Bring home better deals: how contract management transforms the real estate sector. 

The real estate sector is one of the most obvious industries to benefit from proper contract management. Built on thousands of contracts - between a growing number of stakeholders and compliance controls - managing documents, deeds, lease agreements and more becomes a cumbersome task. All the while, real estate professionals must manage and keep track of expenses, property yield, development milestones, and occupancy rates. 

Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) software like Docfield offer a modern solution that streamlines the contracting process and leverages the power of contract data to ensure that real estate professionals can focus on growing their business rather than getting bogged down in administrative details. 

Navigating the contract lifecycle

Real estate contracts go through several critical phases, each with its own challenges:

• Drafting: Developing tailored lease agreements, purchase contracts, and service contracts that meet legal standards and specific deal requirements.
• Negotiation: Collaborating with multiple parties; whether property owners, tenants, brokers, or vendors, to agree on the terms.
• Approval: Obtaining sign-off from all parties in a secure and provable manner after several revisions to an agreement.
• Execution: Finalising agreements with encrypted e-signatures.
• Monitoring: Parties can track of key contract data like dates, obligations, and milestones.
• Renewal or termination: Managing renewals or contract closures effectively and efficiently.

There is low-hanging fruit, as well as more challenging gains at each stage of the cycle. Intuitively, delays and errors lead to lost revenue, compliance risks, and generally strained relationships. Docfield CLM is designed to address issues at each stage, for a detailed exploration, consider our features and pricing pages.

So, how does CLM software enhance efficiency in the real estate sector?

From chaos to control. There are numerous tangible benefits of having a single, digital hub where every contract - from multi-tenant lease agreements to maintenance service contracts - is stored, updated, and readily accessible. The Docfield CLM delivers on this vision through several key features we built in-house. 

1. Centralised document repository

It is common for real estate agents to manage hundreds or even thousands of contracts across various properties. This usually means an order of magnitude or more of e-mail threads, drafts, and folders in which these agreements can get lost. A centralised digital archive like Docfield stores agreements where they are signed. This means you can always locate a document with a simple search, eliminating endless scrolling through emails or physical files.

2. Automated workflows

By having all contracts in one place, users can leverage powerful automations and improved workflows. From initial draft to final approval, the Docfield CLM leverages these automations to ensure that contracts are always in motion and moving towards the closure of a deal. 

Bottlenecks and unnecessary delays tend to form around the same pressure points. Automated workflows send reminders for approvals, trigger escalation if a step is delayed, and keep everyone informed about the contract’s progress. This is particularly beneficial when coordinating between legal, property management, and finance teams.

3. Intelligent version control

Intelligent version control tracks every change that is made to a document. This brings ease of mind to all stakeholders; to know that all team members are working with the latest version of a contract and how this state came to be. 

4. Streamlined collaboration

Collaboration across various teams—legal, property management, sales, and procurement—can be challenging. A unified CLM platform fosters real-time communication and co-authoring, reducing miscommunication and delays caused by manual handoffs. Everyone can see the status of a contract at a glance, leading to quicker, more informed decisions.

5. Data extraction, dashboards, and actionable insights

Missing a lease renewal or failing to meet a compliance deadline can have costly consequences. Docfield automatically extracts key contract data and lets you create handy dashboards. From this, you can automate reminders, get status updates, and more actionable insights that help you streamline your operations.

‍

How does this translate to cost savings?

The financial impact of improved contract management in real estate can be significant. Here’s how the Docfield CLM helps minimise and avoid costs:

1. Lower administrative overhead

Automating routine tasks such as data entry, document routing, and compliance checks reduces the need for extensive manual labor. This frees up your team to focus on strategic initiatives like property acquisition or tenant engagement, directly contributing to higher productivity.

2. Avoiding penalties

Non-compliance or missed deadlines can result in fines or legal disputes. By automating compliance tracking and deadline alerts, CLM software helps you avoid these pitfalls, ensuring that contracts are always managed within regulatory requirements.

3. Better negotiation outcomes

Data-driven insights from your CLM system can offer valuable historical information on contract performance and how your negotiations unfold. Armed with this data, your team can negotiate more favorable terms, whether it’s better lease rates or improved service conditions, resulting in significant cost savings over time. Remember, contracts are at the core of your business!

4. Accelerated revenue recognition

Timely execution of contracts is crucial. Delays can postpone revenue streams from property sales or rentals so it is key to always speed this up. By speeding up the contract approval and execution processes, CLM software helps ensure that revenue is recognised faster, boosting your overall cash flow and the financial health of your business.

Scaling your real estate business with Docfield CLM

We’ve been fortunate to fulfill our purpose of working with real estate professionals and companies that leverage the Docfield CLM to scale their business. 

As your own portfolio of properties grows, so does the complexity of managing numerous contracts across different regions and jurisdictions. Our CLM scales effortlessly to accommodate this growth by:

• Supporting multiple contract types: From residential leases to commercial property agreements, our software handles diverse document types with ease.
• Seamlessly integrating with other systems: Whether it’s your ERP, CRM, or accounting software, Docfield offers a growing number of integrations, ensuring it fits as part of a wider, cohesive ecosystem.
• Helping expand across geographies: Manage contracts for properties in different regions with conditional logic. Our system can automatically leverage different clause libraries depending on what jurisdiction the property is in, making compliance a breeze! Docfield now also offers AI translation in-text, making it very convenient to make contracts available in multiple languages.

Conclusion

Top real estate professionals know contract management brings about a competitive edge. It is about more than locating your agreements or helping you close deals faster, it’s about providing you with the tools you need to run your operations smoothly, recognise revenue faster, automate away slow admin, and leveraging key data to give you strategic insight. The Docfield CLM has been designed with this in mind: to optimise for all parts of a real estate contract’s lifecycle, from creation through to renewal or expiry.  

By implementing the Docfield CLM, you can transform the way your organisation handles contracts, cutting down on time-consuming manual processes, reducing costs, and mitigating risks. With a centralised, automated, and data-driven approach, Docfield enables you to focus on what matters most: letting your real estate portfolio flourish.

Ready to elevate your operations? Reach out today for a free demo, to see how our platform performs live!

‍