What is a Contract Repository in 2024: Cloud Contract Management

Written by Timothy Ware

A contract repository is simply a place where you store all of your contracts. In other words, it’s a filing cabinet, and that’s exactly what was used as a contract repository for many years. However, in 2024, this is no longer sufficient.

Filing cabinets take up expensive real estate, they are hard to organize, and they slow down the sales funnel. That’s why more and more companies are looking to cloud contract repositories.

We’ve recently released an article about electronic contract repositories that answers any questions you may have about them.

To see first hand how SignTime can help with contract lifecycle management, sign up for a free trial today.

What is a contract repository?

The most basic definition of a contract repository is a space to store your important documents. In the physical world, this means a filing cabinet. In the cloud, it means contract management software (CMS).

A contract repository is sometimes called a document repository, as contracts are just one type of important document. Contracts and other important documents need to be stored for a long time. Over time, this can mean renting an entire property dedicated to document storage.

In my youth, I worked as a document clerk for a law firm at their off-site storage facility. My job was to open files that had reached the age of 10 years post-closing, remove and shred everything but the invoice, and then return the invoice to be shredded in 10 more years.

These documents were rarely, and most never, consulted after the cases were closed, but one of the partners recounted the occasional but very real horror stories caused by not having an old file.

Thankfully, cloud computing has allowed for the end of these time-consuming and expensive practices while keeping your documents safe for decades into the future. Now there are electronic contract repositories, sometimes called contract lifecycle management (CLM) software, that remove all these issues.

What is contract repository software?

Contract repository software is the modern solution to all of these old headaches. Now companies can streamline and simplify their contract lifecycle management using a cloud platform.

SignTime gives companies the ability to store all of their contracts, even digitized versions of their old paper contracts, securely in the cloud. But that’s not all. Electronic contract repository systems come with many other features that save time and money during the entire contract lifecycle.

In fact, they can even make it easier to close deals.

I’ll come back to all these great features a little bit further down, but first, let’s talk about metadata.

What is stored with a contract in a electronic contract repository?

Even if you aren’t familiar with metadata, you’ve experienced its usefulness before.

According to Wikipedia, metadata is “data that provides information about other data.”

If you have ever wondered how your smartphone can show you all the pictures of a single person, location, or date automatically, it’s because of metadata. Your phone now stores loads of descriptive information about a photo along with the image so that it is searchable.

SignTime allows you to store metadata using the tagging function so that you can quickly find any important document in seconds. Here are some common tags used by SignTime customers:

• Type of contract
• Value of contract
• Names of the signatories
• Date the contract expires and/or is up for renewal
• Date the contract was signed

This contrasts with traditional filing cabinets that can only be organized around a single characteristic.

Learn more about everything you need to know about electronic contracts.

To see how SignTime can organize all of your important documents, sign up for a free trial today.

What are the key features of contract repository software?

Every business is different, and their needs and budget for a contract repository will also be different. That’s why the following is the most important feature in contract repository software:

• Free trial: SignTime offers all users a free trial so they can test the UX/UI and included features before making a decision on whether it is worth the price. This is the most important feature of any digital software today.

The next features are specific to the contract repository:

• Contract storage: Foremost, a electronic contract repository needs to be a place to store contracts securely in the cloud.
• Remote contract access: It’s important to be able to view any contracts stored in the repository from anywhere.
• Contract search: Electronic contract repositories need advanced search features that make it a breeze to find any document. SignTime’s tagging feature allows you to search multiple metadata tags at once.

While contract storage is the most important part of a contract repository, contract lifecycle management (CLM) software goes well beyond simply storing documents. It’s important that there are features that save you time through the entire contracting process:

• Contract drafting: SignTime allows users to upload custom templates and add different fields, for example, sign, name, and date fields, to draft contracts faster.
• Alerts and notifications: It’s important to keep up to date on who has signed a contract or when a contract comes up for renewal. Proactive alerts are a great way to simplify this.
• Reporting: SignTime offers reports so you can track where your documents are currently in the contract lifecycle.
• Send and sign: Good contract management software allows you to send your contracts to one or hundreds of people at once. In addition, it should be easy and fast for your clients to sign documents on their mobile phones, from anywhere.

Who uses a contract repository?

SignTime likes to say “SignTime is for sales” because e-signatures shorten the sales cycle. However, the benefits of a contract repository go well beyond faster and easier sales.

Indeed, e-signatures can help your entire business.

HR personnel will like that they can send a new NDA to the entire staff with a single click. Then, they can monitor who has returned the signed document to make sure no one is forgotten.

In addition, your legal department will like that it is easy to red-line and amend contracts quickly.

SignTime has what you need in a contract repository

SignTime offers all the features you need in a contract repository and e-signature solution. With an easy-to-use UI, your entire team will be using the platform in no time.