Contract Management Software Blog News

Arrow Capital Management first hedge fund in Canada to go paperless with Agreement Express

Ingrid Joffe — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 17:39:00 GMT

Toronto, Ontario (January 10, 2012) — With hundreds of hedge fund trades to process each month, Arrow Capital Management Inc. selected Agreement Express by Recombo Inc. to eliminate the paper burden of the industry document collection requirements for investment advisors, compliance officers and investors.

With this cloud-based software service, Arrow Capital is the first hedge fund in Canada to adopt automated contract management and digital signature technology. Arrow processes hundreds of purchases each month; going paperless solves the numerous issues of a cumbersome process that requires multiple signatures and back-up documents.

“This exciting new process will significantly reduce the administrative burden on advisors using the old paper-based model. Once implemented, this electronic process will make tracking documents much easier and also reduce printing costs saving a few trees along the way,” said Rob Parsons, managing director and COO of Arrow Capital. “Agreement Express is seamless and makes the entire trade process more manageable for everyone.”

Agreement Express offers complete automation and integration of the entire contract lifecycle, including digital signatures. From error-free data entry, adding necessary support documents and getting secure signatures from each person in the right order, Agreement Express eliminates printing, shipping and storage costs. Every touchpoint, keystroke and signature is tracked throughout the process to satisfy compliance requirements while providing a simplified user experience.

“People expect a high level of service and responsiveness to their needs. Agreement Express is an ideal choice for investment management companies like Arrow Capital who experience a high volume of contracts. It provides an easy-to-use experience while allowing advisors to conduct more business and cut through the red tape of a paper process,” said Mike Gardner, CEO of Recombo.

Arrow Capital has experienced numerous benefits by going paperless: improved time management spent to collect signatures, easier tracking and management of document flow, ability to resend documents, immediately fix errors, provide documents for multiple signatures instantly, and reduce the storage burden by eliminating boxes of paper documents.

The ecofriendly benefit of working in the cloud also appealed to Arrow Capital. “It’s a way to reduce our carbon footprint,” added Parsons. “A lot of people don’t want to receive a paper document if they can read it and sign it online. With Agreement Express everyone appreciates its ease-of-use and environmental benefits.”

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About Capital Management Inc.

Arrow Capital Management is an employee-owned company, founded in 1999 by James

McGovern. Arrow's expertise in active portfolio management and manager selection is evident in

its strong, diverse platform, which provides our clients with access to a global selection of

outstanding alternative investment funds. One of the most experienced alternative investment

fund companies in Canada and with an extensive network of global resources, Arrow has

successfully navigated its clients through all types of market conditions. Arrow Capital

Management is a founding member of AIMA Canada (Alternative Investment Management

Association) and is a substantial co-investor in its own funds. Arrow Capital Management is

based in Toronto, Canada, with sales offices in Vancouver, Calgary, and a joint venture

relationship in London, UK with Generation Asset Management (UK) Limited. Arrow Capital

Management currently oversees more than CDN$1.2 billion on behalf of high net-worth and

institutional investors globally.

About Recombo

Recombo is a global leader in contract management software that helps organizations streamline business processes, improve productivity, and reduce operational expenses related to approval processes by 75% annually by automating their contract workflows. Agreement Express by Recombo™ is a cloud-based, transactional contract management software platform that materially improves operating margins within days by replacing paper-intensive business processes. Agreement Express is the fastest, most affordable way to eliminate all document errors and data-entry. Customers include Questrade, Volusion, Billing Tree, HUB International, M&T Bank. For more information, please visit http://www.recombo.com/  .Agreement Express is a registered trademark of Recombo Inc. All rights reserved.

For further information, contact:

Arrow Capital Management

Rob Parsons

Tel: 416-323-0477

E-mail: rparsons@arrow-capital.com

www.arrow-capital.com

Recombo

Ingrid Joffe
Tel: 604 699 3045
E-mail: ijoffe@recombo.com

http://www.recombo.com

Contract Management Software Improves The Customer Experience

Melanie Aizer — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 21:00:00 GMT

By automating business processes with contract management software, two leading organizations instantly improved the customer experience and customer satisfaction.

The third largest municipal electricity distribution company in Ontario, Hydro Ottawa, automated the enrollment process for their pre-authorization payment plan programs and improved their customer experience.

DOWNLOAD CASE STUDY TODAY and learn how Hydro Ottawa:

Improved customer satisfaction by implementing an easy online enrollment process
Reduced operational costs by eliminating the need for expensive paper and storage
Improved productivity by freeing up resources

“Implementing Agreement Express has allowed us to expand the suite of online services we offer our customers, through our convenient and secure customer portal, allowing them to manage their own account anytime."

Linda Larocque, Supervisor of Customer Experience for Hydro Ottawa

Telluride's leading vacation rental management company, Telluride Alpine Lodging, automated the guest check-in process & improved customer satisfaction nearly 100%.

DOWNLOAD THE CASE STUDY TODAY and learn how Telluride Alpine Lodging:

Reduced operational costs by 30k annually
Improved charge-back rates by 100%
Improved customer satisfaction nearly 100% with an online check-in process

"Agreement Express helps our guests get to where they are going faster and easier. Automating the process eliminates the need for guests to add additional travel time to physically check-in at one of the remote locations.”

Chantel Meeker, Director of Guest Services, Telluride Alpine Lodging

Contract Management Software Automates The Entire Application Process

Melanie Aizer — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 20:28:00 GMT

There are two types of technologies that companies can select to resolve their business inefficiencies of processing paper-based contracts.

Digital signature technology enables users to place a digital signature onto a document. This eliminates the delivery of documents to signatories, either by mail or courier. Digital signature technology reduces delivery costs and eliminates latency of returned documents. This technology is ideal for business processes that require a contract to simply be signed and returned.

Digital signature capability is certainly one important component of automating the contract process — but it is just the start.

Contract management software has built in workflow automation features that make it possible to mirror even the most complex workflow process.

Contract management software reduces and even eliminates operational time and expense associated with:

• Preparing contracts
• Distributing contracts
• Routing contract data into additional forms or to appropriate signatories
• Checking for contract errors
• Storing contracts into internal or external back-office systems
• Retrieving individual or groups of contracts — by file names or by any internal data points

Products and services such as insurance, wealth management and merchant card service application forms, employee on-boarding, and equipment lease agreements all require the completion of multiple forms. Some of them need to be dynamically added to the package depending on customer selections in the ‘master’ agreement, approval of various internal and external signatories, and mapping of all the data and supporting documents into internal and systems of record.

More automation means less manual labor, faster contract conversion times, a better customer experience and lower shipping costs.

Workflow automation is driven by three key elements:

Contract Routing

Correct contract routing is the key to automation. For example, new account applications require information to be filled-out first by the potential client, then by the company for quotation, and then back to the client for final signature. Final copies may need to be sent to your organization and other suppliers involved in the deal.

Business Rules

The approval process may require that contracts be dynamically routed by decision-tree business rules. For instance, a new customer application may contain a question about payment method. If the customer selects “direct withdrawal,” then the automatic withdrawal agreement form is launched and routed, as required.

Supporting Documentation

Contracts often require supporting documentation. For example, a direct withdrawal agreement will likely require a copy of a void check, while ensuring that the correct supporting documentation is uploaded by the relevant signatory and travels with the contract package.

Download our Executive Summary TODAY and improve your contract processing-related operating margins by 75% or greater within days of implementation.

Why Are Your Operating Costs Higher Than They Should Be?

Melanie Aizer — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 20:45:00 GMT

Think about the documents in your organization that require formal or informal approval or sign-off; your contracts, agreements, proposals, account opening forms, expense reports, employee on-boarding packages, and so on.

Common to all of these different document types is the excessive cost in processing them.

Think about your own company and whether any of these issues exist:

Your sales people don’t sell as much as they could because they spend time preparing, chasing and administering paperwork rather than selling

Time and money is wasted physically shipping paper to, from and between signatories

Pools of labor are allocated to error-check each returned contract and then correct those “not in good order”

Additional labor is allocated to manually key or scan information from completed documents into one or more back-office system or a significant percentage of customers go away after being frustrated by clumsy and difficult to understand agreement forms

Considering all of these costs it may not come as a surprise to learn that manually processing business agreements is very likely costing your organization anywhere from $20 to $40 ... per agreement.

And if the business documents are customer facing, such as account opening forms, the potential for revenue shortfalls due to customer abandonment rates or sales person inefficiency can cause your costs to skyrocket.

Watch this 5 Minute Video and Discover the Power of Contract Management Software to Improve Operating Margins in Days

Contract Management Software Different from E-Signature Technology?

Melanie Aizer — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 15:59:00 GMT

What is “contract management software” and how does it differ from “e-signature” technology?

E-signature technology enables users to place a digital signature onto a contract. The capability is certainly a component of improved efficiency — but it is just a start.

A complete contract management software system eliminates waste by automating the entire workflow.

The significant technical break-through is that contract management software enables users to control not just contract images, but also the data elements within the contracts. The ability to manage at the data level opens up new automation possibilities.

For example, you can import and populate contracts from a variety of sources (Customer Relationship Management, Sales Force Automation, Excel spreadsheets, ERP systems, etc.), move the data into other contracts relevant to the particular process, verify data-entry at the time contracts are filled-in, map contract data fields into internal systems, and much more.

According to Forrester Research, Inc. January, 2010 Market Overview: E-Signatures in 2010:

“...Automating Workflows Delivers The Value. The signing process is the keystone of the execution of a legally or administratively binding agreement. However, as central as it is, the signature itself is only one part of the overall document or business process life cycle; the true value to an organization lies in replacing all paper-based processes with electronic ones and securely automating as many previously manual steps and procedures as possible. ”

Is contract management software right for you?

The benefit of contract management software is to drive down costs by automating the repeatable aspects of creating, distributing, signing and storing paperwork.

Contract management software is best suited for organizations with high volumes of similar transactions with a complex signatory routing process. There are innumerable situations where automation can quickly eliminate wasted resources.

Visit our resource library or view client testimonials from real-life success stories of companies using contract managment software to solve their unique business challenges.

“We did a lot of research into digital signature solutions to minimize our lost charge-backs. Although some of those solutions appeared cheaper, we preferred the ease-of-use of Agreement Express and the cost was perfectly priced. Working as the administrator, the Agreement Express dashboard was much more inviting than the other companies we looked at; I can easily reset passwords, change user preferences, search documents by criteria, and flag documents that have not been read.”

- Chantel Meeker, Director of Guest Services for Telluride Alpine Lodging

Paper-Free and Productive with Contract Management Software

Melanie Aizer — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 16:12:00 GMT

Recombo Provides Paperless Contract Management for More Efficient Results

Agreement Express by Recombo is profiled by leading organization Actuate.

The days of paper-intensive business are reaching an end. Today, companies don’t want to be wading through documents to find the one they’re looking for, or to process reams of papers to finish a simple task. Instead, they’d like to consider the environment and reduce their waste, while trimming down the man hours involved in keeping up with the paper trail.

Recombo™ – based out of Vancouver, Canada, with offices in London, England – helps organizations streamline their business processes and improve productivity. They can reduce their clients’ operational costs – attributable to paper processes – by up to 75 percent, while helping to create a greener and less paper-intensive work environment.

Clients in Action: Questrade and M&T Bank have both implemented Recombo’s Agreement Express, with reporting through BIRT by Actuate. Keep reading to find out what they’re doing and the results they’ve achieved.

Revolutionizing Contract Management

Recombo’s solution, Agreement Express, is a paperless contract management software platform. It can improve a company’s operating margin within days, by replacing paper-intensive business processes. It’s powerful, affordable and rapid to implement.

Built around a document management system, Agreement Express enables users to automate and efficiently manage contracts as they flow through each step of the contract approvals cycle, from contract creation, distribution, signing, error-checking and monitoring – through to storing and retrieving. It’s been designed with a robust set of built-in workflow automation features, and can automate any paper-based approval process for a variety of industries that require a number of forms to be completed and a range of internal and external signatories to sign and approve (for example, the insurance, wealth management and debt settlement industries).

The solution’s flexible integration engine enables contract data to be imported from a range of sources, and for data from completed contracts to be mapped into any internal or external back-office system, including CRM integration and website integration.

Recombo at MWAA 9th Annual Conference

Melanie Aizer — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 16:15:00 GMT

Recombo is pleased to be attending the MidWest Acquirer Association's 9th Annual Conference.

Please come by our exhibit and meet with Bob Alvarez, Business Development Manager for Recombo to hear how leading financial institutions have transformed their business processes with Agreement Express.

July 26-28, 2011

The Oak Brook Hills Marriott Resort

Connect with Bob in LinkedIn
E-mail Bob

ABOUT BOB

Professional B2B Consultant with over 10 years experience.

ABOUT RECOMBO AND AGREEMENT EXPRESS

Recombo is a global leader in contract management software that helps organizations streamline business processes, improve productivity, and reduce operational expenses related to approval processes by 75% annually by automating their contract workflows. Agreement Express by Recombo™ is a cloud-based, transactional contract management software platform that materially improves operating margins within days by replacing paper-intensive business processes. Agreement Express is the fastest, most affordable way to eliminate all document errors and data-entry. Customers include Questrade, Volusion, Billing Tree, HUB International, M&T Bank.

ABOUT AGREEMENT EXPRESS FOR ELECTRONIC PAYMENTS & BANKING

Reduce Operational Costs with Paperless On-Boarding for Bank Card Acquirers

• Pre-load your merchant application forms and start sending customer applications instantly
• Integrate directly into processor’s front-end boarding platforms
• Create and customize the online self-enrollment process
• Easily and instantly adjust the application workflow
• Integrate Agreement Express into Salesforce.com CRM or any front or back-office system
• Create new application forms or templates (with associated sign-offs and workflows)
• Configure and adapt the system on your own as your business evolves

Discover how businesses like yours are gaining a competitive edge with Agreement Express by Recombo.

For more infomation, please visit Agreement Express for Electronic Payments and Banking

View Agreement Express Product Features.

Download Electronic Payments Industry Solution Brief Now!

Contract Management Software Improves Sales Productivity by 60%

Melanie Aizer — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 15:27:00 GMT

Case Study: Leader in E-Commerce Shopping Cart Software Volusion Improved Sales Productivity by 60% with Contract Management Software

QUICKFACTS

Company

• Name: Volusion
• Location: Austin TX (HQ) and London
• Industry: Electronic Payments
• Employees: 150
• Customers: Over 20,000 unique customers using e-commerce shopping cart platform
• Founded: 1999

Customer Profile

Volusion is the e-commerce leader in shopping cart software. Since 1999, Volusion has been on the cutting edge of e-commerce technology, revolutionizing the industry by introducing the now standard one-page checkout process. Their software serves over 100,000 eager entrepreneurs from all over the world, and used by a wide array of businesses, including Fortune 500 companies. Their client base has also grown exponentially – in 2009, online storeowners using Volusion’s e-commerce solution processed over $2 billion in transactions.

Application Description

Volusion implemented Agreement Express™, Recombo’s contract management software to expedite their merchant services application process.

Implementation

Volusion implemented Agreement Express in February 2009.

Business Challenges

• Manual processing of paper-based merchant services applications
• Inefficiencies in retrieving and data-keying returned contracts
• High abandonment rates for customer applications

Objectives

• Reduce abandonment rates of returned contracts
• Improve productivity and efficiencies for sales team
• Integrate online contracts into their CRM system, Salesforce.com

Results

• Completion rates increased 60% from web traffic to customer
• Reduced operating costs, eliminating data-entry labor
• Improved customer satisfaction

“We selected Agreement Express because Recombo was willing and able to help customize the solution we required to fit our unique business needs.”

- Neil Patel, Director of Merchant Services for Volusion

Case Study: Contract Management Software with Salesforce.com

Melanie Aizer — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 16:48:00 GMT

TIO Networks Corp. Reduced Latency in Dealer Location Implementations from 15-30 Days to 2-3 Days with the Help of Agreement Express

TIO has automated the entire enrollment process and Agreement Express plays a huge part of the online presence, allowing sales contracts to be digitally signed, stored and easily retrieved in Salesforce.com.

Salesforce.com plays a very important role for the TIO sales staff. The ability to integrate Agreement Express with back-office systems meant that staff could continue to work in Salesforce.com and gain the automation capabilities that Agreement Express delivers.

QUICKFACTS

Company

• Name: TIO Networks Corp.
• Location: Vancouver, BC, Canada
• Industry: Financial Services
• Employees: 60 in North America
• Revenue: *19,021,254
• Founded: 1997

Customer Profile

TIO Networks Corp. is the leading multi-channel expedited bill payment processor serving the largest telecom, wireless, cable and utility bill issuers in North America. With over 25,000 endpoints to its processing network, TIO symbolizes fast, convenient and secure access to expedited payment services.

Application Description

TIO Networks Corp. implemented Agreement Express™ Recombo’s contract management software to expedite the enrollment process of their dealer distribution centers for bill payment processing.

Implementation

TIO Networks Corp. implemented Agreement Express in September 2006.

Business Challenges

• Lag time of contract initiation to contract completion from distribution centers
• Long delays in making the dealer distribution centers operational
• Inefficiencies in storing and retrieving paper contract

Objectives

• Reduce latency in signing up new dealer distribution centers
• Increase the number of distribution points, per month
• Improve facility to retrieve signed sales contracts

Results

• Reduced latency in implementation of new locations from 15-30 business days to 2-3 days with the help of Agreement Express, in conjunction with their development of web demos and online training tools
• Increased the ability to contract distribution centers up to 50-100 monthly, without increasing staff
• Online contracts are easily stored and retrieved in their CRM system, Salesforce.com

“Agreement Express has helped us grow our business by increasing our number of monthly contracts for distribution points and allowing staff more time for customer follow-up and training.”

- Tony Habib, Director of Distribution for TIO Networks Corp.

Case Study: Contract Management Software Reduces Operational Costs

Melanie Aizer — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 15:38:00 GMT

Contract Management Software by Recombo Reduced Operational Costs by 30k Annually for Leading Property Management Company

Telluride Alpine Lodging Implements Agreement Express to Fully Automate their Guest Check-in Process

QUICKFACTS

Company

• Name: Telluride Alpine Lodging
• Location: Telluride, CO
• Industry: Property Management
• Employees: 30-50
• Customers: Over 10,000 annually
• Founded: 2008

Customer Profile

Telluride Alpine Lodging is the most experienced vacation rental management company in Telluride. Telluride Alpine Lodging offers a variety of lodging options from private homes to condos.

Application Description

Telluride Alpine Lodging implemented Agreement Express™, Recombo’s contract management software to automate the guest check-in process.

Implementation

Telluride Alpine Lodging implemented Agreement Express in November 2010.

Business Challenges

• Time-consuming, manual process assembling guest packets
• Lost charge-backs resulting from missing credit card information
• Customer inconvenience of travelling to remote check-in locations

Objectives

• Improve operational costs
• Capture credit card information for charge-backs
• Reduce preparation time to assemble guest packets

Results

• Reduced operational costs by 30k annually
• Improved charge-back rates by 100%
• Improved customer satisfaction nearly 100% with an online check-in process

“We did a lot of research into digital signature solutions to minimize our lost charge-backs. Although some of those solutions appeared cheaper, we preferred the ease-of-use of Agreement Express and the cost was perfectly priced.”

Chantel Meeker, Director of Guest Services for Telluride Alpine Lodging

Case Study: Contract Management Software Improves Customer Experience

Melanie Aizer — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 15:49:00 GMT

Here is a snapshot of our latest customer success story featuring Hydro Ottawa, the third largest municipal electricity distribution company in the province of Ontario.

"Implementing Agreement Express has allowed us to expand the suite of online services we offer our customers, through our convenient and secure customer portal, allowing them to manage their own account anytime.”

- Linda Larocque, Supervisor of Customer Experience for Hydro Ottawa

QUICKFACTS

Company

• Name: Hydro Ottawa
• Location: Ottawa, ON
• Industry: Utilities
• Employees: 560
• Customers: Over 300,000
• Revenue: Net income of $29.1 million in 2010

Customer Profile

Hydro Ottawa Limited is a wholly owned subsidiary of Hydro Ottawa Holding Inc., and the third largest municipal electricity distribution company in the province. Hydro Ottawa is responsible for the safe, reliable delivery of electricity to more than 300,000 residential and business customers in the City of Ottawa and the village of Casselman.

Application Description

Hydro Ottawa implemented Agreement Express™, Recombo’s contract management software to automate the enrollment process for their pre-authorization payment programs.

Implementation

Hydro Ottawa implemented Agreement Express in October 2008.

Business Challenges

• Labor and paper-intensive enrollment process for payment programs
• Significant paper and storage costs
• Missing information and errors data-keying from returned customer forms

Objectives

• Improve customer experience
• Reduce operational costs
• Improve business processes

Results

• Improved customer satisfaction by implementing an easy online enrollment process
• Reduced operational costs by eliminating the need for expensive paper and storage
• Improved productivity by freeing up resources

How To Improve The Customer Experience & Out-Compete Your Competition

Melanie Aizer — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 18:37:00 GMT

A few weeks ago, I was fortunate enough to attend “The Art of Marketing,” Canada's premier marketing & innovation conference.

This seminar for Canada’s marketers is developed to answer the questions currently facing organizations and provides them a clearer understanding of how marketing has changed, what role it now plays in the buying decision, its impact on your business and ultimately how the consumer views, interacts and positions your brand in a crowded marketplace.

The speakers, all visionaries and trailblazers in the field of marketing were outstanding.

The first speaker, Mitch Joel a very successful author and influencer in digital marketing, focused his presentation on how to rethink marketing in a “connected (digital) world,” and how to thrive in a world where anyone can (and is) saying whatever they want about your brands, products and services with the advent of social media.

The second speaker, Bill Taylor addressed key branding strategies for companies with the increase of “hyper-competition” (a word that was used throughout the event). He spoke high-level about how the most successful companies don’t just “out-compete” their rivals; they redefine the terms of competition by embracing unique ideas.

The speaker that resonated most with me with was Avinash Kaushik. Avinash is the Analytics Evangelist for Google, so needless to say “metrics” are his life. Avinash is a brilliant strategist and an expert in understanding how web analytics can be used to truly benefit a company. His presentation focused on the true “guts” of a marketing department ─ its analytics; what most of us marketers tend to focus on with a tunnel vision. In his presentation Avinash was able to convey to the audience a defining message: The metrics themselves aren’t as important as the behaviors (conversions) and social interactions with your audience (customers and potential customers). That is the true “metric” of success.

Each speaker, all conveyed the same message (which was really the theme of the day’s event): “Today’s consumer (whether it be in B2C or B2B) have changed their buying habits and it is the ‘winning organizations’ of the world that are able to listen, interact, adapt and deliver.” These are the companies which we all measure success by.

Companies like Zappos.com, Amazon.com and Nordstrom were referenced as examples in the B2C model as organizations who have built their business on listening to their customers. “Listening - not shouting!”

Engaging, enchanting and conversing with customers and making it easy for clients to buy and/or return products, and their customers getting a “personalized” experience. These attributes were touted as crucial components for successful companies to practice whether in B2C or B2B ─ in an age of 'hyper-competition' and the digital consumer.

Today, consumers can search, research and buy products – all while online with an easy 'one-touch click' of a portable device like a Smartphone or a Tablet. Consumers can review and recommend products, and most importantly evangelize products with their viral messages on social media.

When companies define a solid and clear understanding of the customer’s needs and create products to eliminate or alleviate pain-points for the customer, both the customer and company come out as winners.

Guy Kawasaki, the ex-Apple evangelist, visionary ─ and marketing genius, spoke of an “Enchantment” strategy for successful companies. He referenced the acronym DICEE as his metrics for a company’s success:

D- Deep = Your company’s features and functionality that empower your product.

I- Intelligent = A company’s ability to understand user pain-points and create the tools to solve these pains.

C- Complete= The totality of your offerings. It is your service in addition to your product and the product of your service.

E- Empowering= Create products that make users feel more productive.

E- Elegant= Develop a user interface that is attractive and user-friendly so that people want to use it.

In reflecting back on my experience at the event and what the speakers were trying to convey, I am pleased to say that at Recombo, we do spend a great deal of time engaged with our clients (and potential clients, alike) ─ listening to them, conversing and adapting our technology and the way we do things, in order to meet their unique business needs.

As the marketing manager, I spend a lot of time speaking to our clients for testimonials and case stories, and I am constantly amazed how many clients reference that Recombo was able and willing to produce a customized solution to meet their unique business needs (whatever the requirements may have been).

Our customers have customers. By implementing an automated contract management software system to streamline their business processes, serves to make the buying process easier for the customers ─ of our customers.

I often hear, being able to send & receive digitally signed contracts or any approval-based document within minutes, is the most valuable factor for their business success, regardless of the industry or business process (we broadly the term “contract” as any form of approval between two or more parties that requires formal or informal sign-off).

Many of our customers have begun implementing “customer self-serve” enrollment programs on their websites, by integrating a secure customer portal and a paperless enrollment process.

This website integration, better improves the customer experience by creating a seamless and easy to use enrollment method; allowing customers to serve themselves. This eliminates the tedious and inconvenient paper-based method to enroll in programs.

Improving the customer experience is at the heart of all winning organizations and by utilizing leading-edge technology like contract management software, document management or digital signature technology to improve the user experience for your customers, will gain you a competitive advantage in this world of ‘hyper-competition’ and you will be able to ‘out-compete’ the competition.

We do listen and understand our clients and what they want (and need) and we always stay one step ahead by developing unique product features to better serve our customers (and their customers).

I hope that I have started a valuable conversation for your company.

Here are some examples of what our customers have to say about us

If you would like to read some of our customer case stories, please visit our resource library

Improve Operating Costs Instantly with Contract Management Software

Melanie Aizer — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 18:50:00 GMT

Common to all of these different document types is the excessive cost in processing them. Think about your own company and whether any of these issues exist:

Your sales people don’t sell as much as they could because they spend time preparing, chasing and administering paperwork rather than selling

Time and money is wasted physically shipping paper to, from and between signatories

Pools of labor are allocated to error-check each returned contract and then correct those “not in good order”

Additional labor is allocated to manually key or scan information from completed documents into one or more back-office system

Or a significant percentage of customers go away after being frustrated by clumsy and difficult to understand agreement forms.

Considering all of these costs it may not come as a surprise to learn that manually processing business agreements is very likely costing your organization anywhere from $20 to $40 ... per agreement.

And if the business documents are customer facing such as account opening forms, the potential for revenue shortfalls due to customer abandonment rates or sales person inefficiency can cause your costs to skyrocket.

Companies have traditionally tried to improve their paper processes with various technologies such as document management systems, scanning software, digital signature solutions, custom built workflow automation, custom web forms and so many others.

But all of these traditional technologies sit on top of your existing, expensive paper-based process.

Worse, multiple technologies are often stacked on top of each other and may still not provide a complete solution.

The result is that these paper improvement technologies simply add to the costs of an already expensive system.

But paper is the core problem. Because it's passive it needs to be manually pushed through of the steps in your contract process.

Rather than increasing your costs to try and improve your contract process, we propose that you replace it entirely.

The ideal platform would have your business logic embedded into the documents so that they can transport themselves through each of the contract workflow steps automatically.

It would not require any add-on technologies, it should relieve all document workflow bottlenecks from a single platform.

And it can’t require a re-engineering of your business, as that could take years. It needs to accommodate everything you're doing today, with exactly the same forms you use today, but at a fraction of your current costs.

Agreement Express by Recombo is a fully integrated contract management software platform that turns any of your existing forms into easy to manage, intelligent documents that solve your workflow problems and drive costs out of the system.

Your forms will have built-in efficiencies that enable data to be entered into your documents quickly and accurately.

Your forms can also be integrated so that data can be automatically imported from your CRM system, and web pages.

Your workflow – regardless of how complex – can be automated so that the correct documents travel with the document package, moving seamlessly throughout the necessary organizations and getting into the right hands - at the right time.

As required, workflows can even be altered on the fly based on user input:

Dynamically adding or removing sections of documents
Dynamically adding or removing entire documents from the workflow
Documents can even be routed to alternate signatories, or launch entirely new workflows on the fly
Documents can be signed digitally or via wet ink, and are returned in good order, each and every time.

And at your option, the data captured in documents can be automatically mapped into any of your back-office systems, an existing document management system, or downloaded to the desktop.

To supplement these systems, Agreement Express comes with its own document management system that enables document publishers to efficiently monitor, manage, store and retrieve documents.

The result is that you permanently reduce your operating costs.

As soon as the system is turned on, your costs will drop from your current rate of more than $20 to less than $5 per agreement.

Courier costs, error-checking, correcting and re-keying data into back office systems are all eliminated
Sales people are freed to allocate more time to driving revenue
Your customers are provided a guided form filling experience so you can convert more deals
And contract completion times are reduced – often from days or weeks to minutes.

Offered as a hosted software service, Agreement Express is easy to setup, requires no internal maintenance and minimal administration.

Watch a 5 Minute Video & Get Started Today Improving Your Organization's Operating Margins

The Cost of Contract Management

Melanie Aizer — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 15:29:00 GMT

Description of Contract Process

Choose a business process in your organization to analyze. Now estimate the volume of contracts that are published on an annual basis, pertaining to the process.

Contract Preparation Costs

Questions to consider:

On average, how many minutes does it take to prepare your contracts, before they are ready to be sent out?
What is the salary (plus cost of benefits) of the employee(s) in your organization who prepares your contracts?

The first step is to create a contract. Using a desktop word-processing solution (Word, Google docs, PDF, etc.), an administrator populates the contract with relevant data for each transaction, such as names, dates, dollar values, and so on.

For example, sales agents in a wealth management firm or an ISO will create and mark-up a contract every new time they open an account or sign up a new merchant. They are likely given a set of standard contracts and are required to fill in the relevant information for each new customer.

This completion task is time-consuming, expensive and susceptible to data-entry errors.

Shipping Costs

Questions to consider:

Which methods do you use to send contracts: E-mail, fax, regular mail or by courier?
Do you pay to ship your paper contracts to signatories?
On average, how many times a month do you ship the contract for each transaction in the signing process?
What is the average cost of the shipment method, if by mail or courier?

Shipping paper has a number of shortcomings:

Costly: The actual cost of shipping is significant
Slow-moving: Physically shipping paper to and from signatories
Lack of visibility: Once contracts are sent, the publisher has no idea of their status. Are they in transit to or from signatories? Are they sitting unsigned on someone’s desk? Or has the prospect moved onto a competitor?

Error-Checking and Correcting (“NIGO”) Costs

Questions to consider:

How often are contracts returned not in good order (NIGO)?
What percentages of contracts are returned NIGO?
On average, how much time is spent working on fixing your NIGO contracts?
What is the salary (plus cost of benefits) of the employee(s) responsible for managing your NIGO contracts?

A percentage of completed contracts that are returned will have missing or incomplete information — either data errors in the forms, or missing supporting documentation, such as void checks or bank statements.

Data Keying or Scanning into System of Record

Questions to consider:

How much time and how many resources get allocated to keying or scanning information from competed contracts into your internal back-office systems?
Does this same contract information also have to be keyed into additional external systems - i.e., underwriter, processor, etc.?
On average, how much time does it take to load a contract into the required system(s)?
What is the salary (plus cost of benefits) of the employee(s) who manages getting the data into these systems?

Once the contracts are complete and in good order, organizations often need to key or scan them into their internal system of record.

Increased Revenue Potential

Often the resources employed to fill in, mail and track contracts, are the revenue generators of an organization. But paper contracts are time-consuming and clumsy to monitor and manage for your sales people, while they are “in-flight.”

IMPROVED REVENUE PRODUCTION DUE TO SALES PRODUCTIVITY
If sales people are filling in your contracts, then they must allocate a percentage of their time to creating and chasing paperwork rather than driving revenue.

Questions to consider:

If your sales people are completing contracts, what would be the estimated percentage of administrative time saved and re-directed to pursuing increased sales, if contracts were made more efficient to complete or completely off-loaded to customers to fill in?
Average annual value of a closed deal?

EXPECTED REVENUE INCREASE FROM REDUCTION OF ABANDONED CONTRACTS
For this process, is there a challenge to get contracts completed, and in a timely manner? Are contracts being sent out and your sales people are at a standstill waiting on customers to fill out and return? Do your prospects shop around and move onto competitors?

Questions to consider:

What is your current contract abandonment rate?
What would you estimate your abandonment rate to be after automating the contract process?

E-mail us today to find out how much operational cost reductions your organization can realize with Contract Management Software

How much your current paper-based contract process is costing your organization per month
The operational costs your company will save by automating your contract process

Contract Management Software for Electronic Payments & Banking

Melanie Aizer — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 16:33:00 GMT

Traditional sign-up of new merchant accounts is a complex process of capturing and processing data between Independent Sales Organizations (ISOs), Merchants and Acquirers.

The paperwork and administrative processes involved in signing-up and boarding new merchants is often a time-consuming, inefficient, multi-touch process.

Sales people must help merchants complete the application and send ancillary documents such as bank statements, void checks, or other forms of disclosure so that the upstream processes such as underwriting can be completed.

Once complete, the process of transmitting the merchant application to the acquirer begins. This may involve time-consuming data-entry into appropriate acquirer web forms, or manually faxing all of the documents while ensuring the
acquirer receives the completed application and all ancillary documents.

What if there was a way to make this process efficient and easy?

Sales professionals should be driving revenue — not pushing paper

Contract Management Software for Electronic Payments & Banking:

Pre-load your merchant application forms and start sending customer applications instantly.
Integrate directly into processor’s front-end boarding platforms.
Create and customize the online self-enrollment process.
Easily and instantly adjust the application workflow.
Integrate Agreement Express into Salesforce.com CRM or any front or back-office system.
Create new application forms or templates (with associated sign-offs and workflows).
Configure and adapt the system on your own as your business evolves.

Leading ISO Billing Tree, improved time to revenue by more than 50% with Contract Management Software

DOWNLOAD THE CASE STUDY TODAY and learn how Billing Tree:

Improved sales performance, reduced time in the on-boarding process of new customers by more than 40%
Streamlined data entry process and instantly eliminate 80% of errors on forms
Improved time to revenue by more than 50%
Improved ROI, saving on traditional costs associated with paper-based contracts

Contract Management Software for a Paperless Account Opening Process

Melanie Aizer — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 15:56:00 GMT

Contract Management Software optimizes the new account opening process — providing wealth management organizations time to close more business

The wealth management industry deals with too much paperwork and all the inherent problems that go along with it. Consider the case of a new account opening. Currently, the on-boarding process from initiation to completion is a complex labyrinth of expensive, manual processes, taking days or weeks to finalize, often requiring scanning or re-keying information into multiple internal and external back-office systems. This not only results in a poor customer experience, but also adversely impacts operating margins;

• Financial Advisors spend time chasing paperwork that would be better allocated to driving sales
• Administration labor time is wasted with error-checking, correcting, keying and scanning information into internal or partner back-office systems
• Expensive mail and courier costs are racked up

Contract Management Software can make new account openings, account maintenance or any other paper-based approval processes fully automated, and your firm reduces costs by completely eliminating paper and manual processes from the contract workflow. This enables your brokers and their clients to open and fund accounts faster and completely paperless across the entire process.

The Top Five Improvements for the Account Opening Process

To underline the types of specific benefits you will realize with Contract Management Software, listed below are the top five for new account openings.

1. Financial Advisors Spend Less Time Chasing Paperwork, More Time Selling

Contract Management Software opens up a new world of data flow and automation possibilities;

Account opening templates can be integrated with Sales Force Automation or Customer Relationship Management systems, websites and FINTRAC and IIROC compliant remote identity verification
Duplicate data can be auto-populated into other areas of the same form or into other forms
Dependent fields can be set to auto-populate based on the specifics of the transaction

New accounts can be opened anywhere, anytime. Accounts can be funded faster and trading can commence as soon as the new account is active.

2. Eliminate Labor Costs Associated with Error-Checking Completed Contracts

Contract Management Software is designed to minimize “not in good order” (NIGO) contracts by enforcing validation rules while the forms are being filled in. Contract data fields can:

• Enforce accurate date and numerical formatting
• Be formulas calculated on data entered into other fields
• Auto-populate based on data keyed into other fields
• Alter approval routing paths that require supporting documentation

3. Eliminate Labor Costs to Re-Key and Scan Completed Contracts

The advantage of Contract Management Software is that data from completed contracts can be automatically moved or copied anywhere. By default, all “in-flight” and completed contracts are stored on Recombo’s bank-grade, SAS70 secure servers.

Customers also have the option to automatically map the data from completed contracts into any back-office system at their premise or into any external third-party system.

4. Reduce Contract Initiation to Completion Time from Days to Minutes

Automating the process provides efficiencies at every step; dramatically reducing completion time from days or weeks into minutes.

• Fast and easy form filling
• Self-validating data fields, ensuring that there is little to no bottlenecking due to incorrect data
• Automatically routing contracts to signatories in the correct order
• Automatically storing completed documents into any internal or third-party system

5. Eliminate the Cost of Storing and Retrieving Contracts

Contracts can be retrieved by any metadata variable — publication date, publisher or recipient name, or any internal variable within the contract such as dollar values, addresses or anything else built into the contract.

Discover an Operational Cost-Savings Analysis of Transitioning to a Paperless Account Opening Process

DOWNLOAD INDUSTRY BRIEF TODAY!

Learn the top 5 ways contract management software improves operating margins:

Open accounts much faster to dramatically improve time-to-revenue
Implement web-based, compliant, new account openings
Easily manage KYC paperwork
Enforce quality at the document source
Minimize data entry and QA resources
Improve operations across the entire chain
Future-proof the process by using a flexible, adaptable service that is always up-to-date
Clearly understand the costs involved in setting up new accounts

Contract Management Software ─ Paperless Insurance Processing

Melanie Aizer — Fri, 10 Jun 2011 17:19:00 GMT

Paperless Application Processing for Insurance ─ Automate Paper-Based Processes with Contract Management Software

Contract Management Software optimizes the enrollment process — providing insurance organizations more time to close more business

Whether your firm sells commercial insurance with complex products or consumer insurance with straight-forward policies; creating, processing and completing the enrollment applications involve a complex labyrinth of manual business processes and large volumes of paperwork.

A paper-based contract process is inefficient, time-consuming and expensive. Paper business processes rely on manual labor to compile data, assemble documents and distribute them to appropriate signatories. It is prone to data-entry errors and provides little visibility over the status of insurance applications.

With paper, it is hard to ensure proper business routing for reviewing the documents, checking them for errors, and keying the data into external or internal back-office systems. As well, expenses are usually incurred in order to distribute paper contracts to and from various signatories, either by mail or by courier.

Rather than allocating additional resources to support an existing paper-based contract management system, more organizations are
resolving these issues by automating their business processes with contract management software.

Contract Management Software enables insurance carriers, brokers and sales agents to optimize the entire contract workflow processes so they can focus on advising and acquiring new clients instead of chasing paperwork.

The Top Five Ways To Improve Revenue Opportunities With Contract Management Software

1. Lower Rates Of Unreturned Applications

2. Reduce “Not In Good Order” (NIGO) Document Rates

3. Reduce Sales Cycle And Shorten Time To Revenue

4. Automate Processing From Client “Straight-Through” To Internal Or External Systems

5. Easy Retrieval Of Documents

Discover an Operational Cost-Savings Analysis of Transitioning to a Paperless Insurance Application Process

DOWNLOAD INDUSTRY BRIEF TODAY!

The top 5 ways contract management software improves operating margins:

Lower rates of unreturned applications
Reduce "Not In Good Order" (NIGO) document rates
Reduce sales cycle and shorten time to revenue
"Straight-Through" processing
Improve business operations

“By automating, we are now a more efficient company. One of our Producers remarked that she wrote more than 60 new policies in a month, without the typical stress of chasing down applications. By eliminating the administration, our sales brokers can focus solely on what they were hired to do – service clients, sell policies and generate revenue.”

— Sharlene Locke, President of Personal Insurance Practice, HUB International Ontario

Contract Management Software: Error-Check, Store & Retrieve Contracts

Melanie Aizer — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 15:35:00 GMT

Contract management software optimizes every step of the process from contract creation, through distribution, completion, and application of business rules, to filing and retrieval. It improves profit and cash flow by dramatically reducing the number of people required to administer contracts and by speeding up the approval process. To understand how organizations are benefiting from this advancement in digital technology, we need to take a closer look at each step of the contract workflow process.

Step one: Prepare the contracts

Step two: Distribute the contracts

Step three: Route the contracts

Step four: Correct errors

In the middle of the routing process, contracts can get bottlenecked when the client returns them with incorrect or missing information.

Contract management software can:

a) Enforce rules on data fields to ensure they are completed correctly, and
b) Ensure that correct supporting documentation is present and included with the package.

Step five: Store the contracts

Does your company consider contracts to be a critical business asset? Do you know where specific contracts are at this moment? Storing paper contracts makes them susceptible to misplacement, wandering eyes, loss, or even theft.

Digital contracts are never lost, can be easily secured, and are always available. Furthermore, completed contracts or the data fields within the contracts can be automatically mapped and stored in back-office systems.

Step six: Retrieve the contracts

It is inevitable that completed contracts will need to be retrieved. Paper contracts have limited indexing options, which can make it cumbersome or even unrealistic to compile reports. An equipment leasing company may choose to file contracts alphabetically by customer. This causes a problem when the leasing firm wants to assemble a group of leases signed between a certain date range, asset type, or risk category.

Managing data within contracts is a paradigm shift, that offers unlimited file-indexing options. Users can retrieve individual or groups of contracts by any data variable within the contracts such as names, dates, dollar amounts, addresses, signatories, and more; or by characteristics such as published, viewed, completed, contract creator, publisher, and more.

Discover How Your Company Can Easily Automate Contract Workflows - Immediately Improving Operational Margins

Download this Complimentary White Paper Today & Discover:

A detailed cost-savings analysis of transitioning to digital contract management technology
How to save 40% of labor costs required to enter, verify, correct and re-key contract data
How to eliminate all mail and courier costs
How to minimize storage and retrieval costs to only 10%

Contract Management Software Optimizes Contract Routing Process

Melanie Aizer — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 18:44:00 GMT

Step one: Prepare the contracts

Step two: Distribute the contracts

Step three: Business process — route the contracts

Many companies in industries such as merchant card services, securities brokerages, insurance brokers, etc., publish high volumes of contracts every week. Manually routing contracts to the correct signatories, in the correct order, and re-directing as required, by any other business rule is labor-intensive.

Routing

Imagine an insurance broker accepting new applications. First, applicant information has to be completed; it goes to the broker for error-checking, then on to the underwriter for approval, then back to the individual for final sign-off. At this point, a number of supporting documents — void check, automatic withdrawal approval, and so on, must be attached. Then the package goes to the broker for storage with a copy to the underwriter. All this routing uses up valuable human resources and is prone to error.

Contract management software automates this entire process — not only driving the human resource cost down, but also providing a superior customer experience that helps to reduce the number of transactions that are abandoned.

Business flow rules

Contract routing can be further complicated by business rules. For example, the insurance application may go to an internal employee with a pricing matrix, but if the characteristics of the individual are out of the norm, the application may need to go to a different department for special pricing. Once again, this causes unnecessary costs and delays in processing the application.

Contract management software reduces costs by automating the process.

Discover How Your Company Can Easily Automate Contract Workflows - Immediately Improving Operational Margins

Download this Complimentary White Paper Today & Discover:

A detailed cost-savings analysis of transitioning to digital contract management technology
How to save 40% of labor costs required to enter, verify, correct and re-key contract data
How to eliminate all mail and courier costs
How to minimize storage and retrieval costs to only 10%

Contract Management Software — Contract Distribution

Melanie Aizer — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 16:59:00 GMT

Step one: Contract preparation

Step two: Distribute the contracts

Shipping paper has a number of shortcomings:

Costly: Arranging for distribution, couriers, mail, and so on.

Slow-moving: Physically shipping paper to and from signatories, chasing signatories to correct errors, and supply supporting documentation, and so on.

Contracts distributed by courier, e-mail or fax have the additional problem of lost visibility. Once contracts are sent, the publisher has no idea of their status. Are they in transit to or from signatories? Are they sitting unsigned on someone’s desk? Or has the prospect moved on to a competitor?

Contract management software eliminates distribution costs, and accelerates completion rates. It provides visibility into every step of the process, so bottlenecks can be identified and the appropriate action taken.

Discover How Your Company Can Easily Automate Contract Workflows - Immediately Improving Operational Margins

Download this Complimentary White Paper Today & Discover:

A detailed cost-savings analysis of transitioning to digital contract management technology
How to save 40% of labor costs required to enter, verify, correct and re-key contract data
How to eliminate all mail and courier costs
How to minimize storage and retrieval costs to only 10%

Why are Companies Transitioning to Contract Management Software?

Melanie Aizer — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 16:20:00 GMT

A paper-based contract lifecycle process is clumsy, time-consuming and costly. It requires human labor to create, arrange for distribution, follow-up with signatories, error-check, file and retrieve. It is prone to errors every step of the way, often uses expensive, time-consuming courier or mail services, and offers little control over the status of distributed contracts — have signatories received them? Have they looked at them yet? Are they lost in transit? Or is the signatory shopping around for a better deal with a competitor?

Step one: Contract preparation

The first step is to create a contract. Using a desktop word-processing solution (Word, Google docs, PDF, etc.), an administrator populates the contract with relevant data for each transaction, such as names, dates, dollar values, and so on. This is time-consuming, expensive and susceptible to data-entry errors.

Contract management software reduces the possibility of errors, by enforcing rules about the format and type of data that is entered into each field. Furthermore, it is no longer necessary to manually enter data. Costs can be driven down by:

Automatically populating contracts with data from internal systems such as Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Sales Force Automation (SFA), Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), and others.

Integrating contracts with web sites offers two benefits. The first, is that it enables customers to enter data into contracts in a self-serve model. This effectively eliminates internal data-entry costs. The second, is that integrating contracts into web sites provides signatories with a guided form-filling process. This is important for revenue-centric contracts where the customer experience is critical in keeping abandonment rates as low as possible.

Business contracts often require follow-on documents that need to be signed. Insurance application forms may require an authorization for the individual to submit to a medical test, an authorization to take automated withdrawals from the bank, a void check, and other documents. These need to be assembled into a package and prepared for distribution — usually by standard mail or courier.

Contract workflow management has the ability to package together the relevant forms and contracts, capture data once, automatically populate relevant contracts, and instantly distribute them on-line or via e-mail. This drives distribution costs down and eliminates errors.

Discover How Your Company Can Easily Automate Contract Workflows - Immediately Improving Operational Margins

Download this Complimentary White Paper Today & Discover:

A detailed cost-savings analysis of transitioning to digital contract management technology
How to save 40% of labor costs required to enter, verify, correct and re-key contract data
How to eliminate all mail and courier costs
How to minimize storage and retrieval costs to only 10%

Contract Management Software ROI — Process Improvement Calculations

Melanie Aizer — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 16:59:00 GMT

A complete contract management software system eliminates waste by automating the entire workflow. The significant technical break-through is that it enables users to control not just contract images, but also the data elements within the contracts. The ability to manage at the data level opens up new automation possibilities.

In the first section of this ROI case study, DATA-ENTRY COSTS and DISTRIBUTION COSTS were analyzed...CLICK HERE TO VIEW

Again, for the purpose of ROI analysis, the following case study highlights an insurance broker but the example can be applied to any type of company.

Company type: insurance broker
Agreement project: individual insurance; new applications
Volume: 300 applications per month; 3,600 per year.

PROCESS IMPROVEMENT CALCULATIONS

3-Data error-checking cost

After the insurance application forms have been completed, a percentage will have missing or incomplete information (either data errors in the application, or missing supporting documentation, such as void checks or bank statements). Assuming that 25% need to be error-checked and each contract takes thirty minutes to check, chase down signatories, and secure corrections and supporting documentation, the cost of this task is $9,000 annually.

Contract workflow management provides data error-control in two important ways:

1. The data fields (dates, amounts, text, signatures, and so on) are very much like fields in a database. You can assign data-entry rules to them ensuring contracts are filled-in correctly.

2. You can set up the contract management software system to enforce rules for supporting documentation.

The combination of these two features effectively cuts data error-checking costs to zero.

4-Filing and retrieval cost

Once the insurance contracts have been completed and error-checked, they need to be filed. Furthermore, once they are filed, a portion will invariably need to be retrieved at some point. We estimate filing and retrieval costs to be $8,400 per year.

There are a number of filing options with contract management software:

1. By default, contracts are automatically filed on the platform.

2. Contracts can be automatically filed in internal back-office systems and deleted from the platform.

3. Contracts can be maintained in both the platform and internal back-office systems (the platform thereby effectively acting as back-up).

Digital contracts are always available and secure. They can be retrieved instantly by:

Internal data element(s) in the contract(s) such as: signatory names, dates, amounts, percentages, etc.

Meta-data associated with the contract(s) such as: publisher names, published status (opened, unopened, signed), publication date, etc.

5-Abandoned documents

Contract management software helps improve close rates in three important ways:

1. Immediacy. There is no waiting for documents to arrive. Once the data is filled-in, signatories receive them instantly. For competitive markets like insurance, securities, and merchant card services, this enables sales people to close new accounts quickly.

2. Visibility. Unlike paper documents that go into a black hole once they have been distributed, digital documents are always visible. As a result, sales people know when to make calls to ensure the documents get signed.

3. Improved customer experience. By integrating with websites, signatories can be guided through the form-filling process, making it effortless to quickly complete a document.

Let’s assume a 3% abandonment rate, and a value of $840 for each completed contract. Let’s also assume that more visibility and immediacy into the status of contracts coupled with a superior customer experience can improve this number by 30%. The opportunity cost will therefore be $27,540 annually.

The bottom line

In our example, the combined cost to complete each application form is $16.54 for a total of $59,565 per year. Add to this $27,540 annual revenue loss of abandoned applications, brings the total paper-based cost to $87,105 annually.

If we assume the annual cost of contract management software for this project is approximately $20,000, the total annual savings for the insurance broker is $67,105 — a 335% return on investment. For organizations that pay per contract for their contract management software system — the broker pays $5.55 per contract as opposed to the current $16.54 — an immediate 66% reduction.

“Cost And Flexibility Needs Are Shaping The Market. Broadly speaking, realizing cost savings by eliminating the need to use, handle, and process paper and using the Web to speed up the process of acquiring customers and closing business are the two main reasons that e-signature adoption has significantly accelerated in recent years.”

Forrester Research, Inc.
January, 2010
Market Overview: E-Signatures in 2010

Contract Management Software ROI — Insurance Broker Case Study

Melanie Aizer — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 20:48:00 GMT

Businesses exist to grow profits. Regardless of how well a new technology improves a business process, the decision to implement it must be justified by a significant positive impact to the bottom line.

Contract Management Software dramatically improves the contract workflow process — creating, publishing, routing to signatories, data-correcting, filing and retrieving paperwork.

A complete contract management software system eliminates waste by automating the entire workflow. The significant technical break-through is that it enables users to control not just contract images, but also the data elements within the contracts. The ability to manage at the data level opens up new automation possibilities.

For the purposes of ROI analysis, the following case study highlights an insurance broker but the example can be applied to any type of company.

Company type: insurance broker
Agreement project: individual insurance; new applications
Volume: 300 applications per month; 3,600 per year.

PROCESS IMPROVEMENT CALCULATIONS

In this section, we will cover data-entry and distribution costs.

1-Data-entry cost

Assuming that each insurance application takes a data-entry administrator twenty minutes and labor expense is twenty dollars per hour, the total annual cost of this activity is $24,000 per year.

Contract management software has three levels of data-entry options, each with greater levels of automation:

1. Using the technology natively, employees can rapidly fill-in a pre-built contract template.

2. Via integration with internal software systems such as Customer Relationship Management (CRM) or Sales Force Automation (SFA), contracts can be populated by a single click.

3. The technology can also be integrated with websites so that data-entry can be off-loaded to external signatories (customers, partners, and so on) effectively eliminating data-entry cost.

2-Distribution cost

The two costs associated with distributing paper contracts are labor and shipping. Assuming 75% of these insurance contracts are shipped via standard mail, 10% by courier and the remaining by fax and e-mail, the total cost of distribution is $18,165 annually.

Contract management software distributes contracts via e-mail, completely eliminating courier and standard mail costs.

Additionally, the technology can be integrated with websites and other internal software systems to automate the distribution of contracts without using any labor.

In our insurance example, customers fill-in applications on-line and click “send” when they are completed. The contract is then automatically launched into the signature routing workflow.

We will outline data error-checking cost, filing and retrieval cost and abandoned documents cost in our next section....or you can download our complimentary white paper today & discover:

A cost-savings analysis of transitioning to digital contract management technology
How to save 40% of labor costs to enter, verify, correct and re-key contract data
How to eliminate all mail and courier costs
How to minimize storage and retrieval costs to only 10%

Improve Operating Margin In Days with Contract Management Software

Melanie Aizer — Tue, 31 May 2011 16:47:00 GMT

Common to all of these different document types is the excessive cost in processing them.

Think about your own company and whether any of these issues exist:

Your sales people don’t sell as much as they could because they spend time preparing, chasing and administering paperwork rather than selling

Time and money is wasted physically shipping paper to, from and between signatories

Pools of labor are allocated to error-check each returned contract and then correct those “not in good order”

Additional labor is allocated to manually key or scan information from completed documents into one or more back-office system or a significant percentage of customers go away after being frustrated by clumsy and difficult to understand agreement forms

Watch this 5 Minute Video and Discover the Power of Contract Management Software to Improve Operating Margins in Days

LIKE Improving Operational Margins in Days?...

Melanie Aizer — Mon, 30 May 2011 17:05:00 GMT

LIKE Speeding Time to Revenue?
LIKE Closing More Business in Less Time?
LIKE Improving Operational Margins in Days?

Become a Recombo Facebook Fan & Receive an Executive Summary "Your Operating Costs Are Higher Than They Should Be"

Today the overwhelming medium-of-choice for executing business transactions is paper or some form of ‘flat’ electronic file such as MS Word, PDF or scanned images. These media all require manual effort to drag them through the contract fulfillment process, resulting in excessive costs such as:

Operation costs:

• Expense of shipping paper between signatories

• Labor to error-check and correct contracts that have been returned “not in good order” (NIGO)

• Labor to manually key or scan information and supporting documents from completed contracts into the system of record

Revenue opportunity costs:

• High abandonment rate for customer-facing contracts

• High cost of sales and lost opportunities since sales people spend excessive time preparing and chasing paperwork rather than selling

Improve Your Operating Margin in Days with Contract Management Software.

Agreement Express by Recombo provides a better and faster solution for electronically automating the processing of contracts through the entire workflow. Our cost-savings and pricing structure improves your contract processing-related operating margins by 75% or greater within days of implementation.

Contract Management Software Blog News

Arrow Capital Management first hedge fund in Canada to go paperless with Agreement Express

Contract Management Software Improves The Customer Experience

By automating business processes with contract management software, two leading organizations instantly improved the customer experience and customer satisfaction.

The third largest municipal electricity distribution company in Ontario, Hydro Ottawa, automated the enrollment process for their pre-authorization payment plan programs and improved their customer experience.

Telluride's leading vacation rental management company, Telluride Alpine Lodging, automated the guest check-in process & improved customer satisfaction nearly 100%.

Contract Management Software Automates The Entire Application Process

Why Are Your Operating Costs Higher Than They Should Be?

Watch this 5 Minute Video and Discover the Power of Contract Management Software to Improve Operating Margins in Days

Contract Management Software Different from E-Signature Technology?

What is “contract management software” and how does it differ from “e-signature” technology?

Is contract management software right for you?

Paper-Free and Productive with Contract Management Software

Recombo Provides Paperless Contract Management for More Efficient Results

Agreement Express by Recombo is profiled by leading organization Actuate.

Revolutionizing Contract Management

Recombo at MWAA 9th Annual Conference

Recombo is pleased to be attending the MidWest Acquirer Association's 9th Annual Conference.

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Contract Management Software Improves Sales Productivity by 60%

Case Study: Leader in E-Commerce Shopping Cart Software Volusion Improved Sales Productivity by 60% with Contract Management SoftwareQUICKFACTS

Company

Customer Profile

Application Description

Implementation

Business Challenges

Objectives

Results

Case Study: Contract Management Software with Salesforce.com

TIO Networks Corp. Reduced Latency in Dealer Location Implementations from 15-30 Days to 2-3 Days with the Help of Agreement Express

QUICKFACTS

Company

Customer Profile

Application Description

Implementation

Business Challenges

Objectives

Results

Case Study: Contract Management Software Reduces Operational Costs

Contract Management Software by Recombo Reduced Operational Costs by 30k Annually for Leading Property Management Company

Telluride Alpine Lodging Implements Agreement Express to Fully Automate their Guest Check-in Process

QUICKFACTS

Company

Customer Profile

Application Description

Implementation

Business Challenges

Objectives

Results

Case Study: Contract Management Software Improves Customer Experience

Here is a snapshot of our latest customer success story featuring Hydro Ottawa, the third largest municipal electricity distribution company in the province of Ontario.

QUICKFACTS

Company

Customer Profile

Application Description

Implementation

Business Challenges

Objectives

Results

How To Improve The Customer Experience & Out-Compete Your Competition

Improve Operating Costs Instantly with Contract Management Software

Watch a 5 Minute Video & Get Started Today Improving Your Organization's Operating Margins

The Cost of Contract Management

Description of Contract Process

Contract Preparation Costs

Questions to consider:

Shipping Costs

Questions to consider:

Error-Checking and Correcting (“NIGO”) Costs

Questions to consider:

Data Keying or Scanning into System of Record

Questions to consider:

Increased Revenue Potential

Questions to consider:

Questions to consider:

Contract Management Software for Electronic Payments & Banking

What if there was a way to make this process efficient and easy?

Sales professionals should be driving revenue — not pushing paper

Case Study: Leader in E-Commerce Shopping Cart Software Volusion Improved Sales Productivity by 60% with Contract Management Software

QUICKFACTS

LIKE Speeding Time to Revenue?
LIKE Closing More Business in Less Time?
LIKE Improving Operational Margins in Days?