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Contract management software on M‑Files

Know about the renewal before it happens

A supplier contract renewed itself because the notice date sat in one person's calendar. On M‑Files every contract is filed with its dates and its owner, and the owner gets a task before the notice date. The signed copy and the drafts stay with it.

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The M-Files web client with a contract register, agreements listed by the date each runs to with its type and workflow state, beside the framework agreement's metadata card
The basics

What contract management software does

Contract management software keeps every contract in one register with its counterparty, its owner and the dates that matter, runs review, approval and signature as a workflow, and reminds the right person before a notice date. On M‑Files the register builds itself from the contracts' metadata.

Drafted from a template

A new contract starts from your approved template in Word, and the template fills in the counterparty and the dates from the details on the contract.

Approved in a workflow

Review and approval are tasks with deadlines. Each handover is recorded with the time and the user, and the workflow moves on when all approvers have responded.

Signed electronically

With the DocuSign or Adobe Acrobat Sign integration and your own subscription to that service, the signed contract comes back to M‑Files automatically.

Filed under the counterparty

One copy of the contract appears under the customer or supplier, under its owner and in the register, because those are its metadata rather than folders.

Reminded before the notice date

A task goes to the contract owner a set time before the notice date. Reminders are configured, so other dates on the contract can carry a task of their own.

Archived or deleted by rule

When a contract has ended, a retention rule archives or deletes it after the period you set, and someone can be told before that happens.

From draft to renewal

Someone owns the contract at every stage

When one stage is done, the next person is told it is their turn.

  1. Draft

    Contract owner

    The contract is written in Word from an approved template, which fills in the counterparty and the dates from the contract's own details.

  2. Review and approval

    Reviewers and approvers

    Reviewers and approvers each get a task with a deadline and a reminder before it, and every step is logged with who and when.

  3. Signed

    Contract owner

    The contract goes out for signature with DocuSign or Adobe Acrobat Sign, using your own subscription to that service, and the signed copy returns to the contract by itself. The drafts stay in its version history.

  4. Active

    Everyone with access

    The contract is found under the counterparty and in the contract register, sorted by end date or notice date.

  5. Renew or end

    Before the notice date, the contract owner gets a task to decide. A contract that has ended is archived or deleted by a retention rule after the time you set.

Day to day

The contract register updates itself

  • A contract register you can filter — See the active contracts by counterparty, by owner or by end date. The list is built from the contracts themselves, so there is no spreadsheet to keep up to date.
  • Renewal reminders go to a role — Tasks and notifications go to a role such as contract owner. The reminder is still there when the person who held the role has left.
  • Open to the people involved — Who can open a contract follows what kind of contract it is. Access can widen or narrow as the contract moves from draft to signed.
  • One spelling of every counterparty — Counterparties can come from your CRM or ERP through an integration, so the same customer is spelled one way.
  • Written in Word — Drafts are opened from Word and saved straight back to M‑Files. A template can fill in details such as the counterparty.
  • A record of who changed what — Changes to the contract and its details are logged, and so are downloads and uploads.
The agreement register in M-Files with a framework agreement selected, and beside it the assignment that reminds its owner to decide before the notice date
Integrations

Works with Office, Outlook and your ERP

Contracts are written in Word, negotiated by email and belong to customers and suppliers that your other systems already know. Each of those connects to M‑Files.

Word, Excel and PowerPoint

Open, edit and save contracts from Office and fill in the metadata as you save. Details from M‑Files, such as the counterparty, can be inserted into the document itself and kept up to date.

Outlook

The emails around a negotiation are filed from Outlook with their metadata, and M‑Files can pick up the counterparty or the contact from the email.

CRM and ERP

Lists such as customers and suppliers are kept in sync with your business system, so a contract is filed under the same counterparty your ERP knows, spelled one way.

Teams

Open contracts and search the vault from Teams.

M‑Files Aino

Ask Aino what a contract says and get the answer with the document it came from, or a summary of a long agreement. Aino only uses content you are allowed to see.

Scanned contracts

Signed paper contracts are scanned, and M‑Files OCR makes them searchable PDFs, so an old agreement is found by the words in it.

See a contract go from draft to renewal

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In the same vault

Contracts belong to someone

A supplier agreement, a customer contract and an employment contract are all contracts, and each also belongs to a supplier, a customer or an employee. The same vault holds them with those records.

Supplier agreements

Under the supplier, next to its certificates and the list of what expires next.

Learn more 

Customer contracts

Under the customer, with the proposal, the emails and the opportunity they came from.

Learn more 

Employment contracts

In the employee file, open to HR and the manager only, and deleted by rule after the leaving date.

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Getting there

From the spreadsheet to a register

We scope and deliver full M‑Files implementations, and contracts are a good place to start with a pilot. M‑Files is sold as Essentials and Enterprise; Essentials has a published per-user price on m-files.com, and Enterprise is quoted.

  1. Scope

    Together

    We go through the kinds of contract you hold, who owns them, which dates matter and who may see what.

  2. Set up

    Our consultants

    The contract type, its metadata, the register, the workflow and the reminders are set up, your templates are brought in, and counterparties are connected to your CRM or ERP where you want them.

  3. Bring the contracts in

    Together

    Existing contracts are scanned or moved in with their counterparty and dates. With the M‑Files Metadata Agent, metadata can be suggested for existing documents in bulk.

  4. Live, with support

    After go-live you have fast access to specialist knowledge, an agreed SLA, technical advice and support, and enquiries are answered the same working day.

Next step

Watch a contract go from draft to renewal

In a demo we take one contract from the first draft to the signed copy, and on to the task before its notice date. Tell us how you keep track of renewals today, and we answer the same working day.

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Questions

Questions about reminders and signing

How do the reminders work?
They are part of the contract's workflow in M‑Files. Each state in the workflow can notify a role, create an assignment with a deadline, change who has access or update the metadata. The reminder before the notice date is an assignment to the contract owner, and you decide how long before the date it arrives.
Can we sign with DocuSign or Adobe Acrobat Sign?
Yes. With M‑Files' DocuSign or Adobe Acrobat Sign integration and your own subscription to that service, the signed document returns to M‑Files automatically. Otherwise the contract owner adds the signed copy to the contract.
Where do the drafts go once the contract is signed?
They stay in the contract's version history. M‑Files keeps every change as a new version, so people open the current one and the earlier ones remain available.
How is access to a contract decided?
Permissions follow the contract's class and metadata, and the workflow can change them as the contract moves on. A draft can be limited to the people working on it, and the signed contract opened to a wider group.
Who gets the reminder, and can there be more than one?
The task goes to a role, such as contract owner, taken from the contract's metadata, so it survives staff changes. Reminders are configured with workflow notifications and assignment deadlines, so a contract can have one task before the notice date and another before the end date, each to the role you choose.
Can we use our own contract templates?
Yes. Your templates are stored in M‑Files as templates, and when a contract is created from one, M‑Files fills in the fields you have marked, such as the counterparty's name, from the contract's details. The fields are updated when the document is opened in Office, or at check-in.
How do our existing contracts get in?
Paper contracts are scanned, and M‑Files OCR turns them into searchable PDFs. Files on a share or in SharePoint Online can be shown through connectors first and moved in later. Each contract needs its counterparty and dates filled in; with the M‑Files Metadata Agent, M‑Files can suggest them for existing documents in bulk. Document management on M‑Files describes the move from a file share.
Does it run in the cloud or on our own servers?
Either, or a hybrid of the two. M‑Files Cloud runs on Microsoft Azure, where your data is encrypted both in storage and on its way over the internet, and M‑Files holds an ISO/IEC 27001 certification that covers M‑Files Cloud, Hubshare and Aino. Pricing and editions sets out what a quote contains.