Enhanced Approvals Now Available

We have enhanced how approvals work within intelligentcontract.com. From 11th January 2018, customers that have Enterprise Level Accounts can start using these new features. The following is included:

• You can cancel an approval while it's in progress and start again.
• Approval groups can be created. Approval groups allow an approval notification to go to a group of users. When one user has approved, the contract is approved on behalf of the group.
• Create approval rules based on contract value as well as contract type.
• Control when an approved contract is automatically changed to Pending Status.
• It's easier to approve contracts through email. Control the fields of data presented to approvers.
• Bulk approval allows you to set the approval status of multiple contracts in a single action.
• Notifications to the submitter and each approver has been improved to make it clear where a contract currently sits in the approval process.
• Replace an approver while in progress. This can help if a user is on leave and you need to replace the person who is set to approve a contract.
• Clearer list of approvals that are outstanding, in progress and complete.
• Improved way of using people’s supervisors to create an approval hierarchy.

How Do Approvals Work?

Contract approval allows you to associate an approval status with each contract. New contracts are given a status of "pending". Once submitted for approval, the status will change to "in progress". At this stage the contract will be subject to a workflow (which either you or the system can decide) which can be different for each contract depending upon its type or value. Once the approval process is complete, the contract will either be "Approved" or "Rejected".

Why Should I Use Contract Approvals?

Approvals can be used to replace one or more of your current paper based processes or to introduce new controls into your contract process. The reasons and the scenarios for using approvals will differ from organisation to organisation but here are some typical use scenarios:

• All new contracts within an organisation over a specific value must be reviewed/approved by the legal department.
• In order to ensure no contract data is missing and all entered data is correct, each new contract must be approved by the centralised Contract Administrator before being considered "Live".
• The commercial arrangements on all new sales contracts over £1,000 must be approved by the Sales Manager.
• All procurement contracts entered into must be reviewed and approved by the Head of Procurement before the contract is committed to.

Please note: Read-only users can be part of the approval process. They can approve and reject contracts. They are not able, however, to initiate a contract approval process. Initiation, cancellation or sending reminder notification requires a user to be a full user.

Want to get started?

If you wish to start using approvals in your contract management process, then please refer to our quick start guide.