Contract management in industrial companies involves much more than simply storing documents. Purchasing and supplier agreements, leasing contracts, IT licenses, NDAs, consulting and service agreements, insurance policies, and maintenance contracts all come with different durations, deadlines, and responsibilities.
At EppsteinFOILS, contracts were previously managed using a central Excel spreadsheet alongside physical and digital folders. Monitoring contract deadlines therefore involved a significant amount of manual work.
Today, the company uses Inhubber as its central contract management software to manage contracts across the organization, organize access rights by department, and automatically remind responsible employees of important deadlines.
For this case study, Dr. Elena Mechik, CEO of Inhubber, spoke with Robert Richard Simonsen, Chief of Staff to the Executive Management at EppsteinFOILS, about the initial situation, the selection of a contract management solution, and the changes in everyday operations.
Before implementing Inhubber, the most important contract information was maintained in an Excel spreadsheet. This included contract partners, responsible departments, costs, termination deadlines, and contract durations.
How were contracts and deadlines managed before Inhubber?
Robert Richard Simonsen:
“Before I joined the company, there was a large Excel spreadsheet maintained by management. Every contract concluded within the company was entered into it. The most important information — who the contract was with, which department was responsible, what it covered, the costs, and the termination deadlines — was entered manually.
Once every quarter, this Excel spreadsheet was reviewed line by line: Is a contract approaching its end date? Can we terminate it? Do we still need it?
Of course, this involved an enormous amount of work. In my current position, I simply cannot spend two days every quarter going through this spreadsheet.
Then there is the risk of human error. It is easy to overlook a line and potentially miss a contract that could have been terminated. There was no warning system that would automatically alert us.”
In addition to the Excel spreadsheet, contracts were stored partly in physical folders and partly digitally on servers. This created another challenge: employees needed access to the contracts relevant to their work without having to ask a central contact person for the documents every time.
EppsteinFOILS primarily wanted to solve two key challenges: contracts needed to be digitally accessible in a structured way, and important deadlines should no longer require manual monitoring.
What should a new contract management solution improve?
Robert Richard Simonsen:
“We wanted to create a simple digital structure where everyone could access their contracts from anywhere.
At the same time, we wanted to implement a warning system. When a contract is approaching its expiration date, I want to receive a notification: Attention, review this contract — do you want to continue it or not?
This means we no longer have to sit down every quarter and check everything manually.”
Several providers were compared during the selection process. The key criteria included security, transparency, deadline management, costs, and collaboration with the provider.
What was particularly important when choosing contract management software?
Robert Richard Simonsen:
“One aspect that is extremely important today is security. Everything needs to be stored properly and securely.
We looked at several providers and mainly evaluated the following questions: How secure is the solution? How well can it meet our need for a simple and transparent system for all employees involved? And how does it handle contract deadlines without requiring constant manual checks?
Of course, we also considered costs. For me, it was also important to understand how collaboration with the provider would work.
With Inhubber, we felt that there was a lot of substance behind the solution. The price was also reasonable compared with other providers, and the collaboration was straightforward.
What was promised actually worked. We also had consistent communication with the same contacts. At larger companies, you sometimes speak to sales first, then another person, and then someone else again. Information gets lost along the way. That was not the case here.
For us, it was exactly the right level: down-to-earth, pragmatic, straightforward, and intuitive.”
Today, a wide range of different contract types is managed centrally in Inhubber, particularly purchasing and supplier agreements as well as maintenance and service contracts.
Which types of contracts are currently stored in Inhubber?
Robert Richard Simonsen:
“It is a very diverse mix. We have purchasing and supplier agreements, leasing contracts, and various IT license agreements.
There are also NDAs, data processing agreements, consulting contracts, service agreements, parent company guarantees, consignment warehouse agreements, and customer contracts.
In addition, we manage rental agreements, memberships, service contracts, donation and sponsorship agreements, telecommunications contracts, insurance policies, utility contracts, and maintenance agreements from different departments.”
Centralized management is particularly valuable for contracts that renew automatically or have deadlines that only become relevant after longer periods. It helps make necessary actions visible in advance.
The contract structure in Inhubber reflects the company’s departmental organization. A separate folder has been created for each department. Responsible employees have access to their contracts and are included in deadline notifications and reminders.
How do you maintain an overview of contracts across the company?
Robert Richard Simonsen:
“We created a folder for each department where the corresponding contracts are stored. The department head and one additional designated person have access to these folders. Both are also included in deadline notifications and reminders.
I am additionally included as an escalation contact, giving me an overview of the entire company.
This structure is very easy to implement in Inhubber. I can add or remove people and control who has access to which folders. For example, if employees from accounting need access across several departments, that can also be arranged easily.
This means our two main requirements — deadline management and access control — have been solved very simply.”
With Inhubber, companies can quickly and easily manage multiple contracts digitally. Documents remain centrally accessible, while individual access rights ensure that employees can only view contracts relevant to their responsibilities.
Centralized contract storage also changes how departments collaborate. Employees can independently access the contracts they are authorized to view. At the same time, responsible individuals are automatically notified of upcoming contract deadlines.
How has collaboration changed?
Robert Richard Simonsen:
“The advantage is that everyone can easily review their own contracts. I am hardly ever asked anymore: What does this contract say? Can you send it to me?
These requests have become very rare since we started using Inhubber — apart from historical contracts that still need to be transferred from old folders into the system.”
The importance of having a shared understanding of contract information became clear shortly after implementation.
Robert Richard Simonsen:
“I had entered a contract into the system and configured the corresponding reminders. One week later, I received a notification that the contract could be terminated within a certain period.
The people involved had received the reminder as well. Someone then called me and said: But this contract was terminated a long time ago.
I immediately replied: That is exactly why we need this system. The contract had been terminated, but that information had never reached me.
It was a good example of why we introduced the system.”
EppsteinFOILS has not measured the exact percentage of time saved. Nevertheless, the improvements are clearly noticeable in everyday operations: contracts are easier to access, deadlines are monitored automatically, and requests from individual departments have decreased.
What improvements have you noticed since implementing Inhubber?
Robert Richard Simonsen:
“Contract administration used to feel like a dark cloud hanging over my office. You always knew: That is another task you still need to deal with.
That is no longer the case. Some historical contracts still need to be added, but contract administration itself is no longer a frustrating issue for me.
I can access contracts much faster and receive automatic reminders. Once a contract is in the system, I can basically put it out of my mind because I know I will be reminded in time.
The other departments can also search independently. I hardly receive any calls asking: Can you send me the contract? I cannot find it.
I cannot express the improvements in specific numbers because I did not measure how much time these tasks took before. But I can clearly feel that contract management is no longer a source of frustration for me.”
EppsteinFOILS has deliberately chosen not to use every Inhubber feature immediately. The current focus is on centralized contract management, access rights, and deadline monitoring.
Additional features are planned for gradual implementation.
What are the next steps?
Robert Richard Simonsen:
“As a smaller medium-sized company, we always need to make sure that new developments and change management do not overwhelm the organization.
I am currently still working on entering all historical contracts into the system. Everything that was already available digitally has been uploaded. There are still some physical folders that need to be processed.
One feature I would like to introduce in the future is digital signing. Once our contract management process is largely established, the next step for me would be to implement a digital signature workflow.”
With digital contract workflows, Inhubber helps companies streamline approval and signing processes and take further steps toward digitalizing their contract operations.
For Robert Simonsen, the need for contract management software depends less on a specific number of contracts. What matters more is the volume and complexity of agreements and whether deadlines and responsibilities can still be reliably monitored using manual methods.
When does centralized contract management software become worthwhile?
Robert Richard Simonsen:
“I think it is difficult to define a fixed number. You cannot simply say that a company needs such a tool once it has 20 contracts. It always depends on what kinds of contracts are involved.
Digital contract management is generally helpful because it reduces a lot of the physical work involved in handling documents and folders and makes access easier.
Once a certain level of complexity is reached with different contract types, it makes sense to consider such a solution. The number of contracts matters, but so does their complexity.
In my opinion, this is not really an industry-specific question. Anyone working with multiple contracts in a company needs to think about how to manage them reliably, avoid missing deadlines, and prevent being unnecessarily tied to agreements for too long.
Once manual administration can no longer reliably ensure this, it is time for a digital tool.”
The experience of EppsteinFOILS demonstrates how industrial companies can transform their contract administration from a manual system of Excel spreadsheets and folders into centralized digital contract management.
With Inhubber, EppsteinFOILS has established a common platform for managing supplier agreements, maintenance and service contracts, and many other contract types centrally, automatically monitoring deadlines, and organizing access rights according to responsibilities.
Departments can independently access their contracts, while relevant employees receive timely deadline reminders. This reduces both the effort involved in manual monitoring and the dependence on individual employees when searching for contract information.
A conversation with:
FAQ
Industrial companies benefit from contract management software that centrally manages different types of agreements while supporting deadlines, responsibilities, and access rights.
EppsteinFOILS, for example, uses Inhubber to manage purchasing and supplier agreements, IT licenses, NDAs, service contracts, insurance policies, maintenance agreements, and other contracts. Inhubber provides centralized digital contract storage and automatic reminders for important deadlines.
Industrial companies can bring their contracts together in a centralized contract management system instead of distributing them across Excel spreadsheets, server folders, and physical files.
At EppsteinFOILS, contracts are organized centrally in Inhubber and assigned to the relevant departments. Responsible employees can access the agreements relevant to their work, while senior management maintains an overview of the entire organization.
Contract deadlines should be linked directly to the relevant agreement and responsible employees.
Inhubber automatically reminds responsible individuals of upcoming deadlines, eliminating the need to regularly review contracts manually, line by line.
At EppsteinFOILS, this approach replaced the previous quarterly review of an Excel spreadsheet.
Supplier contracts can be managed digitally and centrally alongside purchasing agreements and other contractual documents.
Fast access, clear responsibilities, and reliable monitoring of contract durations and termination deadlines are particularly important.
EppsteinFOILS uses Inhubber to centrally manage purchasing and supplier agreements alongside numerous other contract types.
Framework agreements should be stored centrally and organized together with relevant contract durations, deadlines, responsible employees, and associated documents.
This allows purchasing departments and other teams to quickly identify which agreements are currently valid and when action is required.
Inhubber supports this structured approach to contract management, helping companies maintain visibility and control over their contractual obligations.
Maintenance and service contracts often have contract durations and termination deadlines that only become relevant after longer periods.
Centralized contract management ensures that these agreements remain easily accessible and that responsible employees receive reminders before important deadlines.
EppsteinFOILS manages both service and maintenance contracts from various departments with Inhubber.
Contract management software can automatically notify responsible employees about upcoming deadlines and necessary decisions.
At EppsteinFOILS, designated employees receive deadline notifications and reminders. An additional escalation structure provides an organization-wide overview.
This eliminates a significant part of the manual contract monitoring previously required.
Contract management software becomes particularly valuable when the number and complexity of agreements can no longer be reliably handled using manual methods.
According to EppsteinFOILS, the deciding factor is not a specific minimum number of contracts, but whether deadlines, responsibilities, and different contract types can still be managed securely and consistently.
Once Excel spreadsheets, folders, and manual checks are no longer sufficient, a centralized digital solution becomes a practical next step.