Top 5 benefits of using contractor management software

Struggling to efficiently manage your team of contractors? 

You're not alone. Many companies find it challenging to juggle invoicing, payments, and attendance for their contractors. 

The hard truth is that there is no margin for error, because government penalties and fines are always looming. There’s always the risk of misclassification to be aware of, and other challenges such as creating compliant contracts, managing tax requirements, and complying with local labor laws both in your country and the country where the contractor is based.

A reliable contractor management software can make it significantly easier to manage all the processes and tasks involved in managing contractors. 

In this article, you’ll learn about the benefits of freelancer management software and how it helps businesses manage and organize their contractor teams. You’ll also get insights on how Remote’s Contractor Management platform can make the process easy and simple.

How does contractor management software help your business?

Implementing a contractor management system gives your company access to a suite of tools that can simplify your operations and increase your revenue. 

Let’s go through some of the key benefits of contractor management software:

1. Organizes all contracts

At some point, you’ll need to refer to the contractor agreement to verify information, review the agreed-upon terms, or provide evidence in case of disputes. But when you have multiple contractors working on different projects, it can be difficult to keep track of all these documents. Many companies keep multiple folders on different drives to manage the process, making everything more complex than it needs to be.

Contractor management software gathers all of your contracts into a central database. You’ll save time and reduce any risk of misplacing your contracts. Companies like Remote even send automatic alerts if a contract is ending or adjustments need to be made. 

2. Streamlines the contract lifecycle

Contractor management software lets you create, edit, and sign contracts in a fraction of the time it would have taken historically. Now, you can get a contractor on your team in a few days, compared to the weeks, or months, it took in the past. The process works entirely online, so contractors around the world can sign on without hesitation.

This means your efficiency skyrockets, and you can dive into projects quickly. All workers will be able to stay on top of your goals, even if they're just joining the team. You’ll also get automated alerts and reminders for your most important deadlines or renewal dates, so you'll never miss an important contract action that could cause a bottleneck if left unaddressed.

Learn more about contractor agreements in our article below.

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Independent contractor agreements: a guide for businesses

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3. Automates alerts and reminders

Every part of managing your contractors becomes easier when you add automation to the process. A good contractor management system like Remote lets you automate most of the repetitive tasks that would otherwise eat away at your team’s time. Automation can help with invoicing reminders, payment notifications, tax filings, and contract actions. 

Instead of manually filling out paperwork and gathering information, such a tool will free up your team's time to focus on more important activities. Since the process is updated in real time, you’ll also enjoy a reduced rate of errors and mistakes.

4. Improves compliance

When a company centralizes its documentation, deadlines, and processes, compliance almost becomes a natural secondary result. This helps you stay organized and up to date with regulatory requirements and removes the stress of thinking about potential fines and legal issues due to noncompliance. 

Automated alerts for contract end dates, tax obligations, and invoicing ensure your teams submit all of their paperwork on time and accurately. Such a proactive approach to contractor management results in increased efficiency and productivity. You improve your business's credibility while simultaneously reducing your risk of noncompliance. 

5. Reduces errors and risks

Your team doesn’t have to rely on brute intelligence to minimize mistakes and errors in operations. Contractor software helps reduce errors and risks by automating most of the work for you. This helps ensure that all required paperwork is submitted on time and accurately. 

It also helps your team mitigate any risks associated with misclassification. All of your documents are organized, and you can access them at any time. This allows your team to produce more efficiently without the fear of making a mistake that could lead to fines or penalties.

How to assess contractor management software

When looking at the benefits of contractor management software, you want to identify features that can help your organization hire and manage contractors more effectively. 

Here are a few of the features that have the biggest impact today.

Usability

User-friendly interfaces and intuitive workflows make navigating contractor management software easier. Your team doesn’t have to spend so much time learning how to implement the new technology into its current system. Everyone can hit the ground running and improve their efficiency with little downtime. 

When a platform is user-friendly, anyone on your team can start using it. If one administrator ends up changing roles or leaving the company, someone else can come in to take over their duties without risking errors. You also won’t have to spend more money on training programs or materials to teach your employees how to use the software. 

Onboarding contractors with Remote’s contractor management software is quick, simple, and efficient. Learn more in our article below.

Product Updates —

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Introducing faster onboarding with self-enrollment

We are excited to announce that starting today, any company can register on Remote to onboard contractors and full-time employees all over the world in minutes. Our goal is to make onboarding and paying your global workforce as simple and fast as possible, and launching self-enrollment on the Remote platform makes it easier than ever to employ a global team.

Customization

Among the contractor software benefits, customization provides you with the flexibility you need to tailor the platform to be exactly what you need. A platform like Remote can align with your organization’s unique workflows and requirements. This can help boost your team's productivity since all contractors will be managed in line with the way the rest of your team operates. 

Your team will also have an easier time using the platform. Advanced software lets you customize payment schedules, invoice reminders, and work schedules. Instead of experiencing several obstacles with every job, the platform will be designed to flow seamlessly, allowing your team to operate at maximum efficiency. 

Workflows

Workflows are the structured paths that define how tasks move from initiation to completion within a project or process. They include a series of steps, tasks, or actions that need to be performed in a specific sequence. You can picture this in a sales process, where leads go from initial contact to a sales call and then eventually the sale.

Contractor management software makes this process more efficient by making it easy to see and understand the progress of each individual task. You can also assign team members to different tasks with specific deadlines so the entire team knows who is working on what. To help you out even more, some solutions include automation so that when a contractor takes an action, the workflow updates in real time.

Invoicing

Software like Remote's can improve your contractor invoicing process. Not all contractor management platforms include an invoicing feature, but having one makes the process easier and reduces the risk of errors. 

Instead of sending out new invoices every month, you can duplicate them or create templates to work from. You can also set up reminders that will automatically send emails when it's time to submit an invoice. Anytime a contractor takes ‌action on an invoice, this automation can keep the process going by sending it back to you for approval.

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Contractor management: Benefit from invoicing automation with Remote

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Payment

The right software makes it easy to handle all of the payments between you and your contractors. These features simplify the payment process by providing options for automated payments, setting up recurring payments, and tracking payment statuses in real time. This type of software can even help you convert different currencies from locations all around the world in case you have international contractors.

Your payments will always be on time, increasing your trust with all of your contractors. The software even stores all of your information in a centralized database. This information is always available if you ever need to access it for yourself or a contractor. This will help you stay compliant and act as proof if there are any discrepancies. 

Time and attendance management

Time and attendance features are especially beneficial for companies that work with hourly contractors. Instead of requiring you to manage everything yourself, contractor management platforms make the process painless. You can manage contractors' clock-in and clock-out times, shift changes, and attendance reports in seconds. 

With this software, you can easily calculate wages and ensure compliance. You can also look through the information to spot trends and patterns in the data to inform your future decisions. For example, if a contractor needs to take some time off, you can quickly see how it will affect their hours and wages. This can help with planning and budgeting for your business.

Secure access controls

You need to prioritize data privacy and maintain control of the integrity of your sensitive information. Contractor management platforms will often come with varying degrees of secure access control. 

These features typically include role-based access control, which allows administrators to assign specific permissions to different users based on their role within the organization. This ensures that only authorized individuals have access to sensitive information, reducing the risk of data breaches and maintaining data privacy.

Multifactor authentication adds an extra layer of security by requiring users to verify their identity through multiple steps. By implementing these measures, businesses can prevent unauthorized access to confidential data, protect against security breaches, and ensure compliance with data protection regulations. 

Contract cycle tracking

These types of features allow you to monitor the progress of contracts at each stage, identifying bottlenecks and optimizing your workflows. You’ll see exactly how your contracts are progressing and notice small changes or patterns that could be improved on. Using the data, you can then allocate the right resources to ensure the job goes exactly how you want it to.

Keeping track of all your contracts by hand would be a time-consuming process. With software doing all of the work for you, your team can pull the same insights while still having time to focus on other important areas of your operations.  

End-to-end encryption

End-to-end encryption is a fundamental security feature that keeps data confidential, from the moment it leaves the sender until it reaches the intended recipient. This type of encryption protects information throughout its entire journey, making it inaccessible to anyone outside the authorized parties.

End-to-end encryption safeguards sensitive data and keeps organizations in compliance with various safety regulations and standards. By implementing this security measure, companies can mitigate the risk of data breaches and unauthorized access, fostering trust with their customers and partners while demonstrating a commitment to data privacy and security.

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How to assess independent contractor management software

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Discover the benefits of contractor management software with Remote

Few other opportunities give your team full access to an efficient suite of tools that can improve your processes for invoicing, payments, and time and attendance tracking.

With easy-to-use dashboards and plans that can accommodate companies of any size, Remote's Contractor Management software is the one tool you need to manage all of your contractors quickly and effortlessly.

Remote’s Freelancer Hub, a one-stop platform for freelancers, can help your contractors access the information they need — contracts, client information, invoices, payments — when they need it. 

Book a demo with our team today and learn how our Contractor Management software can help you scale your team globally.