A contract workflow is the sequence of steps an agreement moves through and who does each one. Most published workflows are drawn for organisations with formal approvers, which means they are mostly routing. A business where the owner says yes in a conversation has almost no routing to do, and copying the long version produces a workflow that is worked around within a month. The workflow that survives in a small business is four steps long and this page sets it out.
The four steps that survive
Check the substance against what was actually agreed in conversation. Mark up the three risk terms if it is their paper. Sign, and record the signature date and the effective date separately. File with the counterparty, dates, notice period, value and obligations. Four steps, one owner for each, and the fourth is the one that gets dropped and the one everything downstream depends on.
Why long workflows get worked around
Every step with no clear owner is a place the contract stops, and the workaround is always the same: somebody emails it directly and the workflow is bypassed. Once bypassed for one agreement it is bypassed for all of them, and the system holds a partial record, which is worse than none because people trust it. Short workflows survive because there is nowhere for them to stall.
What workflow management should track
Which agreements are in flight and which step each is at, and nothing more at this size. Four states cover it: being checked, out for signature, executed and filed, or dead. If a fifth state is needed, it is usually because two people are waiting on each other, which is a conversation rather than a state.
What is worth automating in the workflow
The transition from executed to filed, because that is the handover that gets dropped, and the obligations becoming tasks at the moment of filing. Both are small automations at the end of the process rather than routing at the start, which is the opposite of how workflow products are usually configured and the right way round for a business of this size.
Questions people ask about contract workflow
What is a contract workflow?
The sequence of steps an agreement moves through and who does each: checking, marking up, signing and filing, with the states in between visible.
How many steps should a contract workflow have?
Four is enough without formal approvers. Every extra step needs an owner, and a step without one is where contracts stop and the process gets bypassed.
What is contract workflow automation?
Automating transitions between steps. At small scale the transition worth automating is executed to filed, plus obligations becoming tasks, not routing at the start.
Why do contract workflows fail?
Because a step has no owner, somebody works around it, and the record becomes partial. A partial record that people trust is worse than no record.