Startup Idea: Startup Idea: Unified Contract Compliance, Billing and Payment Software
This problem has arisen at my husband's work, which is at HQ of a company comprised of a number of Principals practices at multiple locations throughout the United States, with a few international locations. HQ wants to find a way to get 100% compliance from Principals' practices so that all proposed contracts are reviewed and approved by the legal department before work begins on the project.
The primary reason for this is that HQ needs to assess liability exposure for insurance purposes, and to prevent the financial loss of overpaying insurance premiums based on overestimated liability exposure.
Principals have declared that this compliance is impractical because of the time it takes for legal to review and approve contracts doesn't fit with their clients' "right now" timeline. Client payments are made centrally to HQ, and one of the founders has suggested HQ reserve payments to Principals until contracts have been reviewed and approved. But at present there is no system/software in place to link the internally-developed billing and payments system to the internally-developed contracts tracking and review system. The company is considering adopting an outside program to merge the two systems, or to replace the systems.
Ideally the solution would be a single software for billing, payments, and contract tracking, with an extremely user-friendly interface that the (often not tech savvy) Principals would find easy to use for contract entry and approval, with payment to Principals controlled by compliance. HQ is searching for a solution in available software. This problem persists within the company, and there is a significant risk to the company by not having an accurate view of potential contract liability.