Legal and business teams across organisations face risk, revenue leakage, and missed deadlines without a central contract repository. In this blog we will highlight the various risks that emanate in the absence of a CLM tool and explore how Lexplosion's automated contract management solution “Komtrakt” brings order, visibility, and control amidst this chaos.
The Chaos of Contract Management
“Hi, does anyone have the signed vendor agreement from 2021? The renewal deadline is tomorrow.”
Have you ever been at the receiving end of such an email? Well, you're not alone. For many legal and procurement teams, this is a familiar and unfortunate scenario. Now you're looking for a document that you probably hadn't even heard of before you got that email. The person who originally handled the contract has moved to another company. The executed copy might be in a folder buried deep on someone's desktop, or worse, in an email inbox that no one has access to now. No one is even sure if the contract auto-renews or expires tomorrow.
Contracts get signed, scanned, and forgotten. Obligations go untracked. Renewals slip through the cracks. And the risks compound over time – from financial penalties and missed revenue to compliance issues, or even business interruptions.
Know what you're missing – a Central Contract Repository
Your contracts are everywhere. That's the problem. A centralized, digital repository of contracts isn't just about “better storage” or an “organised folder”. Rather, it's the foundation of good contract governance without which even the most competent legal teams end up reacting to emergencies instead of proactively managing contracts. The absence of a central repository results in people spending hours tracking down documents and approvals, missing renewal deadlines or contractual obligations and exposing the company to contractual risk and loss.
Through some real world examples, let's look at the common risks businesses face without a central contract repository and what poor contract visibility really costs the organisation.
1. Missed Renewals
A software subscription auto-renews for another year at a 10% price increase. The vendor notified you as well close to the renewal date, but that email went to an outdated mail box and you end up missing the cancellation window. Now you're stuck paying for something you no longer need, definitely not at the escalated price. A preventable risk ends up costing you another year's subscription fee – something that an efficient tracking system could have easily avoided.
How Komtrakt helps
- Komtrakt allows you to have automated expiry alerts and renewal reminders. You can assign these tasks to the relevant team members through Komtrakt for timely action. The users will get alerts in advance of any expiry or any auto-renewal window and can take a call on whether or not they want to continue the engagement well in advance of the deadline.
- Komtrakt also provides visual contract timelines. You get a calendar view of all contracts that are approaching renewal – an overview across vendors, clients, and services. This helps prioritize contracts that need attention in the coming week, month, or quarter.
Using these features on Komtrakt you can track renewals proactively, assign ownership, and cancel or renegotiate in time.
2. Untracked Obligations
Your vendor agreement includes quarterly compliance reports. You forgot to send one. Now you've triggered a breach clause. The oversight counts as a breach of the contract, and may possibly trigger a penalty fee, termination rights and other legal exposure.
This often happens because companies rely on manual trackers (Excel sheets with renewal dates or obligations), emails or calendars (someone puts a reminder, but they leave the company), or simply the assumption that someone else is handling it. What you are missing is a systematic reminder or escalation to prevent things falling through the cracks.
How Komtrakt helps
The obligation tracking feature on Komtrakt allows you to capture the obligations that emanate from your contracts in a systematic way. Using the custom task assignment feature you can set up recurring obligations as tasks on the tool and you get timely reminders for action. Auto-escalation can also be set up for instances of any task deadlines being missed or right before the deadlines.
This automated safety net helps prevent minor human errors from turning into major breaches of contractual obligations, and you can track delays and act before it's too late. Everyone is aware and accountable.
3. No Single Source of Truth
Different departments may use different versions of the same agreement causing confusion, and miscommunication. While this may sound far-fetched, it does happen quite often. For example, the final signed version of an agreement may be available with one team only and another team – not knowing any better, may end up referring to the last redline version they pull out from the emails available with them. Similarly, if a contract was further amended post signature and the amendments are not available to everyone, someone might act on the older version without realizing changes were made. Thus, in the absence of a single reliable version of each agreement, different teams may end up making decisions based on incomplete or outdated information. There may also be duplication of effort where teams recreate or re-request terms that are already documented.
How Komtrakt helps
- Single-click upload of legacy contracts – This brings all your old/existing contracts into Komtrakt, organized by vendor/client, date, type, etc.
- Centralized digital repository – Everyone; legal, finance, sales – accesses the same, most up-to-date version from one place.
- Smart search and filters for instant access – You don't need to dig through inboxes or old folders. A free search or filter by vendor name, renewal date, clause type, etc, helps you pull out the necessary contract.
In a nutshell, the Post-Execution Module of Komtrakt empowers teams with:
- A centralized repository for all executed contracts
- Searchable database with metadata and filters
- Automated alerts for key dates (renewals, expiries, obligations)
- Task assignment for follow-ups and monitoring
- A secure, audit-friendly system with access controls
And for clients who only need to manage existing contracts, this module is available independently, without requiring subscription to the pre-execution module.
Why This Matters to You
Whether you are the part of a legal, procurement, or compliance team, visibility is essential for mitigating contractual risks. Without it, you cannot enforce rights or monitor obligations. You potentially lose opportunities to renegotiate, renew, or terminate smartly.
With our solution, you move from scattered, reactive contract management to a centralized, proactive, and trackable model — all without overhauling your existing systems.
The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.
