Advance Your Microsoft 365 Business Central To Manage Contracts

Small and mid-sized businesses have been using Microsoft Business Central to run their operations for years. It offers diverse solutions for organizations across a wide range of industries. Equipped with the latest technologies and artificial intelligence, Business Central is a sure-cut way for enterprises to achieve intelligent automation.   

Though Business Central offers a comprehensive system to tackle day-to-day functioning, they lack the dexterity to handle legal agreements. Contracts are the bread and butter of any organization, they pave the way for everyday proceedings, customer relationships, productivity, and more. Hence, enterprises must update Microsoft Business Central to incorporate contract management. It enables users to enjoy the benefits of both systems without complicated extensions. Keep reading to learn all about integrating contract management software with Business Central. 

What is Microsoft 365 Business Central? 

Microsoft Business Central is an end-to-end commercial solution that empowers organizations to manage entire business operations from a single, comprehensive platform. The cloud-based management system enables enterprises to automate and streamline workflows in finance, procurement, sales, human resources, and more.   

Through Business Central, departments can successfully communicate and collaborate to drive efficiency and productivity. Moreover, the benefits of business solutions are not limited to one industry or team. Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central can be utilized by: 

• Finance department: They can make use of the platform to keep track of audit trails, budgets, assets, payments, expenses, and more.  
• HR department: Manage the payroll, contact information, and employment records of employees from a single system. 
• Sales department: Maintain a record of possible leads, customer information, sales campaign, and so on. 
• Procurement department: It helps to stay on top of purchase orders, vendor lists, financial summaries, etc. 
  

Why is managing contracts in Microsoft 365 Business Central painful? 

Enterprises have hundreds of contracts to manage each month, whether they are for the sales, procurement, or HR departments. If you are bound to depend on just the legal team and manual processes for contract management, getting an agreement to the final stage may take forever. That is why enterprises need to adopt any means necessary to accelerate the contracting process.  

Microsoft Business Central supplies a wide range of industrial functionalities. But they still lack the features to advance legal agreements through the contract lifecycle. But organizations can overcome that deficiency by integrating the platform with contract management software. In the next section, we will discuss in detail how to utilize Business Central contract management to handle contracts.  

How to manage contracts in Microsoft 365 Business Central?  

By integrating Business Central with contract-specific solutions, companies can manage legal documents within the Business Central platform. The contracting lifecycle management can be classified into pre-signature and post-signature stages. Here's how Business Central contract management helps to optimize each phase of the contract lifecycle. 

Pre-signature: 

The contracting process starts off with creating efficient and compliant legal agreements. Thanks to the integrated system, enterprises can employ vendor, customer, and employee information available through Microsoft Business Central to create accurate contracts in no time. Users can auto-populate the data to eliminate human error and tediousness from the contracting process. It also considerably reduces the turnaround time of the contract lifecycle. 

While sales, procurement, finance, and other teams require contracts, they are unable to contribute to the contracting process. Business Central contract management enables companies to facilitate collaboration between legal and other departments. The sales and procurement team can stay on top of the contracting process to track its progress and compliance. Participation of other departments in the contracting process can help the organization to create contractual agreements inclined to the counterparty's best interests. It helps to accelerate the contract review and approval process. Thus, Business Central contract management empowers organizations to simplify and enhance the creation, negotiation, and approval stages of the contract lifecycle.  

Post-signature: 

Once a contract is signed, it is all about maintaining performance and compliance with the legal agreement. An integrated system means the other departments can help to track significant contract milestones and dates. It improves the chances of companies sticking to contract renewal, review, and expiry dates.  

Moreover, Business Central contract management provides enterprises with a better understanding of how contracts affect the rest of business processes and performance. Otherwise, legal and other departments end up with a disconnected system without the means to utilize the collective data. They can make use of contract KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) to evaluate how customers and vendors are faring throughout the contract lifecycle. Therefore, the organization has clear visibility into the operation to forecast actionable insights. 

What are the benefits of Microsoft Business Central contract management? 

We have already established that integrating Microsoft Business Central with contract management software enables enterprises to streamline their day-to-day operations. They no longer must depend on an external system to carry out contract lifecycle management. It reduces the possibility of human error and miscommunication in the contracting process. Here are a few further advantages of Business Central contract management. 

• Less context-switching 

It enables businesses to quickly synchronize data from various systems to enhance the effectiveness and outcomes of business processes. Legal and other departments do not have to keep switching between multiple platforms to carry out their operations. The integrated system empowers organizations to stay ahead of contract lifecycle management from within a single platform. 

• Minimize friction among teams 

While the legal department has direct involvement in the contracting process, the other teams play a significant role in its maintenance and success. With Business Central contract management, the legal team can respond to the growing demands of scaling businesses by incorporating other departments in the contracting process. It enables them to utilize insights and information from internal operations to refine the contractual agreements.  

Moreover, at the end of the day, the legal department can stay in control of the contract lifecycle management to establish compliance. Therefore, there is no scope for other teams to step on the toes of legal by self-serving contracts.  

• Financial optimization 

There is no doubt that employing multiple platforms to carry out business operations can adversely affect the productivity and expenses of an organization. But apart from a solid singular solution for workflows and processes, Business Central also provides access to real-time financial summaries and order lists. Broadening the scope of contract management with Business Central maximizes the company's investment in contractual agreements.  

Users can utilize accurate data to ensure timely payments and contract performance. Moreover, it helps enterprises determine profitable streams for their business. They can make use of the comprehensive contract reports provided by the integrated system to ascertain revenue-generating vendors and customers. 

• Reduce contract lifecycle time 

Vendors, customers, and employees all require a more effective contract lifecycle management procedure. They do not want to keep hanging around till the legal paperwork is approved and executed. Delayed contracting processes mean lost opportunity for most enterprises. Business Central contract management helps to accelerate the contract lifecycle by enabling users to auto-populate customer and vendor data to create contractual agreements. The integrated system comes with a sole source of information to eliminate the need for manual entering and inaccuracies. 

• Comprehensive overview 

Integrating Business Central with contract management software provides customized dashboards and personalized workflows to meet the specific contractual needs of each department. It enables legal and other teams to access precise data without the information locked in knowledge silos. They get to enjoy the complete overview of the end-to-end business operations from within a single platform. Users can track sales processes, from chasing leads to executing sales agreements. It eliminates disorganization and miscommunication from the business operation so that departments can achieve their true potential. 

• Identifies roadblocks 

The intuitive and all-inclusive premises offer a whole host of advantages to other departments. Based on the industry and their needs, the integrated system enables users to share relevant information across the organization. It assists departments in identifying roadblocks and taking necessary action to mitigate them. For instance, salespeople can keep track of sales agreements and mitigate unnecessary bottlenecks and delays through Business Central contract management.  

• Operational efficiency 

Every department must be in sync for the business operation to be effective and profitable. Adopting an accessible place where everyone can instantly access the same information is the best method to achieve team alignment. It enables easy collaboration between departments so that they can focus on high-value tasks instead of chasing down contract details.  

Integrating Business Central with contract management improves the operational efficiency of an organization. The procurement team must ensure timely payments, cordial relations with vendors, and stay on top of key dates and contract milestones. By having access to executed contracts, the procurement and sales teams can ensure that all goes well according to the contractual agreement. 

Takeaway 

Contracts are necessary for the smooth operation of numerous aspects of the business, including sales, human resources, and procurement. That is why having an efficient and singularized location to handle contracts can go a long way in optimizing business operations. It provides enterprises with the competitive edge they need to stay ahead of their rivals. Integration offers organizations the best of both worlds — a fully-sophisticated Business Central solution with contract management possibilities.  

Microsoft Business Central contract management empowers enterprises to systematically evaluate opportunities, avoid pitfalls, and encourage efficient processes. Integrating Business Central with contract management provides the procurement and sales teams with access to contract performance to gauge the cost-effectiveness of the agreement. It helps to make intelligent decisions when organizations are looking into renewing contracts. 

If your enterprise requires a comprehensive solution within Business Central to deal with your contractual needs, schedule a live demo today.