The Exari Blog

HR Document Automation Webinar

2012-05-31T07:19:00.000-04:00

Human Resources is a document intensive profession, but you can end the HR document pile up by automating your documents. Join us for an informative web-seminar on Thursday, June 21 and learn how document automation can alleviate the burden of creating important HR documentation. The webinar will be recorded and shared with all registrants for you to watch at your convenience.

HR documents from candidate evaluation forms, offer letters, employment contracts, confidentiality agreements, non-compete agreements and equity agreements, through to exit interviews are excellent candidates for automation. In addition to creating documents quickly, automation helps you reduce errors and increase compliance. Register now to learn how.

In this webinar you will learn the:

Best HR documents to automate
Process of implementing an HR solution
Benefits of integrated document automation

For more information on HR document automation visit www.exari.com/solutions/Human-Resources.html.

How to Comply with Dodd Frank Challenges

2012-05-24T15:00:00.000-04:00

With July and October deadlines approaching, investment banking professionals are thinking about what you'll have to do in order to comply with Dodd Frank regulations. Legal, documentation, risk management, credit and collateral professionals all face challenges managing risk and streamlining processes. You need to respond quickly to market events and have in place consistent risk management procedures. Exari helps you meet these challenges by:

Generating ISDA Master Agreements quickly
Capturing data from legacy agreements
Automating the amendment process
Increasing visibility across your entire portfolio
Improving compliance

Exari's Derivatives Software is used by top investment banks to improve visibility into key terms within existing agreements. And, document automation streamlines the generation of high quality documentation including:

ISDA Master Agreements and Credit Support Annexes (CSA)
Global Master Repurchase Agreements (GMRAs)
Global Master Securities Lending Agreements (GMSLAs)
Sign-off sheets
International FX and Currency Option Master Agreements (IFXCOs)
Prospectuses, Term Sheets and Final Terms for Structured Products
Trade Confirmations.

If you're an investment banker and want to reduce the risk in your documents or produce them faster, and need to increase compliance, contact us today and we'll show you how.

Document Automation Q&A

2012-05-03T08:29:00.000-04:00

The audience at a recent Exari webinar entitled, "Introduction to Document and Contract Automation," asked lots of great questions. We are sharing some of them with you here, along with the answers, because we realize that you may have the same questions yourself.

Q: Are changes by users to the documents audited? How is this represented?

A: There is an audit trail on all templates, so you know when the templates were changed and by whom. This is tracked via new versions of each template, and authorized users can go back to view previous versions. There is also an audit trail on transactional documents created and saved in the contract management system, with details of who saved each version and when.

Q: How do you handle negotiation with an external counterparty?

A: Typically our customers prefer to exchange Word documents when negotiating with external counterparties. Exari can output Word documents and versions of those documents can be stored in the central Contract Management repository. Exari also has a feature called Round Tripping where negotiated documents are compared to the document you last sent out, and a true redline of the document is presented to the user, making it clear which clauses were edited during negotiations. Round tripping works whether or not the user has turned on "track changes" in Word. This makes it easy to flag when specific high risk clauses were changed, and also makes it easy to synchronize the final set of contract data used for reporting.

Q: How does the repository portion of the application handle contracts that are not created through the wizard (i.e. 3rd party paper or legacy contracts)?

A: Other people's paper can be uploaded, with the metadeta, to the contract repository and shared in a central place. Many customers will also perform a human review using the Exari wizard to capture key data points from the contract. This approach streamlines the ""playbook"" approach to negotiation, prompting the user on specific issues based on their answers, and presenting them with a list of useful clauses to negotiate into the document.

Q: Can answers to the interview questions be exported so they can be read by other systems?

A: Yes. You can integrate both the document assembly and contract management solutions with any other in-house systems you have, such as CRM, ERP, CMS, database, billing, business intelligence system, etc. You can integrate both upstream and downstream, enabling you to pull information into an interview or push answers out.

If you have other questions about document assembly or contract management, you can ask us here.

Document Assembly and Contract Management Explained

2012-04-19T06:04:00.001-04:00

In an effort to "demystify" document assembly and contract management, we recently hosted a webinar outlining some basic concepts. You can view a recording here.

Among the topics we covered during the first part of the presentation were, the:

* Best types of documents to automate
* 8 Steps in the Contract Lifecycle
* Process of implementing a solution
* Benefits of integrated contract automation

The second part of the one hour webinar consisted of a demonstration of Exari's Document Assembly and Contract Management solutions, and a Q&A with the very engaged audience.

We ended up running out of time, but answered the remaining questions via email. If you have questions after viewing the recording, please send them to contact@exari.com.

Lloyd’s lists Exari as Technology Vendor

2012-04-05T08:41:00.002-04:00

We are pleased to announce that Lloyd’s, the world’s specialist insurance market (formerly known as Lloyd’s of London), has included Exari as a technology vendor in its new Tools and Resources Guide. The Resources can be found on the Lloyd’s website under “The Market” section. You can see Exari’s listing here.

Exari's insurance document creation solution gives underwriters and brokers a fast and agile way to create and compare quotes, accelerate the placement cycle, produce complex policies and wordings, automate endorsements and renewals, and streamline product configuration. All of the data captured during the document creation process is available for reporting and analysis.

Novarica’s Matthew Josefowicz is quoted in the cover story of last month’s Best Review as saying, ”A few trends will begin to have a big impact on the industry, he added. “The most important one is being able to leverage the massive proliferation of data in order to streamline underwriting and claims adjusting.”

Exari automatically captures data from the document during the assembly process, ensuring that every piece of critical data, and the context of that data, is extracted as insurance documents are created. Exari’s rule driven document assembly engine can create triggers from the same data that is used to create the document.

If you’d like to see how Exari can streamline your insurance document processes, request a demo.

Introduction to Document Assembly and Contract Management [Webinar]

2012-03-29T07:06:00.006-04:00

Will implementing a contract management solution improve your bottom line? Does document assembly software speed up your time to contract? Which solution is most cost effective for your document types?

At Exari, we understand that researching and choosing a document automation solution can be a time-consuming process with lots of questions. To make the process easier for you, we invite you to attend our upcoming webinar which will provide an overview of document and contract automation. Update: The webinar took place on April 12. You can register here to view the recording.

Title: Introduction to Document and Contract Automation
Date: April 12th, 2012
Time: 11AM to 12PM EST

In addition to an overview and demo of Exari’s Document Assembly and Contract Management products, this educational one-hour webinar will highlight some customer use cases and provide insight into the:

Best types of documents to automate
8 Steps in the Contract Lifecycle
Process of implementing a solution
Benefits of integrated contract automation

The webinar will be followed by an interactive Q&A session and will be recorded. All registrants will receive a copy of the recording to view at their convenience. You can register here to view the recording.

Exari to Exhibit at Upcoming Contract Management Conferences

2012-03-15T07:58:00.002-04:00

We will be exhibiting Exari Document Assembly and Contract Management solutions at two upcoming industry conferences. If you'll be attending either, please stop by to say hello and see what's new. If you haven't yet registered and would like to attend, we can provide you with discount codes.

We will be at InsideCounsel's 12th Annual SuperConference at the Radisson Blu Aqua Hotel in Chicago on April 23-24, 2012. We'll demonstrate our complete Contract Lifecycle Management Solution including the latest release (V6.0) of Exari Document Assembly Software. We still have a couple of complimentary passes to the show available for qualified in house counsel. Contact Us if you are interested.

We will also exhibit at The 9th Annual IACCM EMEA Forum in London on April 25-26, 2012. The Forum, entitled: Mastering Change - Complex Projects and the Role of Contracts will take place at the Millennium Gloucester Hotel. Our partner Devant, who offer Contractual and Commercial Management Services will be exhibiting with us. We will again demonstrate our complete Contract Lifecycle Management Solution including the latest release (V6.0) of Exari Document Assembly Software. If you would like to attend the forum, please contact us for an admission discount code.

Geoff Maskell, Exari's Vice-President of Sales, Europe and Tiffany Kemp, Devant’s Managing Director, will be presenting a pre-conference workshop entitled, "Managing the Spectrum of Complexity: How simple things can make a big difference in complex commercial management." The workshop will be presented on Workshop Day, Tuesday, April 24 from 11am – 1pm (GMT).

If you aren't attending either of these events and would like to see a demonstration of our Document Assembly and Contract Management solutions, you can register for our next webinar here.

What is CLM (Contract Lifecycle Management)?

2012-03-01T11:04:00.006-05:00

CLM or Contract Lifecycle Management refers to the entire process of creating, negotiating, managing and analyzing your contracts. The term applies whether or not your contracts process is automated. There is complete CLM software, like Exari, and there are standalone software systems that automate one or more steps.

There are eight key steps in the Contract Lifecycle Management process :

Capture: Step #1 for most people is to get all of their existing paper contracts in a central visible place.
Track: Once you know where all your contracts are, the next step is to track any important data so you don’t miss any milestone.
Author: With tracking in place, the focus can shift to accelerating the new contract creation process. The “authoring” process is about setting up contract templates and clause libraries.
Create: Contract creation has two tracks: one for self-service documents for business users and another to help the legal department draft complex contracts.
Approve: Companies need an approval workflow process to ensure that risky contracts are reviewed and approved by the right person.
Negotiate: The typical negotiator needs a toolkit that includes a checklist of issues for each type of deal.
Sign: When the contract is final and agreed it needs to be signed by all relevant people, and the signed copies need to be stored.
Analyze: Enterprises with 100+ contracts need to analyze those contracts for potential risks, rights & obligations.

Click here for more detail on the 8 steps of CLM. To see Contract Lifecycle Management software in action, click here to request a demo of Exari.

Document Assembly Step One – Understanding Your Documents

2012-02-16T09:09:00.002-05:00

The first step in choosing a document assembly system is to understand the various types of documents that you need to automate. Once you understand your documents, you can match the system to your needs. Essentially there are 3 categories of documents.

1) Standard Form Documents

Standard form documents, also known as batch documents, are high-volume documents that are easily automated. Examples of standard form documents include phone bills, mass-marketing letters and standard insurance policies.

Field values (i.e. name and address) may change, but the content remains largely standardized. Since no negotiation is required, the final output is usually print or PDF. Many low-end document assembly or mail merge solutions are able to create this type of document.

2) Semi-Standard Documents

The real challenge in document assembly is when you are automating semi-standard documents. These documents tend to be B2B, complex and require negotiation. Document assembly systems which ask a fixed set of questions in an absolute order are inadequate for automating these documents. As a result, many companies rely on expensive, manual drafting by legal experts.

Although there is negotiation involved with these documents, there are inherent patterns, which can be deciphered with some study. By using a powerful document assembly solution (like Exari) with an "inferencing engine," you can have the machine do the tedious work of figuring out which questions to ask, in what order, and with what dependencies. The more complex the document and its rules, the more important this capability becomes. You still have control over the layout and look of the interview, but you don't waste hours testing and debugging every new template.

3) Bespoke Documents

Bespoke or handcrafted documents are extremely complex and have no predictable negotiation patterns. No document assembly solution can fully automate these documents since their creation requires the skills of a legal expert. But an enterprise-grade document assembly system can produce an excellent first draft, providing a base for the legal department to begin fine-tuning. Once the lawyer has a good first draft, they can export the document to Word for further refining or to send to a counter-party for comment.

If you would like to see enterprise document assembly at work, you can demo Exari here. If you would like a custom demonstration, you can request a demo here.

Taking Some Time Out to Help Others

2012-01-31T07:22:00.002-05:00

Usually we use this blog to bring you the latest information about document assembly and contract management. But today we would like to share with you a recent experience shared by our team. We feel that it's important for us as a company to build a corporate culture of innovation and to give back to our community.

As Exari continues to grow and add customers and employees around the world, we make a point of bringing members of our team to the Boston Headquarters at least once a year. Last week we held our Annual Sales Kickoff 2012. The entire sales team from offices in Europe, Australia and the US gathered in Boston.

In addition to all of the corporate events and innovation sessions - aimed at further enhancing Exari’s industry leading document and contract automation solutions – the entire team spent a half - day volunteering at the Boston food pantry. Run by the Red Cross, the pantry provides a 3-day emergency supply of food to approximately 4,500 low-income families every month, making it the largest emergency food pantry in the city of Boston.

Everyone, including the president, management team and members of the sales and delivery organizations participated in this event together. Some formed an assembly line bagging fruit, milk, vegetables and chicken, while others assisted families in packing these bagged supplies into their vehicles. By the end of the day, working together, the team had packed and distributed more than 600 bags of supplies!

The event was meaningful to all of us and helped foster an employee community and culture reflective of our core ideals.

Top Issues Facing General Counsel in 2012

2012-01-20T15:21:00.008-05:00

A recent survey of more than 100 general counsel at American companies conducted by Corporate Counsel, in partnership with ALM Legal Intelligence, revealed that compliance and cost are the primary issues concerning general counsel in 2012.

According to the survey, 61% of respondents identified the increasing number of regulations and their growing complexity as their biggest issue. At the same time, legal departments have suffered budget cuts. And despite those shrinking budgets, 68% of respondents anticipated an increased workload. In fact, “53 % said the second-biggest issue they face, after regulations, was the pressure to do more with fewer resources.”

Traditionally, legal departments have used manual, labor intensive processes for creating their contracts. Legal staff would copy and paste existing material and then modify the content to meet specific needs or to accommodate customer requirements. To minimize risk, especially when faced with increased regulation, this approach demands the close attention of the general counsel and senior members of the legal team. Plus, the need to manage risk—to ensure the accuracy of the documents and to support regulatory compliance—dictates that organizations rely on subject matter experts at every step of the process.

Confirmation that too much time and resources are spent on each contract, comes from the recent Corporate Counsel Survey Report which found that over 30% of respondents spent more than an entire day to review a single contract. Assuming 8 working hours a day, and 125 contracts per month – these companies are spending 12,000 hours annually on contract review.

If contract creation was automated and contracts were created using pre-approved, compliant templates, much of these review costs could be eliminated while maintaining compliance with increased regulations. The cost savings in review time alone is just one element that helps an investment in contract automation software have a high return on investment.

If you’d like to learn how contract automation software can help you manage compliance and cost this year, please contact us.

Just Released: Corporate Counsel Contracts Report

2012-01-05T12:01:00.001-05:00

If you're a regular reader of this blog, you probably know that we recently conducted our second Corporate Counsel Contracts Survey at the Association of Corporate Counsel Annual Meeting. The results have been tabulated and the report is now available. You can request your complimentary copy here.

This survey was a follow-up to one we conducted in 2009, and explores a variety of issues affecting the contracts process, the level of adoption of document assembly software and the most common methods of contract management.

Contract management has long been important to the overall success, profitability and risk management of organizations. Now, with business increasing, law departments are finding they need to be more efficient in order to keep up with the heavy demand for new contracts, often with no increase in headcount. And once the contracts are created, the information or data they contain must be accessible to help management make informed decisions about the business.

General Counsel are not only tasked with reducing the organization's risk, they also need to be mindful of legal spend. This is leading some law departments to adopt more automation. In a recent post on Prism Legal, Ron Friedman suggests to general counsel that they," Get More For Less."

He goes on to say that, "The best way to lower cost is to work smarter. For all work - inside or outside - make sure you apply process improvement techniques, legal project management, the appropriate technology, and knowledge management."

For more information on contract automation technology, contact your local Exari office. The survey results are also available in webinar format. To request a copy of the webinar, click here.

New Corporate Counsel Contracts Survey [On Demand Webinar]

2011-12-22T07:34:00.001-05:00

We recently conducted our second Corporate Counsel Contracts Survey at the Association of Corporate Counsel Annual Meeting. The survey was a follow-up to one we conducted in 2009, and explores a variety of issues affecting the contracts process, the level of adoption of document assembly software and the most common methods of contract management.

The results were previewed in a recent webinar which is now available on-demand. You can sign in here to view the webinar. During the presentation you will see that the poll responses from attendees at the live webinar closely mirror the survey results.

New to this year's survey is a ranking of the top contract risks. Approximately ¾ (71%) of respondents reported being concerned about the risk of revenue leakage as a result of their contracts. Results from this survey have been compared to results from the 2009 Corporate Counsel Contracts Survey to assess how the practice of contract management is maturing.

The full results report will be available to readers of this blog after the first of the year, so please check back. In the meantime, have a wonderful holiday season.

Photo credit: Dom W

Edens & Avant Licenses Exari to Optimize Commercial Lease Creation

2011-12-15T10:12:00.001-05:00

Edens & Avant, one of the nation’s leading private owners and developers of neighborhood shopping places, has licensed Exari Document Automation Software to automate the various documents and contracts involved in the commercial leasing process.

The leasing group is implementing the solution to help them get their deals done more quickly and respond to a push from the executive level to achieve rent starts more quickly. Exari will be integrated into other systems internally such as ERP and Business Process Management (BPM) to streamline the process, avoid manually rekeying data and errors.

Will Ponder, Vice President of Investments, Southeast, Edens & Avant said, “Successful implementation of Exari will allow for fast, efficient production and negotiation of leases. Within certain parameters, we plan to empower our leasing reps to produce a lease themselves using Exari, which will eliminate time-consuming data entry and non-value-added legal review, thus getting leases out the door to potential tenants on the same day that the terms are approved."

We are pleased to welcome Edens and Avant to the Exari Community and look forward to helping them achieve their goals. To learn how you can streamline your leasing or other document intensive process, please contact us.

Document Assembly and Contract Management Resources

2011-12-01T11:16:00.002-05:00

We have expanded our resource library to provide additional tools and information on document assembly and contract management topics. The latest addition is a set of on-demand webinars. The library also contains whitepapers, case studies, demo videos, and several other free contract automation resources. It's a place to learn best practices and keep up to date with the latest industry trends.

The webinars are conducted in partnership with industry experts, ranging from Forrester Research to InsideCounsel Magazine. When possible, we have also made the accompanying presentations available for download.

Currently we offer three complimentary webinars with a fourth coming soon:

1) Managing OTC Derivatives Documentation in a Central Clearing Environment
The panel of experts discusses the new documentation requirements of central clearing and explores how financial institutions are changing their documentation management to reduce bottlenecks and avoid increased legal costs and operational risk.

2) Mitigate Risk in Your Sales Contracts
A preview of new data from an InsideCounsel survey on the "state of sales contracts," discussing how to use benchmarks to compare business process to best practice, and providing strategies for law departments to help improve their sales contracts processes in order to reduce risk.

3) The 4 Stages of Value from Contract Management
Speakers from Forrester Research and Exari discuss insights and lessons learned on how to best evaluate and implement a Contract Management (CM) system. Beginning with assessing your business problems, you will learn different strategies on how to phase in and measure success and ROI.

The fourth webinar, Corporate Counsel Contracts Survey Report 2011, is coming soon. Based on the Corporate Counsel Contracts survey conducted at the Association of Corporate Counsel (ACC) Annual Meeting, this webinar reveals early findings from the survey of 100+ General Counsel.

As a leader in the document automation and contract management industry - we are pleased to share relevant and insightful content with you. We encourage you to check our resource library frequently for new content and to make use of the document assembly and contract management resources. If you would like to be notified of new content, including upcoming webinars, sign up to receive our monthly newsletter.

If there are other types of content you'd like to see in the library, please tell us below in the comments.

5 Document Assembly/Legal Technology Blogs to Follow

Orica Mining Services Licenses Exari for Sales Contract Automation

2011-11-18T11:31:00.007-05:00

We are pleased to announce that Orica Mining Services, the world's leading supplier of commercial explosives, has selected Exari to automate sales contracts throughout North America.

Our interactive document generation solution will enable Orica to create and execute sales contracts more efficiently and reduce the risk of errors. Orica plans to integrate Exari into the other systems that support their sales organization including Lotus Notes and SAP.

Orica's Director of Commercial Management, Jeff Blair said, “We chose Exari because it was the best fit with our requirements including ease of use for our end users and the ability to integrate with our other internal systems. We’ll use Exari for all of our sales agreements in North America and will benefit from gains in both efficiency and risk reduction.”

Exari’s sales contracts solution automates all of the documents in the sales process. From Non-Disclosure Agreements through pricing (quote), proposal and sales contract, we provide fast, consistent and compliant documents. The solution reuses the underlying data across related documents saving time and eliminating errors no matter the complexity of the documents. Sales people can create their own pre-approved documents and contracts by answering questions in a browser-based interview.

For more information or to see the software in action, visit our website or click here to request a demo.

ACC Annual Meeting Recap

2011-11-03T16:38:00.001-04:00

Last week we were in Denver for the Association of Corporate Counsel Annual Meeting. The event was very well attended and we had great meetings with customers, prospects and people dropping by the booth. Judging by the number of people visiting our booth, there seemed to be a lot of interest in both document assembly and contract management.

Tim Cummins of the IACCM spoke on a panel entitled, "Contract Management: What is Realistic for My Department?" to a standing room only crowd. Questions from the audience ranged from "Can I trust the sales team with self-service contracts?" to "Can I implement a contract management system without additional headcount?" (The answer to both questions was yes.)

We conducted a new Corporate Counsel Contracts Survey and had more than 100 respondents. (One lucky respondent received a voicemail today telling her that she had won the drawing for an iPad2!) We're busy compiling the results which we will share in a webinar on Thursday, November 17th at 11:00 am (ET). If you'd like to attend the webinar or receive the full report of the results, please take the survey here.

For information on document assembly and contract management, visit www.exari.com.

Exari Partners with the Aberdeen Group on New Survey

2011-10-13T15:30:00.007-04:00

Automating Lead-to-Win: Shrinking the Sales Cycle, Sealing the Deal

We are pleased to be partnering with the Aberdeen Group on their new survey and invite you to participate. As sales organizations try to escape the constricted economy, one of their most significant challenges is bringing their sales cycle under control.

As top-performing selling teams continue searching for ways to reduce this window, as well as to increase their win/loss "batting average," the use of selected business processes and enabling technologies hold significant promise for better sales team performance in 2012.

Each respondent of the survey will receive a complimentary full copy of the report containing this study's results (a $399 value). Individual responses will be kept strictly confidential and data will only be used in aggregate.

We greatly appreciate your participation in this research effort and look forward to sharing the findings with you.

Take the 10-minute survey today!

Exari to Exhibit at the ACC Annual Meeting

2011-10-06T14:55:00.002-04:00

If you're heading to the Association of Corporate Counsel Annual Meeting in Denver, Colorado, October 23 – 26, please visit us in booth #712. We will be providing “first look” demonstrations of our new Contract Management Solution and the latest release (6.0) of Exari Document Assembly Software.

We are also conducting a follow-up survey to the Corporate Counsel Contracts Survey and all respondents will be entered into a drawing to win an iPad. To schedule a demo in advance please contact us.

Exari's new Contract Management Solution combines our patented Document Assembly Software with Contract Management capabilities including approval workflow, reporting and document management (DMS). The system is designed to create, store and manage contracts in one flexible system; and provides immediate visibility into contract data to better manage compliance, mitigate risk and act on contractual revenue opportunities.

The latest release of Exari Document Assembly Software (V 6.0) has many new features including:
• seamless integration with Exari Contract Management
• the ability to preview your document during the interview
• enhanced security features including the ability to encrypt embedded answers during Roundtripping
• improved visibility into contracts (through new tagging options)
• new batch mode for high performance output of high volume customized documents
• improved data portability and visibility across systems
• enhanced connectors for Salesforce.com, WorkSite, Alfresco and Jackrabbit

For more information about either product or to schedule a demo, please contact us.

Exari Launches New Contract Management Software

2011-09-22T14:37:00.017-04:00

We are pleased to announce the availability of our new Contract Management Solution which combines Exari's patented Document Assembly Software with Contract Management capabilities including approval workflow, reporting and document management. The system is designed to create, store and manage your contracts all in one flexible system.

Over the years, many of our customers have asked us to provide a configurable contract management solution that incorporates Exari Document Assembly. We synthesized their requirements into a single, open-standards solution: Exari Contract Management.

Investment banks, insurers, technology vendors, professional services firms and B2B manufacturers of other high-value goods are some of the organizations that realize the best ROI from contract management. Because Exari enables users to easily capture contract data and generate all types of contracts, Exari clients can automate 100% of their contracts in every part of their business and extend the benefits enterprise-wide.

For companies with existing Contract Management Systems in place, Exari Document Assembly’s open API allows for seamless integration with Sharepoint, Salesforce.com, and any other Contract Management system or database.

You can find more information about Exari Contract Management here. Click here to request a demo.

Forrester Research Presents The 4 Stages of Value from Contract Management

2011-09-09T14:31:00.007-04:00

We are sponsoring a webinar with Forrester Research called, "The 4 Stages of Value from Contract Management," on Tuesday, September 27 at 11:00am (Eastern Daylight Time). You are invited to attend this complimentary webinar, just click here to register.

Andrew Bartels, Vice President and Principal Analyst of Forrester Research will present his research and share insights into implementation strategies for contract management and automation systems in order to realize the best return on investment.

Andrew will be joined by Exari's Jamie Wodetzki and Therese McGee who will share lessons learned from over 10 years of implementations and preview Exari's new Contract Automation Solution.

In this webinar you will learn:

How to achieve value in each stage of implementation.
How to get sales and legal on the same team.
How to avoid common implementation mistakes.
How to pitch contract management to your CFO.

A Q&A session with the audience and panel speakers will be held after the roundtable discussion to allow for interaction between the panel and attendees.

For more information or to register, click here. All registrants will receive a recording of the webinar shortly after the live event.

Document Assembly Can Improve Law Firm Profits

2011-08-25T12:25:00.001-04:00

In this week's Wall Street Journal, Vanessa O'Connell writes that, "More than half of the country's top 50 law firms may have overstated a key measure of profitability in a closely watched ranking." The ranking of "profits per partner," published annually by the American Lawyer magazine in May, is the most commonly used gauge of health in the $100 billion global corporate-law-firm industry.

The findings— which were shared with The Wall Street Journal by a person briefed on the report— raise questions about which law firms are making the most profit as the legal industry slowly recovers from a prolonged downturn.

An analysis by Citi Private Bank Law Firm Group reportedly found that 22 percent of the top 50 firms overstated profits per partner by more than 20 percent in 2010.

Part of the problem may be differences in definitions of equity partners, according to Robin Sparkman, editor in chief of the American Lawyer. "As best we can tell, the majority of our numbers about law firm profits—then and now—are identical to, or within 10 percent, of Citi's,” she told the Wall Street Journal. Calculations of overall changes in year-to-year revenue have been very close, she added.

Regardless of which numbers are correct, Document Assembly is one way for law firms to increase their efficiency and profitability. Many of these top law firms are using Exari to automate documents ranging from trust and estate documents to technology licensing agreements to new partner agreements.

Exari Document Assembly serves as both an intelligent precedents system and a platform for online delivery of Do-It-Yourself documents direct to clients. It provides the tools to create smart precedents, clause libraries and packages of documents, using the firm's intellectual property and best practices. You can see how the software works here.

The ROI of Document Assembly

2011-08-12T10:58:00.001-04:00

Depending on your accounting method, you may be trying to determine your ROI (Return on Investment), TCO (Total Cost of Ownership), or simply the payback on your investment in a document assembly or document automation solution.

There are a number of elements to consider when calculating the value of a document assembly implementation, including:

Time Savings - Automating your documents means not starting from scratch every time. You can reuse all of your standard clauses and best practices, as well as pull information from your database or CRM systems. Business or Legal users can create documents via a web interview in a fraction of the time it used to take

Cost Reduction - Legal departments don't need to spend hours drafting routine contracts or reviewing the documents, since they created or approved the templates. Think about your fully loaded cost for a senior in-house attorney. Automation can reduce or even eliminate the time they need to spend reviewing standard contracts. They could use that time instead for higher value work.

Faster Revenue - The sooner your contract is finished, the sooner you can book the revenue. And if your contracts are automated, you know exactly what's in them (i.e. no one cut and paste the wrong clause with less favorable terms).

Risk Reduction - Do you know what risks are hidden in your contracts? Do you have all the necessary data available if the regulators come to call? By automating your contracts, risks become more visible, and can therefore be managed before they become a problem. And, a much tighter approach to risk management can be built into contracts. Document automation provides immediate visibility into data to better manage compliance and mitigate risk exposure.

There is solid value in document assembly if you match the right solution to your problem. If you need help in creating a business case for your document assembly initiative, contact us and we can help calculate the value to you and your company.

2011 Contracts Survey Report Now Available

2011-07-29T16:00:00.009-04:00

Did you know that one in four companies experienced unplanned losses last year due to errors in their sales contracts? This helps explain why sales contract management has become increasingly important to the overall success, profitability and risk management of companies.

To gain insight into how law departments manage their sales [sell side] contracts and the effect it has on the success of their companies, Exari, partnered with InsideCounsel to survey its readership. The complimentary report with full results is now available here.

The detailed survey findings, compiled from more than 400 responses from corporate attorneys, suggest:

• Reducing risk in sales contracts is the highest priority for law departments
• Many companies experience businesses losses due to errors in sales contracts
• Prioritizing the automated assembly and management of sales contracts will allow companies to mitigate risk and improve overall performance

Streamlining contracting processes (both document assembly and management) will become increasingly important as legal departments feel more pressure from their business departments to improve turnaround time, particularly when the volume of sales contracts expands with the improving economy.

Download the survey findings here to learn more about the most important process issues of the sales contracts process.

Why CFOs Should Care About Sales Contracts

2011-07-14T14:50:00.002-04:00

Are you actually booking all of the profits that your company is entitled to? Because revenue leakage due to inadequate management of sales contracts is regularly costing companies a slice of their hard earned revenue. Do you know the full impact that revenue leakage is having on your bottom line?

In a recent survey of more than 400 in-house counsel conducted by InsideCounsel Magazine and Exari, more than 25% of respondents reported incurring unplanned losses or write-offs due to errors in their sales contracts during the past year.

The Aberdeen Group has reported that, "poor management of contracts in the opportunity-to-order cycle results in revenue leakage between 5% and 9%," - a figure that can be the difference in making or breaking the revenue goal.

To learn more about improving contract quality and negotiations in order to reduce revenue leakage and book more revenue, download this whitepaper,"Improve Your Bottom Line: Reduce Revenue Leakage."

Photo credit: Brooks Elliott