When is a Contract Not a Contract? When it’s an Agreement of Course

by Greg 6. November 2011 13:02

Contract, Agreement or Lease?  One could argue different names but there are very similar principles in the management of each.

In the last six months I’ve worked with a number of customers ranging from international gaming developers, cable television providers, and state government departments to educational institutes.  There may be differences in their core business models and delivery, but the common denominator is that they all need to manage contracts, agreements or leases.

Spreadsheets seem to be a very common way of managing these types of documents, in a dare I say it, ineffectual kind of way.  Can a spreadsheet send out automated reports to notify business owners when contracts/agreements/leases are due for renewal in the next 30, 60 or 90 days?  No, but RecFind 6 can!

Can a spreadsheet notify the business owner if a value or field has changed?  No, but RecFind 6 can!

Can a spreadsheet store a fully searchable electronic copy of the executed document?  No, but RecFind 6 can!

With the addition of a few simple triggers RecFind 6 can perform these types of calculations:

  • Status based on a calculation of start date, expiry date and renewal date
  • Annual amount based on a calculation of dates and length of contract
  • Apply the appropriate security on contract profile and executed documents.

Configuring this standard functionality within RecFind 6 is quite simple and provides instant benefit that can only enhance the way you manage vital information.  It might be a bit presumptuous to say but I think once you’ve managed your contracts/agreements/leases in RecFind 6, you’ll be wondering why you hadn’t configured this functionality sooner!

Talk to us.

 

Forget Man Versus Wild Let’s Talk Technology Versus Communication

by Greg 3. October 2011 22:50

I like to think of myself as well travelled and on the ball, however on a recent trip to
outback Queensland in the far north of Australia my theory was well and truly put to the test.

I was involved in implementing the EDM functionality of the RecFind product for a local authority which I had worked with a number of times. Local authorities are some of my favourite sites to work with as they tend to use most components of the product.

Scanning documents was a major part of the project and during discussions a member of staff asked me could they scan dingo ears. I thought OK, easy answer to that one
as you just fold it over and flatten it out, thinking that “dog ears” are quite common on documents that have been well used.

The next question was “what about the plastic?”. Thinking that many old documents may well be in plastic covers my suggestion was that you may need to take it out of the plastic cover to scan it. A puzzled look at this point made me think about what I was suggesting so I thought I had better investigate the situation a bit further. It turned out that what I thought were “dog ears” on documents were in fact dingo ears, real dingo ears! The Council was taking part in a bounty program in which residents could bring in dingo ears to claim their bounty.

Needless to say the situation provided a few jokes during the rest of my time onsite and not one dingo ear made it through the scanner.

Dingo ears aside, the EDM project was a great success providing an easy and quick way for staff to access documents at their desk or out and about using a laptop. Use of the RecFind High Speed Scanning Module made processing large numbers of documents an easy task from the initial scanning, to staff accessing them as a fully searchable PDFs. The RecFind Button also made it possible for staff to store a wide range of documents from within the application in which it was authored, as well as email that could be captured directly from within each user’s mailbox.

Digitizing large numbers of paper documents should not be a traumatic experience. You provide the documents, we provide the expertise. And a couple of dingo ears if really desired….

GregK1Corp

NB: Greg is a long-serving member of the RecFind ‘Flying-Team’ of consultants and he spends a large part of his time on airplanes and in foreign locales savoring and enjoying the local wildlife as well as assisting our customers.

 

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