Driving revenue growth and supporting business operations are top priorities for in-house legal teams. However, a survey has revealed that, for more than 50 percent of organizations,inefficiencies in the contracting process are slowing revenue recognition, with slow turnaround time cited as a major challenge which negatively impacts the business. To make matters worse, it is estimated that, on average, organizations lose nine percent of anticipated annual value due to inefficient contract processes.

Tracking contract turnaround times allows legal teams to report on their work, identify bottlenecks and opportunities for improving efficiency, and demonstrate their contribution to business outcomes. For legal leaders, good contract reporting provides actionable insights which enhance business predictability, create visibility into critical work done by the legal team, surface opportunities to improve performance, and facilitate effective conversations with stakeholders.

But obtaining the necessary data can be time-consuming and involve a lot of manual steps. Even if you have the data at hand, extracting insights from this information which are easy to understand, act on, and share with stakeholders is another challenge altogether.

At a time when turning contracts around in a timely manner is more important than ever, effective contract reporting is mission critical. In-house legal technology can help legal teams report on contract turnaround without wasting time, and eliminate the struggle to extract meaningful insights from their work.

LawVu’s new contract turnaround time reporting features are available now – and they’re giving legal teams easy access to the critical contract insights they need to aid in decision-making, strategic planning, and communication with the business.

LawVu’s new dashboard for critical contract turnaround time reporting

LawVu’s new contract turnaround time reporting is the latest addition to LawVu’s out of the box reporting dashboards for contracts, matters and spend. The new dashboard gives legal teams easy access to the actionable insights they need to make data-driven decisions – all without having to spend time generating reports or creating graphs to communicate the value of the legal department to stakeholders.

There are three key features of the dashboard that make it a slam dunk for legal leaders and their teams:

1. Instant snapshots: By default, the dashboard gives you a visual, easy-to-understand view of the average length of time contracts spend at each lifecycle stage. Because you can easily see how long things are taking at a glance and monitor trends over time, you’ll be able to draw quick conclusions about how your team spends time, where things slow down, and what work is coming up.

1. Granular views: You can view contract turnaround times for a specific contract, or filter by contract type, group, team, department, or contract owner. This gives you access to insights at a glance, allowing you to answer key questions about which types of contracts need attention, where bottlenecks might occur, and who you need to communicate or work with to improve operations.
2. Interactive reports: Because the report is interactive, you can filter and drill through to see the underlying contracts at any point. These details help you spot trends, take action on specific contracts that need attention, or communicate with specific people about work that needs to be done.

Three ways to use the contract turnaround time dashboard

There are a number of ways that your legal team can use the contract turnaround time dashboard to track progress, improve operations, and communicate with stakeholders.

Here are three use cases that our customers find highly valuable:

Identify inefficiencies and measure process improvements

A key metric in the contract turnaround time report is the average turnaround time for contract completion, with detail about how long contracts have spent at each stage. You can use this to identify areas in which delays commonly occur, as well as potential opportunities for improvement. For example, if low value contracts (such as NDAs) are taking longer than expected in the draft stage, this might indicate an opportunity to automate their creation through self-service templates. You could then use the dashboard to evaluate the outcome of this automation and communicate its impact to stakeholders.

To take another example, if you notice that the average time contracts spend in the approval stage is too long, this may indicate bottlenecks that could be solved by automating approval workflow processes or simplifying internal approval policies.

As well as uncovering areas for improvement, reporting can also highlight successful practices that could be replicated across the organization. For example, by identifying contracts with exceptionally fast turnaround times, you can pinpoint factors contributing to success, such as efficient communication channels and streamlined approval workflows.

Understand and set expectations for turnaround times 

Knowing how long things usually take gives you a baseline for setting expectations and benchmarking results. For example, if you outsource contract work to third parties, you can view the turnaround time for a contract type you are considering outsourcing, and use this as a benchmark to set expectations with your legal service provider. You can then use the report to review turnaround times for this contract type after a certain time period (for example, six months) to measure performance.

By way of another example, if you have internal SLAs, you can use the information in the dashboard to establish internal benchmarks and set clear expectations of turnaround times; you’ll also be able to use it to measure improvements against SLAs or benchmarks over time, and communicate team performance against SLAs.

Easily communicate with stakeholders

The contract turnaround time report is user friendly and easy to share with stakeholders. Use the report to facilitate discussions with the business, show improvements over time, and communicate value. It can also be used to support a case for resource allocation or additional support. Your legal team is a stakeholder too; you can use the report with your team to track and measure progress without spending valuable time on report generation.

The benefits of contract management software for corporate legal reporting

Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) software is an effective solution for many legal departments seeking to streamline contract management. With the right CLM solution, reporting on your contracts can be painless and highly valuable.

Contract management in the LawVu legal workspace is a tool which lets in-house legal teams effectively manage contracts end-to-end. It automatically turns your contract data into real-time insights that are critical for informed decision-making. For in-house legal teams, this means less manual admin and quick actionable insights at your fingertips.

To learn more about how contract management in the LawVu legal workspace can transform the way your legal team manages contracts and delivers better business outcomes, get in touch with us for a personalized demo.