Slow contract approvals? How to fix the bottleneck | Precisely
From your health check

Slow contract approvals? Here is how to fix the bottleneck.

Your score suggests contracts in your organisation are approved manually, by email, or through an inconsistent chain of sign-offs. This is the area where contract delays most visibly hurt the business. When deals slow down waiting for approvals, everyone notices.

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What a broken approval process actually costs

The problem with manual approvals is not that people are slow. It is that the process depends entirely on people remembering to act.

A contract lands in someone's inbox. They are travelling. Or they are waiting for a colleague who is also waiting for someone else. No one has visibility of where it is stuck. The deal stalls. The sales team chases. Legal chases. Eventually someone signs off, and the delay is written off as normal.

It is not normal. It is a process problem, and it compounds at scale. For every contract that takes a week longer than it should, there is revenue delayed, a supplier relationship strained, or a hire held up.

What structured approvals look like

The shift from manual to automated approvals does not require a large implementation. It requires defining the rules that should govern who approves what, and building a system that enforces them consistently.

Conditional If/Then logic

Approval routes are defined by rules, not by habit. A contract above a certain value goes to the CFO. A contract with non-standard terms requires Legal review. A standard NDA below a set threshold routes directly to signing. These rules run automatically, without anyone managing the queue.

No manual chasing

When an approval is needed, the right person is notified automatically. Reminders are sent if they do not respond within a defined window. The process moves forward without anyone having to monitor it.

Full visibility at every stage

Anyone with access can see exactly where a contract is in the approval process, who has reviewed it, and what is outstanding. The status filter in Precisely shows ongoing projects in draft, initial approval, review, final approval, or signing at a glance.

Initial and final approval tracking

Precisely logs completion dates for both initial and final approvals automatically, creating a structured record of when each stage was completed.

Teams that move to automated approvals typically see contract cycle times fall significantly. The time saved is not primarily in the approval step itself. It is in the elimination of the back-and-forth that surrounds it. Legal can define approval thresholds and step back from routine contracts entirely. Sales can see deal status without asking. Finance has a clear record of what was approved and when.

Frequently asked questions

Yes. Workflows in Precisely are built around conditional logic, meaning different contract types, values, or terms can trigger entirely different approval chains. You define the rules once, and the system applies them consistently.
Workflow templates in Precisely can be updated by administrators without developer involvement. When a rule changes, the new logic applies to all contracts created from that point forward.
Yes. Approvers can review and approve contracts from any device. The review process does not require them to log in to a desktop system.
No. Implementation typically starts with your existing approval logic and maps it into Precisely's workflow structure. Most teams find the process is simpler to define than they expected.

See what automated approvals would look like for your process

If contract approvals are a source of delay in your organisation, a 30-minute session is the most efficient way to see what automated workflows would look like for your specific setup.

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30 minutes · Free · No obligation