Interactive Contract Management System

Overview

The Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA) is a non-profit organisation that supports over 4000 UK-based advertising practitioners every year. They are responsible for setting the official procedures for the best practise standards of the UK advertising industry. Their area of expertise encompasses a diverse range of sectors including creative, healthcare and media. The IPA advises and promotes advertising agencies, and works hard to address their issues.

The challenge

An important part of IPA’s work is managing contracts. This used to be a labour-intensive manual task that IPA felt was holding their organisation back. Contract management was dispersed throughout the organisation; risking inconsistency and a loss of important information. Further, creating contracts without any templates was time-consuming. This delayed the work of employees and delayed the outcomes for their clients. In addition, manual contract management made the IPA and their clients vulnerable to version control issues and subsequent contractual disputes. Lastly, the system lacked transparency. It wasn’t clear or easy to check which stage the contract was in at any given time

The solution

To solve the issues that IPA faced and allow them to manage contracts in a more efficient way, we developed a digital contract management system for them.

We created this system alongside IPA and the specialist law firm, Lewis Silkin, to produce a Contract Bank tailored to the specific needs of IPA. The Contract Bank is an online system that allows the IPA team to draft contracts with use of digital templates, and a simple HTML editor to prepare and send out legal documents which are then stored in the system. IPA members have the option of creating their contracts using legally checked stock phrases and paragraphs, and they can store those contracts as pdfs.

Our contract bank: key features

The main features of our bespoke Contract Bank include:

1. Accessing contact details

Users can securely store and easily access contact details of agencies they cooperate with along with assigned contracts.

2. Contracts

Users can quickly prepare new contracts and save them either as drafts or downloadable documents which are then stored in one place provided with an easy-to-use search bar.

3. Terms & conditions

Users can add and access editable clauses and sub-clauses which can then be effortlessly copied into a contract draft.

4. Guidance notes

Users can add and quickly find optional guidance notes clarifying existing clauses and sub-clauses.

5. Schedules

Users can add and easily access optional schedules which can then be attached to a given contract.

6. Scope of work

Users can add and easily access scopes of work prepared for each advertising service, which can be classified into multiple categories.

The outcome

Our bespoke Contract Bank enhanced the contract management system of IPA in a variety of ways. These include:

• A centralised system

Instead of dispersing important files involved in contract management throughout departments and even offices, the Contract Bank allows IPA to store all relevant files in one central digital location. This makes files easier to find, and minimises the risk of files getting lost

• Greater accessibility

All members with access to the Contract Bank can easily view and edit files from wherever they are, at whatever time they need to.

• Greater efficiency

Files are quicker to access, and pre-loaded contract templates make it quicker to create contracts. There is also no need to waste time manually filing documents away.

• Greater organisation

Without a paper contract management system, IPA no longer have to store relevant files in filing cabinets that can become messy when documents are misplaced. The Contract Bank also allows the user to organise schedules easily, and categorise contracts based on the relevant scope of work.

The success story

Overall, we consider our work with IPA to be a success. Our bespoke Contract Bank solution effectively resolves all issues that IPA previously struggled with during their manual operations. Further, the Contract Bank enhances IPA’s work by streamlining their contract management process; transforming it into a centralised, efficient, organised and accessible system.

Project facts

• Team – Developers 3 (Team Leader 1, Backend dev 1, Frontend dev 1), UX Designer 1, QA 1, BA 1, PM 1
• Project management – Waterfall for production
• Technology – .Net