All You Need to Know About Zoho Contracts

The contracts are legal documents that govern almost every penny that either comes in or leaves a business. If the businesses are equipped with the right contract management software for managing them then they can transform contracts from static documents into strategic assets. In a business landscape that changes so quickly with the evolution of technology, regulatory measures are coming up often.

Moreover, the global supply chains are only becoming complex and the marketing and sales models are becoming increasingly diverse. This is a state that has led to a need for digital contracts that can be easily accessed and amended. There is an increasing demand for a powerful CLM platform that allows you to manage and get the most out of your contracts.

A powerful contract lifecycle management software lets you automate and streamline contract processes and unlock the real potential within them. With a CLM such as Zoho Contracts, legal teams can save considerable time which can be invested in high-value tasks.

In this blog, we will have a detailed look at Zoho Contracts and the functions that this software offers.

What are Zoho Contracts?

 

Zoho Contracts is a simple solution for all the contract challenges. It helps in efficiently streamlining the Contract Lifecycle Management process with a feature-rich platform while achieving compliance at scale with reduced costs.

The implementation of CLM platforms like Zoho Contracts enables you to reduce contract cycle times, mitigate business risks, and improve contract governance. It is a complete contract solution that eliminates the need for multiple applications.

All business owners can stay on top of their business contracts no matter where they go. Zoho Contracts applications create a personalized mobile dashboard that offers insights into key contract metrics. The application also comes with features that are needed when you are away from your desk.

Other than offering efficiency in legal operations, the Zoho Contracts software facilitates better business outcomes. It addresses the below-mentioned aspects of legal operations.

Streamlining Contract Lifecycle

There are five stages included in the contract lifecycle that Zoho Contracts takes care of and they are mentioned below:

1. Authoring: Zoho Contracts comes with an extensive library of predefined contract templates and an ability to create custom templates in Zoho Contracts which makes contract authoring a breeze. The contract type templates along with the clause library in Zoho Contracts bring a systematic approach to contract authoring. It helps in saving a lot of time at the authoring stage while ensuring that there is language consistency across all contracts. The document editor comes with advanced document assembly capabilities, collaborative editing features, fillable field features, contextual commenting, etc.
   
   
2. Approvals: All contracts are legally binding documents so the content included in them must be clear, concise, and accurate. The approval process of contracts can improve compliance and reduce risks by making sure that stakeholders are aware of the scope of a contract before it is executed. Zoho Contracts can be used by admins to set up approval workflows both sequential and parallel and associate them with contract types. The approvers can add contextual comments in the documents and approve or reject them as well.
   
   
3. Negotiations: As opposed to the traditional approach in which you send contracts back and forth as email attachments, Zoho Contracts helps you with controlled access to counterparty contacts with password-protected links. The counterparty contacts can collaborate with each other in real-time, suggest relevant changes that should be made to the document, make contextual comments, and set the visibility. This negotiation history tracking and comparing changes feature comes in as highly useful when there are various negotiation rounds.
   
   
4. Execution: Zoho Contracts is a CLM system that comes pre-integrated with an e-signature software called Zoho Sign which makes this important step in the contract lifecycle extremely quick and effortless. The turnaround time for emailing, printing, signing, and faxing cycles can be eliminated or reduced considerably. You can sign and secure the legally binding electronic signatures within a few minutes. A signing order can also be specified that pans all across the signer group, organization signers, counterparty signers, other representatives, etc.
   
   
5. Post-execution Management: The use of Zoho Contracts also supports the post-execution stages along with amendments, extensions, terminations, and renewals. The software comes embedded with a predefined letter template that is customizable for each of these stages. The conventional templates only offer a skeletal structure of the document in which all members can contextually edit the content and make it complete. On the other hand, Zoho Contracts enables a user to amend a contract by making changes in the contract as the amendment letter that gets generated automatically captures the current changes along with the entire contract history. This extreme reduction of any manual intervention in document generation makes the lifecycle management of post-execution contracts extremely simple and straightforward.
   

Creating Risk Proof Contracts

Zoho Contracts is excellent contract management software that can help in gaining access to predefined templates for commonly used contracts such as NDAs and MSAs. Templates can act as a guide rail for the contract authors. You can change the details as much as you need while authoring a contract. You can also create your own template.

Instant contract creation is also enabled with the use of Zoho Contracts as you can simply add the contract and counterparty information in a form for generating contracts with all the right details in place. The contracts can be created based on the templates which empower all members to create contracts while also ensuring that there is language consistency across all contracts.

Zoho Contract comes with a built-in document editor with all features in a powerful word processor called Zoho Writer. The cloud offering allows you to author contracts from wherever you may be. Lastly, the advanced clause picker enables contract authors to search for and insert a clause in a contract easily. All the clauses in predefined templates including the ones you add are available in the clause library.

Contract Data Can Be Turned Into Business Insights

 

The feature of Dashboard lets you gain a high-level overview of your business at a glance while quickly making informed decisions. You can see the KPIs regarding your business health and growth at your fingertips.

Other than the Dashboard feature, the Reports feature also helps in gaining actionable insights across all aspects of the contract management system. You can check on things such as milestones, clauses, obligation, counterparty, performance, and other general contract attributes.

Enhancing Governance

 

Zoho Contracts is advanced contract management software that enables admins to make well-informed decisions by arriving at actionable business insights gleaned from a wide range of contract data. It comes with more than 30 standard reports across different aspects of contract management. And the personalized dashboard offers a high-level overview of business contracts at a glance.

Moreover, Zoho Contracts also allows activity tracking on three different levels including the contract level, user level, and stage level (approval, negotiation, signature). All kinds of activities performed by users on these levels are tracked chronologically. The stage level tracking presents the contract owner with information on whether the people involved in this stage have received the email notification, viewed the document, and performed the intended action along with time stamps.

The admins can structure the entire contract lifecycle process by configuring the clause library, contract letter templates, contract type templates, and approval workflows for contract types. The activity, access, and audit logs offer better visibility over organization-wide activities.

Reducing Business Risks

Adding suitable clauses such as limitations of liability and indemnity can eliminate all risks at an individual contract level and only a holistic contract management process designed with risk mitigation in mind can make a business truly risk ready. The use of Zoho Contracts comes with a peer review and approval workflow capability that offers better transparency over contract items to almost all the stakeholders involved. You can set up a clause library with legally approved languages and contract-type templates that act as a guide rail for contract authors. The governance settings give better control to the admins for the contract process while also improving compliance.

A critical risk factor for a business is to not fulfill contractual obligations. Any failure to comply with obligations can result in adverse regulatory and financial consequences and also leave the organization with damaged business relationships. A CLM system such as Zoho Contracts ensures that all obligations related to a contract can be tracked and managed from the contract obligations section. The contract owner can assign obligations to respective business owners and set reminders for them. Admins can also stay on top of these obligations with the help of obligation-based reports.

Promoting Cross-Functional Integrations

Contracts are considered dynamic documents that touch all parts of a business. The ever-increasing importance of the role of contracts necessitates cross-functional visibility and collaboration over them. The Zoho CRM integration allows sales professionals to initiate contracts from related sections of a deal record in CRM and track the contract’s status from CRM.

Most business development professionals report that any inefficiencies in the contracting process lead to slow revenue recognition. The main cause of this is sales and legal teams working in silos rather than together. The deals that were won and have been closed are often marked as complete after the sales agreement is signed which means that any inefficiency in the contract lifecycle management process of an organization impacts the revenue growth.

Any lack of transparency or difficulty in communication between the sales and legal teams result in long contract cycle times and it can even result in lost deals sometimes. With the Zoho CRM integration, you can establish a sort of transparency between the sales and contract processes while considerably improving the cycle times.

The integration can make the critical functional aspects of Zoho Contracts that are relevant for salespeople within the Zoho CRM. The sales cycle management offered by Zoho CRM and the contract lifecycle management offered by Zoho Contracts works together as the best contracting process for the sales team.

Much Better Control and Compliance

Zoho Contracts is highly functional contract lifecycle management software that keeps all stakeholders aware of potential risks and opportunities in a contract before it becomes active by adding them as approvers. You can design your own approval workflows both sequential and parallel. The approvers can also collaborate through the comment section.

There is a central repository where all the contracts can be stored. There are search and filter options as well that enable much better visibility and accessibility. One can stay on top of all user activities in the CRM platform of Zoho Contracts. It is easy to view the history of all progress, changes, and suggestions made in one place.

With version control, all versions of a contract can be seen in chronological order. It is also possible to compare versions and restore any of the older versions simultaneously. There is another feature of Calendar View that offers a month view calendar display of all the contract schedules and reminders.

You can never miss any obligation or an opportunity for a renewal with the help of reminder alerts. Lastly, with User Roles and Permissions, you can assign roles for users in the organization. There are different access permissions for each role which enable better control over the contract lifecycle management software.

Conclusion

Zoho Contracts can empower organizations and individuals with better control over the contracts because of its impressive automated workflows. It has a wide portfolio of products and seamless integrations that make the workflow very easy to manage.

You can quickly set up Zoho Contracts with only a little support from a certified and experienced Zoho consultant. A professional will be able to introduce you to all features while also importing your key contracts.

Stay Tuned for more!

Cheers!

Abhi

(Seasoned Zoho Authorized and Certified Partner)

Feel free to contact me if you have any queries

Email: abhishek(@)encaptechno(dot)com

Call: +1-416-405-8185

• Topic Participants

• Abhishek - Zoho Partner

  

• realtor

• Sathyakeerthi U

  

• Gareth Westwood

• Muthu Kumaran R

  

• Recent Topics

• Enable History Tracking for Picklist Values Not Available

  When I create a custom picklist field in Deals, the "Enable History Tracking for Picklist Values" option is not available in the Edit Properties area of the picklist. When I create a picklist in any other Module, that option is available. Is there a specific reason why this isn't available for fields in the Deals Module?

• The reason I switched away from Zoho Notebook

  My main reason for switching to Zoho was driven by three core principles: moving away from US-based products, keeping my data within India as much as possible, and supporting Indian companies. With that intent, I’ve been actively de-Googling my digital

• Add RTL and Hebrew Support for Candidate Portal (and Other Zoho Recruit Portals)

  Dear Zoho Recruit Team, I hope you're doing well. We would like to request the ability to set the Candidate Portal to be Right-to-Left (RTL) and in Hebrew, similar to the existing functionality for the Career Site. Currently, when we set the Career Site

• Ability to Edit YouTube Video Title, Description & Thumbnail After Publishing

  Hi Zoho Social Team, How are you? We would like to request an enhancement to Zoho Social that enables users to edit YouTube video details after the video has already been published. Your team confirmed that while Zoho Social currently allows editing the

• Send Supervisor Rule Emails Within Ticket Context in Zoho Desk

  Dear Zoho Desk Team, I hope this message finds you well. Currently, emails sent via Supervisor Rules in Zoho Desk are sent outside of the ticket context. As a result, if a client replies to such emails, their response creates a new ticket instead of appending

• Free Webinar : Unlock AI driven business insights with Zoho Inventory + Zoho Analytics

  Are you tired of switching between apps and exporting data to build customized reports? Say hello to smarter & streamlined insights! Join us for this exclusive webinar where we explore the power of the Zoho Inventory–Zoho Analytics integration. Learn

• Critical Issue: Tickets Opened for Zoho Support via the Zoho Help Portal Were Not Processed

  Hi everyone, We want to bring to your attention a serious issue we’ve experienced with the Zoho support Help Portal. For more than a week, tickets submitted directly via the Help Portal were not being handled at all. At the same time no alert was posted

• Hide/Show Subform Fields On User Input

  Hello, Are there any future updates in Hide/Show Subform Fields "On User Input"?

• Cloning Item With Images Or The Option With Images

  Hello, when I clone an item, I expect the images to carry over to the cloned item, however this is not the case in Inventory. Please make it possible for the images to get cloned or at least can we get a pop up asking if we want to clone the images as

• Archiving Contacts

  How do I archive a list of contacts, or individual contacts?

• WorkDrive and CRM not in sync

  1/ There is a CRM file upload field with WorkDrive file set as the source: 2/ Then the file is renamed in WorkDrive (outside CRM): 3/ The File in CRM is not synced after the change in WorkDrive; the file name (reference) in CRM record is not updated (here

• Custom validation in CRM schema

  Validation rules in CRM layouts work nicely, good docs by @Kiran Karthik P https://help.zoho.com/portal/en/kb/crm/customize-crm-account/validation-rules/articles/create-validation-rules I'd prefer validating data input 'closer to the schema'

• Adding Default Module Image into mail merge field

  As with most people finding their way to these forums i have a specific requirement that doesn't seem to be supported by Zoho I have created 2 custom modules to suit my purpose 1 is an inventory type module that lists aluminium extrusions, and all relevant

• Sync Data from MA to CRM

  Currently, it's a one-way sync of data from the CRM to MA. I believe we should have the ability to select fields to sync from MA to the CRM. The lead score is a perfect example of this. In an ideal world we would be able to impact the lead score of a

• Is it possible to roll up all Contact emails to the Account view?

  Is there a way to track all emails associated with an Account in one single view? Currently, email history is visible when opening an individual Contact record. However, since multiple Contacts are often associated with a single Account, it would be beneficial

• Update CRM record action

  Currently, MA only offers a "Push Data" action to push data to a CRM module. This action is built to cover the need to both create a new record and update an existing record. Because it has been implemented this way all required fields on the CRM module

• Notes badge as a quick action in the list view

  Hello all, We are introducing the Notes badge in the list view of all modules as a quick action you can perform for each record, in addition to the existing Activity badge. With this enhancement, users will have quick visibility into the notes associated

• What's new in Zoho One 2025

  Greetings! We hope you have all had a chance by now to get hands-on with the new features and updates released as part of ZO25. Yes, we understand that you may have questions and feedback. To ensure you gain a comprehensive understanding of these updates,

• Good news! Calendar in Zoho CRM gets a face lift

  Dear Customers, We are delighted to unveil the revamped calendar UI in Zoho CRM. With a complete visual overhaul aligned with CRM for Everyone, the calendar now offers a more intuitive and flexible scheduling experience. What’s new? Distinguish activities

• Add deluge function to shorten URLs

  Zoho Social contains a nice feature to shorten URLs using zurl.co. It would be really helpful to have similar functionality in a Deluge call please, either as an inbuilt function or a standard integration. My Creator app sends an email with a personalised

• Edit default "We are here to help you" text in chat SalesIQ widget

  Does anyone know how this text can be edited? I can't find it anywhere in settings. Thanks!

• Quick way to add a field in Chat Window

  I want to add Company Field in chat window to lessen the irrelevant users in sending chat and set them in mind that we are dealing with companies. I request that it will be as easy as possible like just ticking it then typing the label then connecting

• How to create a two way Sync with CRM Contacts Module?

  Newbie creator here (but not to Zoho CRM). I want to create an app that operates on a sub-set of CRM Contacts - only those with a specific tag. I want the app records to mirror the tagged contacts in CRM. I would like it to update when the Creator app

• Zoho Sheet for Desktop

  Does Zoho plans to develop a Desktop version of Sheet that installs on the computer like was done with Writer?

• Allow Manual Popup Canvas Size Control

  Hello Zoho PageSense Team, We hope you're doing well. We would like to request an enhancement to the PageSense popup editor regarding popup sizing. Current Limitation: Currently, the size (width and height) of a popup is strictly controlled by the selected

• Where is the settings option in zoho writer?

  hi, my zoho writer on windows has menu fonts too large. where do i find the settings to change this option? my screen resolution is correct and other apps/softwares in windows have no issues. regards

• How to set page defaults in zoho writer?

  hi, everytime i open the zoho writer i have to change the default page settings to - A4 from letter, margins to narrow and header and footer to 0. I cannot set this as default as that option is grayed out! so I am unable to click it. I saved the document

• Develop and publish a Zoho Recruit extension on the marketplace

  Hi, I'd like to develop a new extension for Zoho Recruit. I've started to use Zoho Developers creating a Zoho CRM extension. But when I try to create a new extension here https://sigma.zoho.com/workspace/testtesttestest/apps/new I d'ont see the option of Zoho Recruit (only CRM, Desk, Projects...). I do see extensions for Zoho Recruit in the marketplace. How would I go about to create one if the option is not available in sigma ? Cheers, Rémi.

• How to import data from PDF into Zoho Sheet

  I am looking to import Consolidated Account Statement (https://www.camsonline.com/Investors/Statements/Consolidated-Account-Statement) into zoho sheet. Any help is appreciated. The pdf is received as attachment in the email, this document is password

• Zoho Projects Android app: Integration with Microsoft Intune

  Hello everyone! We’re excited to announce that Zoho Projects now integrates with Microsoft Intune, enabling enhanced security and enterprise app management. We have now added support for Microsoft Intune Mobile Application Management (MAM) policies through

• Cant't update custom field when custom field is external lookup in Zoho Books

  Hello I use that : po = zoho.books.updateRecord("purchaseorders",XXXX,purchaseorder_id,updateCustomFieldseMap,"el_books_connection"); c_f_Map2 = Map(); c_f_Map2.put("label","EL ORDER ID"); c_f_Map2.put("value",el_order_id); c_f_List.add(c_f_Map2); updateCustomFieldseMap

• Wrapping up 2025 on a high note: CRM Release Highlights of the year

  Dear Customers, 2025 was an eventful year for us at Zoho CRM. We’ve had releases of all sizes and impact, and we are excited to look back, break it down, and rediscover them with you! Before we rewind—we’d like to take a minute and sincerely thank you

• About Zoneminder (CCTV) and Zoho People

  Hi team I would like to implement a CCTV service for our branches, with the aim of passively detecting both the entry and exit of personnel enrolled in Zoho Peeple, but my question is: It is possible to integrate Zoho People with Zoneminder, I understand

• Introducing the Zoho Projects Learning Space

  Every product has its learning curve, and sometimes having a guided path makes the learning experience smoother. With that goal, we introduce a dedicated learning space for Zoho Projects, a platform where you can explore lessons, learn at your own pace,

• Create CRM Deal from Books Quote and Auto Update Deal Stage

  I want to set up an automation where, whenever a Quote is created in Zoho Books, a Deal is automatically created in Zoho CRM with the Quote amount, customer details, and some custom fields from Zoho Books. Additionally, when the Sales Order is converted

• How to show branch instead of org name on invoice template?

  Not sure why invoices are showing the org name not the branch name? I can insert the branch name using the ${ORGANIZATION.BRANCHNAME} placeholder, but then it isn't bold text anymore. Any other ideas?

• Admin asked me for Backend Details when I wanted to verify my ZeptoMail Account

  Please provide the backend details where you will be adding the SMTP/API information of ZeptoMail Who knows what this means?

• Unable to remove the “Automatically Assigned” territory from existing records

  Hello Zoho Community Team, We are currently using Territory Management in Zoho CRM and have encountered an issue with automatically assigned territories on Account records. Once any account is created the territory is assigned automatically, the Automatically

• Kaizen #223 - File Manager in CRM Widget Using ZRC Methods

  Hello, CRM Wizards! Here is what we are improving this week with Kaizen. we will explore the new ZRC (Zoho Request Client) introduced in Widget SDK v1.5, and learn how to use it to build a Related List Widget that integrates with Zoho WorkDrive. It helps

• Set connection link name from variable in invokeurl

  Hi, guys. How to set in parameter "connection" a variable, instead of a string. connectionLinkName = manager.get('connectionLinkName').toString(); response = invokeurl [ url :"https://www.googleapis.com/calendar/v3/freeBusy" type :POST parameters:requestParams.toString()

• Next Page