The importance of
contract management
In the construction industry, effective contract management is crucial for project success. While Common Data Environments (CDEs) provide a centralised platform for data sharing and collaboration, they often lack the specialised functionalities required for comprehensive contract management. The BI Toolkit is purpose-built to address these challenges, offering tailored solutions that enhance contract execution and performance.
Customers who made
the switch to Built Intelligence
CDEs
While CDEs are excellent for document control and information management, they are not designed for contract management. Tracking contractual obligations, ensuring compliance, sending and receiving contract notices, and maintaining a clear audit trail require specialised workflows that CDEs do not typically provide. Key contractual processes, such as managing compensation events, monitoring deadlines, and enforcing approval workflows, often rely on manual tracking within a CDE, increasing the risk of errors and disputes. CDE’s first and foremost focus on document management and collaboration. Often Contract Management modules are developed by utilising existing functionality of the CDE that doesn’t always compliment the intricacies of Contract Management processes
The BI Toolkit
Built intelligence provides smarter contract management solutions through a unique product offering of contract management software supported by our e-learning digital academy and industry community support forum. FastDraft is a market leading contract management tool for construction professionals, empowering project teams with a seamless approach to contract management. Our platform ensures consistent communication, reliable contract management, and real-time project performance monitoring.
Common Data Environment VS The BI Toolkit
Contract Management Tool Comparison
Contract Lifecycle Management
CDEs
Primarily focused on data storage and sharing; lacks specialised templates and workflows for managing contract lifecycles.
The BI Toolkit
- Comprehensive set of workflows designed specifically to ensure all contractual obligations are met.
Templates and workflows
CDEs
CDEs often do not cover the full suite of NEC3, NEC4, FIDIC and JCT contracts.
Systems are frequently not flexible enough to support the nuances of different contract types or to handle amendments to the standard terms.
The BI Toolkit
- Save valuable time with a preconfigured suite of contract templates at your fingertips with the flexibility to customise to meet the specific requirements of each individual contract.
- Streamlined workflows for critical processes such as risk management, change management, defect resolution, and design management, ensure all your contract processes are covered.
Contractual Compliance
CDEs
No built-in compliance tracking - CDE’s do not enforce strict contractual processes.
The BI Toolkit
- Automates tracking of key contract events like early warnings, compensation events/claims/variations, approvals and payments, ensuring all deadlines are met preventing delays and disputes.
Risk Mitigation
CDEs
CDEs do not provide proactive risk management tools, increasing reliance on project teams to manually track potential issues.
The BI Toolkit
- Identifies potential problems early using real-time contract data and automated alerts. Automatically compiles a risk register from early warnings submitted. Step-by-step workflows guide users through contract execution.
Single Source of Truth
CDEs
CDEs store data but do not structure it specifically for contract management, making it difficult to track project-critical events.
The BI Toolkit
- Centralised repository for all contract notices, linked communications, and supporting documents, reducing fragmentation.
User Accountability
CDEs
Generally offers basic task assignment features without specialised contract management accountability tools.
The BI Toolkit
- Assigns specific tasks and deadlines to team members, enhancing accountability and efficiency.
Integration with other software tools
CDEs
CDEs can offer powerful integrations within their own tech ecosystem but may struggle to offer true integration with other con tech systems like ERP, scheduling tools etc. requiring manual data transfers.
The BI Toolkit
- APIs enable seamless data exchange with other systems, including finance and project management tools. Automated workflows integrate with third-party CDEs and document management systems.
Financial Control
CDEs
CDEs can offer great general security measures but lack contract-specific protections such as financial limits on contractual commitments.
The BI Toolkit
- Implements role-based access control, single sign-on, and multi-factor authentication, ensuring contract data security along with the ability to apply financial limits to individual users.
User Experience
CDEs
Interfaces are often not optimised for contract management, with access to the contract module buried deep in the platform, leading to inefficiencies
The BI Toolkit
- Designed with user-friendly interfaces tailored to contract management tasks, reducing the learning curve.
Reporting and Analytics
CDEs
Offers basic reporting features but lacks in-depth analytics specific to contract management.
The BI Toolkit
- Provides advanced reporting tools for contract performance, compliance status, and risk assessment.
Scalability
CDEs
Can face challenges in scaling effectively for extensive contract management needs due to limited specialised functionalities.
The BI Toolkit
- Scales efficiently with organisational growth, accommodating increasing contract volumes, types and customisations without compromising performance.
Contract Management Knowledge
CDEs
With CDE’s primarily focussed on document management and collaboration, in-house contract management expertise is often limited.
The BI Toolkit
- Built Intelligence train 30k+ construction professionals a year on all major forms of contract.
- BI have an unparalleled wealth of contract knowledge to draw from including an internal team of contract geeks and network of 300+ industry experts and contributors.
Join the 14,000 FastDraft™ users worldwide
What our customers say
See Our Case Studies“The technology, service, training and support is well received, intuitive and supports the business needs across the multi Billion portfolio we operate.”
Project Executive
The Environment Agency
"I like the ability to open multiple screens (programmes, etc) at one time allowing easy navigation of complex issues."
Senior Engineer
Hampshire County Council
“It is an intuitive system which makes it simple to review and raise all instructions, early warnings and compensation events. It is very easy to run internal reports to view all information.”
Quantity Surveyor
Kier Group
“FastDraft™ is a very good system that makes managing an NEC contract very simple with all relevant information in one place. It is very user friendly as well.”
Senior Quantity Surveyor
VolkerStevin
