Here at Ironclad, we have one thing that sets us apart from any other Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) provider: Passionate customers who love to share thoughts and ideas. In fact, we’ve shipped more than 50 feature enhancements this year directly in response to their feedback. Our customers rely on Ironclad to help them work faster and smarter, so if we’re doing something that can improve or streamline the contract review process, they’re going to let us know what they think about it.
We talked to a number of customers about how they’re using Ironclad AI today to accelerate contract review, manage their existing contracts, and operate more efficiently. Here are seven of their favorite ways to get the most from Ironclad AI.
Bringing in contracts from external systems
One of Ironclad’s most popular use cases is organizing all of a business’ contracts in one place. Moving from simple cloud storage and disparate inboxes to a collaborative, searchable repository is a game changer. Maybe you’ve been signing contracts using Word documents and email. Then you acquire a company that brings a slew of their own contracts to the mix. How do you keep up with it all? Ironclad’s AI-powered repository gathers all of your contracts, from as many different sources as you have, onto a single, unified platform that’s easy to work with. You can upload as many as 2,000 documents at a time, and start working with them instantly, thanks to our AI Smart Import tool.
Tracking contract data
Smart Import helps you truly understand what’s in those contracts, without all the heavy lifting. Smart Import scans your documents for 60+ recognized fields and clauses, extracting and tagging data so you can search, filter, and report with ease. Go beyond basic questions to uncover deeper insights in your contract data, like how many of your contracts include SLA commitments. You can even understand process metrics to improve your templates: Which contracts are most negotiated? Which sales cycles are taking the longest? Turn data into actionable insights, the easy way.
Negotiating on third-party paper
Ever negotiate with a third party who wants to use their paper? No problem – Ironclad AI helps you understand what’s in there, faster. Our AI brings in third-party paper – we even convert pdfs to docx for easy editing – and extracts information about clauses automatically, ensuring you know exactly what’s in each contract, no matter who wrote it.
Comparing contract language
Contract negotiation often involves going back and forth on preferred language. Details like how much the counterparty’s language on page 3 actually differs from yours rule the day. Ironclad AI-powered Playbooks help you take action by comparing the document at hand to your playbook of preferred clauses, and building a checklist of items to review. Which clauses don’t match your preferences? What clauses do you need to add or remove? Which are good to go? Ironclad AI makes hammering out preferred language faster and more efficient.
Managing risk
Contracting isn’t just about the contract itself. It’s also about deciding how much risk you’re willing to accept. Of course you want as little risk as possible, but it’s incredibly hard to track your exposure with hundreds, if not thousands, of contracts coming in. Where in your vast corpus of contracts do you have non-standard provisions, or things you might not be able to fulfill? Ironclad AI’s field and clause extraction helps identify potential trouble spots, and builds views and reports that help manage your risk more effectively.
Keeping track of renewals and obligations
Auto-renewals are a great way for companies to maintain revenue – but they can be extremely frustrating for customers. Ironclad AI makes tracking renewals easy, by extracting all of the dates from your imported contracts, then creating alerts for key milestones, like when a contract’s about to expire or an obligation is due.
Searching contract provisions
With so many contracts funneling through your business, how do you locate the ones you need at any given time? Recently, one of our tech customers suffered an outage. They needed to quickly identify all contracts with specific clauses detailing what to do for their customers after an outage occurred. This had always been a painful process — until Ironclad. With all their contracts stored in a repository, our AI extracted key information and made it easy to find via our advanced filtering and proximity search.
Try Ironclad AI for contract lifecycle management (CLM)
We love to nerd out with our customers and hear all the ways they use Ironclad AI to streamline and accelerate their businesses. Their feedback and ideas help us grow and improve our products for everyone in the Ironclad community. We’ve got a lot of exciting new features and enhancements coming up — Sign up for a custom demo to check out all of the cool things we’re doing with contract AI.
Ironclad is not a law firm, and this post does not constitute or contain legal advice. To evaluate the accuracy, sufficiency, or reliability of the ideas and guidance reflected here, or the applicability of these materials to your business, you should consult with a licensed attorney. Use of and access to any of the resources contained within Ironclad’s site do not create an attorney-client relationship between the user and Ironclad.
