How Automating Contract Intake Simplifies Vendor and Contract Requests for Legal Teams

If the legal team in your business still handles intake processes through spreadsheets, email chains, or outdated systems, you’re working harder, not smarter.

Today's legal teams need to drive operational efficiency, rather than be perceived as a blocker. A vendor contract belongs to your entire organisation, not just one team. 

Automating your contract intake process can help your team stay on top of requests, improve accuracy, and eliminate inefficiencies that could lead to compliance risks. 

The Problem with Manual Intake Processes

When contract intake is done manually - via emails, informal requests, or even Slack messages - the process becomes scattered, inconsistent, and prone to errors.

Important details get missed, deadlines are missed, and you spend too much time chasing information instead of focusing on high-value tasks.

The issue: When requests come from various departments without a structured process, it’s easy to lose track of priorities and critical details. Legal teams then spend hours searching for missing data, clarifying vague requests, and manually routing items to the correct person for review.

The solution: A dedicated contract request portal that centralises all legal intake requests, providing a single place for other departments, such as Procurement, to submit accurate and complete information from the start. Smart Forms and automated workflows take over from there, automatically routing each request to the right person and eliminating manual back-and-forth.

How Gatekeeper’s Employee Portal Streamlines the Contract Intake Process

Gatekeeper’s Employee Portal is designed to simplify the intake process specifically for legal teams. This centralised request hub ensures that every request—whether for contract reviews, amendments, or compliance checks—is handled efficiently, accurately, and on time.

1. Smart Forms That Ensure Complete and Accurate Data

One of the most frustrating parts of the intake process is receiving incomplete or unclear requests. With Gatekeeper’s Employee Portal, this problem disappears.

Rather than relying on disparate spreadsheets and endless email chains to gather information, use smart and conditional forms to streamline data collection while reducing complexity.

For example, if a team submits a contract request for a new vendor, a Smart Form prompts them for relevant details and automatically scores the responses so legal teams can understand the risk profile of that vendor before reviewing contracts. This can include whether the contract involves sensitive data or specific regulatory requirements.

Smart Forms ensure that all necessary information is captured accurately from the outset. They can be adapted based on the requester’s input, eliminating errors and reducing the need for back-and-forth communication.

2. Automated Workflows That Route Requests to the Right People

Once the form is submitted, the data is routed to the correct team and process phase for review via integrated, automated workflows. This means no more guessing which team member should handle a contract based on its value or complexity.

The combination of the portal and workflows intelligently routes the request to the correct legal team or individual, ensuring it’s reviewed by the right person, based on pre-set rules. This ensures that each request is handled efficiently and reaches the right people - without delay.

81% of businesses that adopt contract lifecycle automation report faster approval cycles and reduced administrative workload. - Thomson Reuters Corporate Legal Study 2023.

Let’s say a contract for a high-risk vendor is submitted. The system will automatically send it to the senior legal counsel for review, bypassing lower-level team members who don’t need to be involved. This saves time and ensures that legal resources are allocated efficiently and the right work is being prioritised.

3. Full Visibility for Requesters and Legal Teams

How frequently have you been interrupted with “What’s the status of my contract?” inquiries? With the Employee Portal and visual workflow engine, requesters no longer need to chase legal for updates.

Gatekeeper gives requesters full visibility of the status of their submissions. Whether the request is with procurement, legal, or another department, colleagues can easily track where their request stands and what the next steps are.

This transparency helps reduce follow-up emails and calls, ensuring that everyone stays informed as the request moves through the guided process. It also minimises any potential perceptions that the Legal team is the blocker for contract request progression.

It creates much-needed transparency across the organisation, fewer disruptions for the legal team and more cohesive relationships between different departments.

Why Legal Teams Need to Automate Intake Processes

For legal departments, efficiency and accuracy are non-negotiable. By automating the intake process, you not only speed up the turnaround time for contract reviews and vendor approvals, but also improve the quality and accuracy of the work by reducing the chance of errors.

Here’s how automating the contract request process specifically benefits legal teams:

• Improved Compliance: Automating intake ensures that every contract and vendor request goes through the necessary compliance checks without manual intervention. This helps your team stay on top of regulations and avoid compliance breaches.
• Enhanced Collaboration: The Employee Portal breaks down silos between departments, allowing legal to work seamlessly with procurement, finance, and other teams. Everyone operates with the same data, reducing miscommunication.
• Scalable Workflows: As your business grows, so does the volume of legal requests. The Employee Portal scales effortlessly, managing increasing intake volumes without overloading you and the rest of the team.
• Time Savings: Automating repetitive tasks frees your legal team to focus on high-impact work like contract negotiations and risk management instead of tracking down missing information or routing requests.

Making Intake Simpler for Legal Teams and the Organisation

The days of managing intake requests through scattered emails and spreadsheets should be behind you. Gatekeeper’s Employee Portal gives legal teams the structure and automation they need to manage vendor and contract requests effectively.

By ensuring that requests are complete, routed correctly, and tracked in real-time, you can focus on what matters most, protecting the business and ensuring compliance.

If you’re ready to automate your contract intake process, get in touch with us today.