In the business world, if the processes used are inefficient and deal management becomes tedious, closing deals doesn't always happen as fast as you'd like. According to research by Forrester and Aberdeen, it can take an average of 3.4 weeks to get a contract approved and close the deal.The time lost during this critical phase of the deal management process is amplified if you’re spending too much time constantly chasing the right parties to sign off on each B2B contract and close the deal because documents are constantly slipping through the cracks when using email or other inefficient manual processes.If you could close your deals faster how much would it impact your bottom line and cash flow? How would your business benefit and grow from a streamlined process? These are questions to ask yourself when making the decision to implement rebate management software.

1. Simplifies your contract creation

The typical B2B contract process begins with many back and forth emails with one trading partner requesting the B2B contract and making revisions manually. This can be a time-consuming and error-prone process that is fraught with risks, especially if there is no version control and it just sits on one person’s desktop.A deal management solution like Enable automatically creates a PDF of the deal therefore eliminating manual contract generation. Up-to-date templates, automated workflows and e-signatures reduce the time it takes to create contracts, share, edit, and get external sign off. Therefore, helping to close deals faster.

2. Increased collaboration

Companies using a manual approach for their deal management, will find they have to go back and forth over email or phone to make changes to their B2B contracts, but what if you could interact with them in one place? With Enable’s collaborator platform you can invite your trading partners to become a part of the automated approval workflow, meaning you can streamline communication between you and your trading partners, and also facilitate direct sharing of supporting documentation. This dramatically speeds up the closing of your deals as you can sort any discrepancies and means everything is agreed in an easy, accessible location in the cloud.

3. Stores your B2B contracts securely

Once a deal is closed, you may not think about it again until you need it, but when that time comes is it going to be easy to locate? B2B contracts should be reviewed periodically and be available for review again when renegotiation time comes around. Rebate management software like Enable includes a centralized deal repository that keeps contracts secure, organized and readily available. Your signed B2B contracts can be viewed at any time to confirm all the deal terms. Plus, they can be searched, edited, replicated or deleted at any point, as long as you have the relevant read or edit permissions.

4. Streamlines the negotiation process

B2B contract negotiations and signatures are where deals typically stall. The easier it is to get deal approvals and signatures, the better. Rebate management software gives you real-time tracking and contract visibility in a collaborative digital environment. This minimizes the back and forth of emails with your trading partners about revisions and hunting down who has approved and who needs to approve next to close the deal.

5. Automatic approval workflow

Automatic approval workflow in Enable provides a way of automatically inviting the required users to approve or reject your deals in order to ensure it has been reviewed and signed off by the correct people before it is activated to a trading agreement. The workflow is progressed by the system which generates the approval hierarchy, sends email notifications and accepts approvals online. In some cases, deals are closed and received in a matter of hours, down from days or even weeks.

Are you ready to close your deals faster? Enable can help.

When searching for the right deal management software you should look for these value-adding features:
• Centralized deal repository
• Robust audit trail
• Automatic calculation of rebate earnings
• Approval workflow for internal staff
• Financial accruals for rebate earnings
• Integrates with any ERP
• Sign-off workflow for suppliers
• Reporting and forecasting
• Collaborate with your trading partners