Workflow Sample: Contract

Showing posts with label Contract. Show all posts

Every business has to do with Contracts.
And, "Conclusion of a Contract" it is a very important human process, yet it is cumbersome. It requires division of labor because of specialization. Want to make it efficiently more even a little bit.

By the way, Japanese major companies demand 'Conclusion of NDA (Non-disclosure agreement)' in the beginning of a trade. However, what is written on the template is the mostly the duplication of "Unfair Competition Prevention Law" (1993). Sometimes matters about basic right as written in "Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property" (1883) are added in the contract. Anyway, the company on the side of receiving the contract will be forced to 'barren work' of checking if "something strange have been written" or not.

We would want to design the business processes in mind that the Legal check includes also extremely unproductive matters like "conclusion of NDA".

# Japanese GDP might grow steadily if 'NDA templates' by all major companies had been changed to 'Let's comply with the Unfair Competition Prevention Law' only...

In the following Legal Checking Workflow, Task of [2. Approve Draft of Contract] by the Boss and [3. Approve Draft of Contract] by the Legal are able to be skipped.

[Contract flow]

"Renewing a Contract" job. It occurs in a variety of industries.

Real estate lease
Staffing agency
Consultancy
Internet domain
Adviser (lawyer, tax accountant,, patent attorney etc.)
Maintenance (software, servers, Elevator, etc.)

Generally, contract renewal procedure is initiated with announcement from the fiduciary side. However somehow, it is difficult to carry out that "announcement" without omission. Therefore, in the following workflow definition,　trick to book an automatic transmission of " an e-mail announcement of contract renewal" have been set.

[Contract flow]

Workflow 'A' calls Workflow 'B'.

"Connecting Workflows" is one of the real thrill(??) of high-performance workflow product. It enables to pass business data from 'Process of Sales Department' to 'Process of Manufacturing Department' without any leakage of data. (If you are a Cloud Worker of Google Apps,etc.,Cloud-based Workflow would suit you for handling business information.)

See Workflow Start Another Workflow Automatically during Processing

However... It sure is easy to connect when that is clear about upstream process or downstream process such as 'Sales flow' and 'Manufacture flow, but in cases that continue to connect each other, difficulty goes up straight away.

In terms of Software Engineering, they are "Waterfall model" against "Spiral models". Moreover, for example, in such as "Advisory Contract" or "Maintenance Service", the cycle of "Service delivery" and the cycle of "Continuous orders" will circulate in parallel. That is, the Sales sector is moving toward the next orders, concurrently the Service sector is processing their service delivery. (Double Spiral?)

For such case, we would like to introduce to you how to make 'Parent process cycle' as "Orders Process" ,and 'Child process cycle' as "Service Delivery process".

[Circulating Orders Flow]

Oooh! Why can't I attach files onto the Workflow?

Such a Workflow is totally out of date! Workflows have being advanced day by day. Not only basic data such as 'String type', 'Numeric type', 'Date type', 'Time type', it is also available those data type such as,

'Select type', which uses external list.
'Select type', which choices are configured in the upstream.
'Table type', which makes variety of data into a table.
'Discussion type' which data is added with timestamps.

Also BPM: Business Process Management which is for improving business flow, variety of data type can be set in 'Data set' that flows on Workflow. At least Questetra BPM Suite can do it...

See; Modeling: Available Data Types (Questetra/tour/reference)

And now we'd like to consider required data sets in "Contract Processing".

[Contract Processing flow]

The Contract Processing, actually is a Workflow which contains unpredictable numbers of files. Agreement, specification documents, Notices, etc... Have no time for encasing those files in a ZIP file every time. In that point of view, 'File type' which can be attached any number of files is desirable.

And to record the process of negotiation and advice between Legal personnel and Sales personnel, we'd definitely want a "Discussion type" that is automatically records the outgoing comments and time stamp.

Incidentally, in this work flow definition, the conversation exchange between Legal personnel [2. Notes for negotiation/approval] and Sales personnel [3. Contract negotiations Report] goes back and forth. And also, the flow splits into [2a. Review and comment of the draft] by Sales Leader. To achieve these, advanced Workflow or sophisticated Business Process Management is required.

[Contract Processing flow [2. Notes for negotiation/approval] screen]

< Similar Models >

Should A Contract Be Approved On Printed Paper By President? (2011-05-17)
Legal Advisers Should Be Included in Workflows, Too (2011-04-07)
Making an Extensive Agreement History List with an Agreement Workflow (2010-11-12)

<< Related Articles >>

Modeling: Setting Split Condition (tour/reference)
To Setup Upstream Process to Give 'Selections' to Downstream Task (tour/reference)

Contract Processing flow

If you have experience with seal/signature/approval processes, you'll know that only a few approvals require the legal department's check. For instance, contracts that only clarify transaction costs, documents to be submitted to authorities, etc., can be sped up by bypassing the legal check.

Let's take the workflows from "Keep At Least the Process of Agreement Drafting Online" and "Should A Contract Be Approved On Printed Paper By Presitent?
and make a new one that can omit the legal check.

<Tasks>
1. Draft Agreement, 2. Check Draft, 3. Revise, 4. Legal Check, 5. Print & Sign, 5b. President's Approval, 6. Record Follow-up

[Signing <Skip legal>: "5b. President's Approval" screen]

All agreements, whether between people, companies or countries, are kept on paper. The invention of paper was a truly astronomical event (2,000 years ago in China!). Today in the 21st century, even with the advent of the word "paperless," we still like our agreements to be on paper.

But then, agreements are created on a computer, and the paper versions usually only involve direct signatures. Many corporate presidents sign multiple agreements everyday, often without checking the contents. (Or in Japan and Korea, where the seal is the formal mark, the president's proxy spends the day stamping papers.) Today let's try to visualize the first half of the process, where agreements are created on computer.

<Tasks>
1. Draft Agreement, 2. Check Draft, 3. Revise, 4. Legal Check, 5. Print & Sign

[Signing Agreement: "4. Legal Check" screen]

Are 90% or 10% of your company's contracts templates? Do you make 10 agreements or 100 agreements yearly? Is your legal man in-house or an external attorney? And in Japan, there is the very important matter of the seal.
Workflows for checking contracts differ greatly by company, and this means the ideal state is different.
The below legal check workflow assumes the legal staff possesses basic knowledge, but might have to consult an external legal adviser. The external legal adviser logs into the workflow system.

Preparing this kind of workflow means the system will automatically record all decisions by every member made at all times. Accumulating contract drafts will surely lead to optimization of work. This is highly recommendable for internal control.

<Tasks>
1. Input Contract Draft, 2. Approve, 3. Evaluate and Comment, 4. Handle, 5. Confirm