Some Documents Don't Need the Legal Department's Check

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]

Should A Contract Be Approved On Printed Paper By President?

Even a president has his own will!
In Keep At Least the Process of Agreement Drafting Online, There were no appearance of president.
Of course, important agreements require president's approval. If you want to promote 'Optimizing Business process', president himself must join in workflow process.
Who decides it's important? (A big matter.)
Should the document be printed for president? (A small matter)

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

[Signing Agreement: "5b. President's Approval" screen]

Keep At Least the Process of Agreement Drafting Online

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]

Primary Processes With Lots of Kids (Branching Processes)

It's easier to understand SFA systems if you understand daily sales activities to be "continuous maintenance of customer information." This is because sales members are constantly collecting data on customer needs and wants, regardless of whether they are new customers or old.
FYR: Building an SFA System INSIDE a BPM System

Using this maintained information in estimate processes, proposal processes, agreement processes, etc., helps to eliminate input. Initiating smaller processes using copied data from the primary process also eliminates careless mistakes and send-backs. When you're not sure whether you will be using all the information, just go ahead and send all the information. The below workflow sample is a contract check workflow.
Similar article: Visualizing if estimates have posted properly

<Tasks>
1. Input Contract, 2. Approve Contract, 3. Discuss Contract Content, 4. Signature and Seal

[Contract Check <Supervisor Approval>: "Input Contract" screen]

Legal Advisers Should Be Included in Workflows, Too

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

[Contract Check <Concurrent Request> : "2. Approve" screen]

Making an Extensive Agreement History List with an Agreement Workflow

Agreements between organizations are bothersome yet necessary. At some companies they are an everyday duty, especially when they involve outsourcing. Veteran salesmen may be able to roll out agreements easily with a little bit of "nemawashi," but what would an ideal workflow for acquiring internal consensus be like?