? Tracked. Obligations? Transparent. Sleep at night? Restful. 

Objections? Let’s Break Those Down

“But Jac, we just don’t have the time…”
That’s exactly why you need this! Crawling takes far less time than you think—and saves you way more down the line.

“We can’t afford fancy software right now.”
No worries! Plenty of affordable or even free tools can get you started. Remember, Crawl is about starting small.

“My team hates change.”
Who doesn’t? The trick is to sell the benefits. A 40% reduction in time lost to inefficiency tends to speak for itself.

Buckle Up: You’re on Your Way to Walking

Once your contracts are organized and accessible, your team is prepped to graduate to the next level: the Walk phase. That’s where you’ll bring in workflows, approvals, and e-signatures—true power tools for modern legal teams. But for now? Focus on mastering those basics and watch how quickly the chaos clears.

Ready to Stop Crawling and Start Organizing?

Don’t stop here. Our white paper dives even deeper into the 'Crawl > Walk > Run' roadmap, complete with tips, case studies, and actionable steps for transforming your legal operations.