First Steps of Contract Administrator

First Steps for the Contract Administrator

Welcome to Aptien. We'll walk you through the basics of contract management. You'll learn what you can and can't do with the system, how to do it, and where it can help you most. Aptien helps manage contracts company-wide by:

• Keeping contracts and related information organized, secure, and accessible long-term.
• Tracking key deadlines and obligations within your contracts.
• Managing all types of signed contracts.
• Searching across all your contracts.
• Storing any type of contract you need, with no limits.
• Generating basic contracts from pre-built templates.
• Aptien does not support creating contracts online. 

How to Work as an Contract Administrator

As the contract administrator, you'll primarily use the Contract Organizer. Your workspace will also include other organizers that allow you to share information across your company.

• Contracts - This is where you'll store all information about your business agreements. Since contracts contain sensitive data, you can control access based on job roles or specific employees.
• Companies - A directory of your vendors, clients, and partners, including individuals and legal entities. This organizer is shared company-wide. You can select contractors from existing companies or create new entries.
• Contacts (people) - A company-wide directory of people outside your organization and their contact information. If you need to list a specific person as a contractor, you can select from this organizer or create a new contact.

Central Point for your Vendor Contracts

You can find and manage your vendor 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 several common types of contracts, including:

• Supplier & Vendor contracts
• Service contracts
• Maintenance contracts
• Purchase contracts
• Lease agreements
• Insurance Contracts
• Customer Contract

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 

Tracking Contract Renewals and Expiration Dates

If you need to monitor important contract dates (like termination, renewal, or amendment dates), you can use alerts, which are customizable reminders tailored to your needs.

Here’s how to set up an alert for a contract's expiration date, triggering a notification 15 days beforehand:

Select the contract. In the "Expiration Date" field, click the alert icon on the right to create a new alert (or click "Set up a new alert").

1. Alert Name: Enter a descriptive name or reason for the reminder (e.g., "Contract Expiration Alert").
2. Where to Watch: Choose where the alert will monitor. Select either the specific contract or the entire contract management system to monitor all registered contracts.
3. Notification Timing: Choose how you want to be notified. Options include a specific date, recurring notifications, or notifications based on specific conditions (e.g., a change in detail value, a value being filled, or an anniversary). Select "By Detail Value," then "Occurs in a number of days," and enter how many days in advance you want the notification.
4. Notification Method: Depending on the notification timing you selected, set the date, mode, or condition for the alert to trigger.
5. Save: Your alert is now set up to monitor the expiration date of the selected contract.