Digital Contract Storage & Repository Complete Guide - How to Store Legal Documents?

Top Features of Digital Contract Storage & Repository Platforms

☑ Provides you with a single repository for all your legal contracts, making it easier to store, access, and manage documents from one central location.

☑ Secured via advanced security measures to protect your sensitive information from unauthorized access, breaches, and data loss 

☑ Ensures that authorised users can access necessary contracts and documents anytime, anywhere - helping to speed up and improve remote working and organisations that have global operations.

☑ Utilises AI-powered features and machine learning to automate, & automatically tag and categorise contracts based on relevant metadata - reducing manual effort and increasing contract accuracy.

☑ Can feature powerful search tools that enable your users to quickly find documents using keywords, metadata, or full-text search - significantly reducing the time spent on document retrieval.

☑ Maintains a clear history of document revisions and updates, ensuring that users are constantly working with the most current version of a contract.

☑ Provides tools for monitoring contract terms, deadlines, and obligations, thereby reducing legal compliance risks significantly.

☑ Streamlines your contract approval processes with automated workflows, reducing bottlenecks and improving how your contracts are signed off.

☑ Helps easy collaboration and sharing of contracts between each of your stakeholders, legal teams, and external parties.

Table of Contents

• What is a Digital Legal Contract Storage and Repository System?

• Problems with Traditional Contract Storage

• The Need for Organised Contract Storage

• How Does Automated Metadata Tagging Work?

• Centralised Storage

• Access Levels & Data Protection

• Automated Metadata Tagging

• User-Friendly Dashboard and AI-Powered Search Functionality

• Secure Document Storage

• Automated Approval Workflows

• Can They help with Compliance Management?

• What Laws and Regulations Can Affect the Storage of Documents?

• How Do They Improve Contract Accessibility?

• Is Version Control Available, And What is the Role of Version Control?

• How do Digital Repositories Help With Collaboration?

• What Types of Organisations Can Benefit From These Systems?

• Can These Systems Integrate With Other Business Tools?

• What is the Impact of These Systems on Contract Approval Processes?

• How Do They Handle Contract Renewals and Expirations?

• Are Digital Legal Contract Storage Systems Difficult to Implement?

• Digital Contract Storage & Document Repository Systems Overall

• Interested To Find Out More?
  
  

What is a Digital Legal Contract Storage and Repository System?

A digital legal contract storage and repository system is an online software solution designed to store, manage, and track your legal contracts and documents electronically.

It does so by centralising your contract storage, automating your workflows, and providing secure access to documents whenever they are required, all while helping to create an efficient contract management and compliance process.

Problems with Traditional Contract Storage

Traditional contract storage methods rely on outdated and costly techniques such as relying on physical filing and manual organisation.

For instance, they can quickly become very time-consuming to maintain, prone to human error, and inefficient, with documents often scattered across different locations. 

Heaven forbid a fire was to also break out on the premises where they are stored as well, and they could all literally go up in smoke.

This lack of centralisation and automation can hinder your access very quickly while increasing the risks of loss or damage.

Furthermore, this can easily complicate regulatory compliance and management processes simultaneously - especially if sensitive documents are kept locked away and stored under the incorrect conditions.

Manual Filing Systems

Reliance on physical documents and manual filing systems is outdated and could be more efficient with automated contract storage like Pocketlaw.  

We all know how much time it can consume - along with taking up valuable space and resources needed to house those documents - when trying to retrieve specific contracts.

As a result, this can be very time-consuming and frustrating - especially if the person who knows where they are stored or has the keys to the lockable cabinet isn’t available at that moment in time.

Scattered & Lost Documents

Without a central repository, contracts and legal documents can quickly become scattered across various departments and storage systems - leading  increased risk of misplacement or loss of some or just part of the contract, making it difficult to know what has been agreed.

Manual Document Tagging

The traditional approach to contract storage requires legal professionals to manually input information related to the document, such as parties involved start and termination dates, into a system to keep track of it.

This process is also very time-consuming and prone to errors in data transfer - further complicating your document management and storage.

Automated metadata tagging, as provided by Pocketlaw, allows your lawyers to better spend their time on more high-risk legal work that requires their legal professional expertise instead.

The Need for Organised Contract Storage

For large and dynamic companies, the ability to quickly and easily retrieve all your contracts is crucial - mainly if a decision relies on the contract in place or a dispute is starting to arise.As businesses grow and evolve, the volume of contracts and legal documents also increases, compounding the challenges of manual storage methods.

As a result, aAn organised file system allows for efficient organisation and structured viewing by multiple stakeholders, which is essential for risk mitigation and compliance. 

A contract storage system needs to accomplish this at scale and offer you the ability to quickly and accurately locate all your legal documents with ease.

This is where more modern cloud-based digital contract and document storage platforms like Pocketlaw come in.

Modern Contract Management Platforms

Modern digital contract storage platforms, such as Pocketlaw, offer you and your organisation a centralised, secure repository for managing all your legal documents in one place that can be securely accessed only by the required stakeholders when they need to - day or night. Furthermore, these help you to ensure you remain legally compliant automatically while also mitigating your legal risks and improving your team's accessibility and understanding.

They can also further enhance your efficiency with AI-powered search and automated metadata tagging, streamline approval workflows, and help to bring about a much more robust form of document collaboration than you may be used to.

As a result, these contract management platforms will even Pocketlaw’s Contract management platforms can 

All of these strengthen your team by saving time and resources while bolstering your risk management  and operational agility.

How Does Automated Metadata Tagging Work?

Automated metadata tagging uses AI to analyse your documents and automatically tag them with relevant metadata for that contract, eliminating the need for manual input This can include data tagged around the contract type, parties involved, dates, and other essential information.

This speeds up the process of organising and categorising your contracts efficiently while adding searchability and managing all your contracts within your repository on the fly. Furthermore, not only does automated metadata tagging improve the findability of your contracts, but it also drastically frees up your legal team to focus on providing legal advice, making them more productive to the business as a whole.

Centralised Storage With Customisable Folder Structures

Another benefit to modern digital contract storage platforms, such as Pocketlaw, is that they give you the benefits of a centralised point of storage for contracts, with easy-to-search functionality built-in - enabling easy retrieval and collaboration.

You can then create customisable folder structures tailored to your company's specific needs and requirements - helping you become even more efficient and streamlined.

Which in turn allows you and your teams to navigate through your contracts much easier by filtering them to certain contract types.

Improved Contract Accessibility

Centralised storage of your contracts then helps further with contract accessibility, and this  is really straightforward to achieve with a platfrom like Pocketlaw. As the contracts are uploaded to a central, secure document digital repository. Then, inside the platform, you can allow authorized users to access contracts from anywhere at any time right away.

Advanced AI-powered search functionalities then further enable quick retrieval of your documents, further enhancing productivity and response times, especially if it is needed in a time-sensitive manner.

Access Levels

To protect confidentiality within your organisation, they also provide you with customisable access levels.

Only some team members need to be able to see some contracts for your whole organisation, no problem; with access control, the admins can choose who in your organisation can see what documents.

For instance, only some people need to, and shouldn't be able to, view individual employee contracts or the ins and outs of your top business contracts.

This feature allows your business to control who can view or edit your contracts, maintaining oversight and safeguarding your sensitive information.

Automated Approval Workflows

Another platform benefit to look out for when looking to store your documents is one that streamlines the approval process with automated workflows. 

This is because it ensures that the appropriate senior business colleagues - or legal managers - review and approve documents, maintaining governance and control over the whole contract lifecycle.

Consequently, this automating of workflow steps reduces the time from drafting to approval, improving the overall operational efficiency and your contract turnaround times drastically.

User-Friendly Dashboard and AI-Powered Search Functionality

Any document storage platform these days would only be helpful if the user interface were smooth and easy to use. 

That is why when designing Pocketlaw we built it with a user-friendly interface in mind from the gound up. Furthermore, to help you even more the Digital Contract System was improved to be even more efficient by being powered by AI.

This then gives you a universal search function that speeds up your contract retrieval process.

This ensures easy access and complete visibility of your contracts, further enhancing your organisation's efficiency and decision-making at the same time.

Secure Document Storage

It’s essential that your document storage provider has strict security to allow your contracts to remain secure and private. 

Platforms you use should at least comply with ISO 27001 standards for secure document storage. 

Ensuring this level of security, you can be safe in mind that your contracts and legal documents are protected against unauthorized access 

Can They help with Compliance Management?

Yes, they can by automating the tracking of contract terms via eSigning or eSignature tracking, expiration dates, and renewal notifications.

All of these built-in systems and processes help your organization adhere to legal requirements and industry standards with utter ease.

They also maintain detailed records, which are crucial for helping with your audits and compliance. 

What Laws and Regulations Can Affect the Storage of Documents?

Digital contract storage platforms mitigate your regulatory risk by ensuring secure, compliant storage of documents on your behalf. Otherwise, you need to make sure you have the same safeguards in place.

They accomplish this by employing encryption, access controls, and audit trails for you.

Automated features track contract terms and deadlines, preventing breaches and non-compliance, thus significantly reducing regulatory risk.

Is Version Control Available, And What is the Role of Version Control?

Yes, version control is, and it allows you to automatically track and manage changes to all your documents - ensuring that all the users who have access can work on the latest version of the contract.

This then provides you with a clear history of revisions, which is vital for maintaining document integrity and collaboration among stakeholders and the ability to roll back if required.

How do Digital Repositories Help With Collaboration?

These systems offer features like document sharing, commenting, and real-time editing, allowing teams to collaborate seamlessly on contracts. 

Access controls then ensure that only authorised users can make changes. All-in-all, maintaining efficient teamwork with multiple stakeholders while maintaining your data security wholeheartedly.

What Types of Organisations Can Benefit From These Systems?

In essence, all organisations that have to deal with contracts and document management can benefit from a Digital document storage platform, especially those managing a large volume of contracts.

They are precious for organisations requiring strict compliance and efficient contract management most of all.

Can These Systems Integrate With Other Business Tools?

Yes, many digital contract storage systems can integrate with other business tools, such as CRM platforms, accounting software, and project management tools. 

This integration then further helps to streamline your workflows and improves your data consistency across different business functions.

How Do They Handle Contract Renewals and Expirations?

Contract storage and repository systems can handle renewals and expirations easily as they can automatically alert users about upcoming contract renewals and expirations for you - enabling proactive contract management and less chasing from yourselves.

This feature helps avoid unintentional contract lapses or missed opportunities for renegotiation moving forward.

Are Digital Legal Contract Storage Systems Difficult to Implement?

The complexity of implementation can vary based on the organization's size and the system's features.

However, cloud storage platforms like Pocketlaw, have been built from the ground up to make it easy to get started with an intuitive user interface.

So when it comes to implementation, no, they can be very straightforward to use. Create an account and start uploading your documents - it is as easy as that.

Digital Contract Storage & Document Repository Systems Overall

In the modern age, efficient contract management is more critical than ever for businesses seeking to minimise risks, ensure compliance, and optimise your operational efficiency. 

This is why leading solutions like Pocketlaw address the limitations of traditional contract storage methods by offering you centralised, secure, and automated systems to streamline your legal processes with ease.

With features such as AI-powered search and automated metadata tagging, your business can significantly reduce the time and resources needed to be spent on contract management - allowing you to focus on your core activities and, more importantly, your strategic growth.

Interested In Finding Out More?

Then book a free no-obligation demo of our contract storage and document repository today to learn more about how they can help you?