First steps of contract administrator

First steps of the contract administrator

Welcome to Aptien. We will guide you through the basics of contract management and administration. So that you know what is possible in the system and what is not. What you can do and how you can do it. Where it will help you, what it will make easier and where its limits are. Aptien will help with contract administration across the whole company and specifically:

• maintain contracts and all the information around them centrally, securely and in the long term.
• administer signed contracts of all kinds
• keep track of the essential deadlines and obligations you have under contracts
• search across contracts 
• keep any type of contract without limit exactly as you need it
• generate simple contract types from pre-made templates
• Aptien does not help with online contract creation.

What is Aptien?

It is an application for collaboration and communication of people within the company, keeping various operational company records, company administration, task and work management. It is not just a system for recording contracts, but it is a kind of electronic filing system beyond just recording contracts. Aptien is also a company intranet where people can communicate with each other, a company bulletin board and a work desk for people in the office. It's a bit like combining Facebook with contract, project, contract or asset management software. Information from different areas is linked and traceable from one single application.

Unlike traditional apps, Aptien is very flexible, customizable, and can link projects to tasks, allowing you to attach notes and other information so you no longer have to write it on different sticky notes and bits of paper. All this in one pleasant environment.

How will you work as a contract administrator at Aptien?

As the person in charge of contracts, you will work mainly with the contract organizer. In addition to this, your workspace will also consist of other organizers where you share information across the company or someone shares it with you. 

• Contracts - this is where all the information about business contracts is kept. Contracts contain sensitive information, so you can only allow access to contracts to selected job roles or specific employees
• Companies - a directory of companies, i.e. individuals and legal entities. This organizer is shared across the company. You select contractors from this organizer from existing (already registered) companies, or you create new ones in this organizer
• Contacts (people) - an organizer of people outside the company and their contact details (i.e. a company-wide directory of contacts). This organizer is shared across the company and if you have a specific person/people listed as a contractor, then you select from this organizer or create new ones in this organizer

Central record of contracts in the company

You can find and manage your contract information in the Contracts organizer. The Contracts organizer serves as a central place where you keep and manage all the necessary contract information. Only you, as the contract administrator, and whoever you designate, can see this information. You can create a record for each individual contract or contract amendment here. In the basic setup, you will get a system set up to record and maintain records of six basic types of contracts: 

• Customer contract
• Supplier contract
• Service contract
• Maintenance contract
• Purchase contract
• Lease agreement

However, you can easily modify, add, or remove contract types completely, in accordance with the contract types / breakdowns you need in your Contracts organizer ( - > how to change contract type). There is therefore no need to keep separate organizers for each type/category of contract. You can record a different set of information for each contract type. 

> How to expand the information you keep about a contract

> How to add a new contract 

Monitoring of contract renewal or termination dates

If you need to keep track of different contract dates (e.g. contract termination, contract renewal or amendment), you can use the watchdogs that you set up to suit your needs. 

How do you set up a watchdog for the end date of a specific contract, for example 15 days before the end of the contract:

Choose a specific contract. For the "Expiration Date" detail field, click on the watchdog icon on the right side of the row to set up a new watchdog (click on the text "Set up a new watchdog"). 

1. Watchdog Name - enter the name of the watchdog/reason for the reminder (for example, I am watching the end of the contract)
2. Where I am watching - you select the list of contracts you want to set this watch for (only for the selected specific contract or across the whole contract organizer, i.e. the watch will be set for each registered contract)  
3. When I will notify - here you select the notification mode, i.e. whether you will be notified by the watchdog only on a specific date or you want to be notified repeatedly at a specific moment or you will be notified by the watchdog when specific conditions are met (change of detail value, filling of detail value, on anniversary). Select By Detail Value, select "Occurs in a number of days" and enter how many days in advance you want to be notified 
4. Notify me.... - depending on the notification mode set (previous step), set the date/mode/condition for the watchdog to start
5. Save and you are now set to watch the end of the selected contract

Keeping track of contracts 

A great advantage of Aptien is the ability to create links between a contract and what it relates to (the subject of the contract). Thus, you can link contracts to contractual parties (specific entities, persons) or to specific items of other organizers (e.g. a telephone kept in the Assets organizer, a project kept in the Projects organizer, etc.). 

TIP: If you have other organizers in your company, you can link contracts to any of them. To do this, either ask the administrator to give you access to these organizers or create them yourself as you need them. 

Organizers depending on the subject of the contract - you can link information about the subject of the contract to a specific item in another organizer (e.g. in the case of contracts related to a specific project or contract, you can link information about the subject of the contract to a specific record/project in the project organizer).

Tasks over contracts  

If you need to create tasks regarding a contract - either for yourself or for your colleagues, you have the option from the tasks tab. All tasks created in this way will be automatically attached to the contract and you no longer have to email and burden people with emails that are detached from the set task.

Comments and minutes of meetings on contracts

If you are negotiating contracts and need to attach such minutes to the contract so that you can find them later, no problem. In the minutes tab, you can create minutes that will be linked directly to the contract.

Personal or shared contract notes

When you want to add a personal note to contracts, you create such a note in the notes tab. Only you can see it. Even if other people can see the contracts, your note is invisible to them.

Contract approval with a simple workflow

You can also use the contract status as a simple workflow. The system has a so-called audit trail - it records who has changed the status and this information is unquestionable and can be documented at any time later. 

If you want to be informed about the status - then set a watchdog for a specific status and the system will send you an alert.