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Around 18% of the selling cycle is spent on the contract process—drafting, negotiating, reviewing, approving, and chasing down signatures. That’s a significant chunk of time that pulls your team away from selling, building relationships, and driving revenue.
And the more contracts you handle, the more that time adds up.
If your deals are constantly delayed because someone’s waiting on a redline or forgot to follow up on an approval, you’re not imagining the impact. These slowdowns are real, and they hit both your timeline and your bottom line.
In this guide, we’ll walk through contract lifecycle management best practices that help you get ahead of the delays. You’ll learn how to keep everything organized, reduce unnecessary steps, and speed up the entire contract process.
Contract lifecycle management (CLM) is how businesses manage contracts from beginning to end. It covers everything: writing, reviewing, approving, signing, storing, and eventually renewing or closing the contract.
The goal is to keep things organized, avoid delays, and make sure nothing gets overlooked. Without a solid process, contracts can easily get lost, sit in someone’s inbox for weeks, or renew without anyone noticing.
On the flip side, CLM gives you a structured way to handle contracts so everyone knows what’s going on and what needs to happen next. It also helps reduce mistakes, cut down on back-and-forth, and save time across the board.
And it’s not just for legal teams. Sales, HR, finance, and procurement all play a part in managing contracts. With a good CLM system, everyone works from the same playbook. That means no guessing, no chasing people down, and no last-minute surprises.
If managing contracts feels like a constant game of catch-up, you're not alone.
A lot of businesses start out with good intentions—emails, spreadsheets, maybe a few shared folders—but things can go downhill fast. You chase down signatures, forget renewal dates, and spend way too much time asking, “Is this the latest version?”
Even with a contract lifecycle management system, it’s easy to fall into bad habits if the setup isn’t right. Contract management processes involve more than just storing documents. You’ve got to think about contract creation, negotiations, execution, and everything in between.
Here are the biggest problems that tend to get in the way:
So, how can you overcome these challenges?
Managing contracts doesn't have to be stressful. With the right habits and a clear process, you can avoid the usual delays, mistakes, and confusion.
Here are a few best practices that’ll help make your contract lifecycle management smoother and less frustrating.
If every contract starts from scratch, you're already wasting time. Standardizing your contracts with templates is one of the easiest ways to speed things up and reduce mistakes.
Whether it's NDAs or vendor contracts, having pre-approved contract templates keeps your language consistent and your process clear.
Using templates helps avoid delays during contract negotiations since most of the terms are already agreed on internally. Your legal team doesn’t have to review every word each time, and other departments know what to expect.
Contract templates also support your contract processes by making sure nothing important gets left out. You’re less likely to forget key clauses or miss required details when the structure is already in place.
Plus, when you use contract management software, templates can be built right into your workflow.
A solid library of templates saves time across the entire contract lifecycle from contract creation to execution and renewal. It also helps new team members ramp up faster, since they’re working from documents that are already approved.
A centralized contract repository is a central place where all your contracts are stored, organized, and easy to find.
It can be a folder system, a shared drive, or, ideally, a feature in your contract management software. The point is to keep everything in one place so you’re not digging through inboxes or old desktops when you need a file.
One of the biggest contract lifecycle management challenges is poor visibility. If no one knows where a contract lives or what version is final, things slow down. A well-organized repository is key to successful contract management because it brings order to the chaos.
Here’s what a good contract repository should include:
With a proper system in place, you can avoid duplicated work, lost files, and missed deadlines. It also helps with contract renewals; you can set alerts or filters to track upcoming dates, so nothing sneaks up on you.
If you’re serious about good contract management, this is one of the first things to tackle. It sets the foundation for everything else.
An approval process is a clear, step-by-step flow that shows who needs to review and sign off on a contract before it’s finalized. A strong approval process is one of the key parts of any contract lifecycle management process and helps teams avoid delays, confusion, and mistakes.
Having a structured path in place also keeps your negotiation process on track and makes sure everyone meets their contractual obligations. It’s one of those contract management best practices that saves time and builds accountability.
Here’s an example of a simple approval process:
Clear steps like these help avoid backtracking and speed up the entire process.
As you probably already know, manual contract tasks take up time, cause delays, and increase the risk of errors.
Automation helps you avoid all of that by handling repetitive steps so your team can focus on higher-value work. It’s one of the most practical ways to improve your process, especially if you’re managing a growing contract portfolio.
With the help of contract lifecycle management software, automation can support more effective contract management from start to finish. It keeps your contract creation process consistent, reduces bottlenecks, and helps prevent missed deadlines during contract review and renewals.
Check out these areas where automation makes a clear difference:
Getting a contract signed shouldn't take days of back-and-forth emails or require anyone to print and scan documents.
A reliable e-signature tool is a key part of any strong contract lifecycle management solution. It makes the signing step quick, secure, and trackable without adding extra work for you or your client.
E-signatures help close contracts faster, keep everything digital, and make sure signed documents are stored in the right place automatically.
They also reduce the chance of missing pages, wrong versions, or incomplete agreements. This makes a big difference when you're managing multiple contracts across teams or departments.
Most CLM software already includes or integrates with trusted e-signature tools, so it’s easy to build into your process.
Adding this step to your entire contract process means you can move from approval to signature in minutes, not days. It also provides a clear audit trail, which helps with compliance and future reviews.
Once a contract is signed, the work isn’t over. Monitoring how that contract performs over time is just as important as how you create contracts in the first place.
Without regular checks, you could miss when a contractual clause expires or stay locked into agreements that no longer serve your business. This is where strong contract administration makes a real difference.
Keeping an eye on existing contracts helps your legal department stay informed, supports better contract approval processes in the future, and gives you a clearer view of what’s working and what isn’t.
Here’s what to track:
Clear communication between teams is one of the most important parts of good contract management. When contract stakeholders work in silos, important details are missed, contract terms get misunderstood, and contract requests get delayed or lost.
A centralized communication process helps align everyone, from legal and finance to sales and procurement, so they’re all working toward the same contract objectives.
Without clear channels, misunderstandings around legal requirements or responsibilities can slow everything down. Teams might duplicate efforts, or worse, approve contracts that conflict with company policy.
Centralizing communication ensures that everyone has access to the same contract data, knows what stage the contract is in, and understands what’s expected of them.
It also helps teams respond faster to questions, track changes more accurately, and stay on top of deadlines. Whether you're discussing edits, clarifying contract terms, or reviewing risk, bringing everything into one shared platform helps reduce delays and confusion.
A more connected approach leads to faster turnaround times and fewer errors. This makes it easier to meet your contract objectives while keeping all stakeholders informed throughout the process.
If you're spending too much time reviewing contracts, chasing approvals, or jumping between tools just to get one deal closed, it’s time for something better.
Aline is a modern, AI-powered contract lifecycle management platform built to make the entire contract process faster, simpler, and more collaborative.
Aline helps lawyers and business stakeholders draft, negotiate, analyze, and sign legal contracts 5-10X faster using Aline AI. That means fewer delays, less manual review, and way more time saved across your legal, sales, and finance teams.
With AI-assisted drafting, automated redlining, and built-in e-signatures, Aline takes the guesswork and repetition out of contract work.
Instead of relying on scattered tools like Word, email, and DocuSign, Aline brings everything into one place. Its no-code template builder, dynamic compliance workflows, and AI-powered contract insights help you close deals faster and manage risk with ease.
You can even track performance, manage approvals, and generate detailed reports without jumping through hoops.
Start your trial today and see what smart, AI-powered contract management really looks like.
You manage the contract lifecycle by following a clear process from contract creation to contract finalization. This includes drafting the actual contract, sending it through approvals, collecting contract signatures, and tracking key terms post-signing. A good CLM solution helps automate steps, centralize communication, and make sure nothing gets missed. It also supports legal compliance and helps you minimize risk throughout the process.
The four main blocks of good contract management are:
These blocks form the core of any reliable CLM solution and keep your process consistent.
The six stages are:
Each step plays a role in helping you stay organized, minimize risk, and maintain compliance.
The best practice is to use a CLM solution that covers the entire contract lifecycle. That includes using templates for consistency, automating approvals, keeping all communication in one place, and tracking contract performance after the final agreement is signed. This helps you work faster, minimize risk, and maintain legal compliance without relying on scattered tools or manual work.
Good contract management helps you draft contracts that are clear, consistent, and aligned with your company’s standards. By using approved templates and a defined review process, you reduce the chances of missing key terms or exposing the business to legal or financial issues. It also helps identify and manage compliance risk by making sure contracts meet internal policies and external regulations. With built-in checks for regulatory compliance, you can catch potential problems early, before they turn into bigger issues.
Brent is an attorney, a full-stack JavaScript engineer and the CEO of Aline.
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