How to automate contract approval in an international group of companies

In an international group, one contract may pass through the initiator, legal, finance, tax, and management teams. Participants are based in different countries, work with several legal entities, and assess the deal terms differently.

When there are only a few contracts, the process can be managed by email and messaging apps. As the company grows, it starts to depend on employees' memory: it becomes difficult to identify the current version, reconstruct the reasons for edits, and determine who has the document. A counterparty may return the contract weeks later, when participants no longer remember which comments they made or why they approved a specific revision.

The contract record remains the single point of entry from the initial request through signing and storage. It is not replaced by a new task in each cycle: tasks are assigned to departments, documents are retained, and decisions are recorded within it.

This gives the company a single answer to the key questions:

• where the contract is
• who reviews it
• what has already been approved
• which version was sent to the counterparty
• what action is required next

A file repository stores documents, but does not explain what was sent to the counterparty, which changes they returned, which terms were accepted, or who requested a specific edit. A technical comparison shows changed words, but does not reconstruct the reasoning behind the decision.

The system therefore stores two linked layers: document versions with comparison results, and a decision history containing the author, reason, and review outcome. Internal comments should not automatically appear in the external revision: the coordinator prepares a separate clean version for the counterparty while preserving its link to the internal work.

Migration is a separate part of the project. To continue working, you may need records, statuses, owners, assignments, comments, an activity log, versions, attachments, and signed files. An Excel export of the contract list is not enough.

First, several completed contracts are used as control examples, and field mappings between the old and new systems are defined. Then several active contracts are migrated to verify whether work can continue from the current stage. Only after that is the bulk migration launched using the validated rules.

The system can be implemented on a workflow or BPM platform, in an ERP system, corporate portal, specialized CLM system, or standalone application with integrations. The choice depends on contract volume, route complexity, security requirements, and the existing IT landscape.

The main criterion is the ability to support real roles, legal entities, versions, exceptions, and integrations. If the company already operates within 1C, a separate implementation option is described on the page 1C Document Management and Approvals.

The first stage is a brief assessment of the contract process using several representative examples. This helps reconstruct actual workflows, identify gaps, distinguish mandatory approvals from established habits, and prepare the architecture for the first release.

The result is not another document repository, but a managed workflow covering requests, internal approval, negotiations, signing, and obligation monitoring.