Document automation software: buying guide 2023

Functional requirements

Perhaps the most important thing to consider when selecting your document automation software is what functions or features you need it to have.  Before we get there though, you need to take a critical look at the contents of your documents, to work out what kind of automation features you need.

Automation features

How to decide what automation features you need

Start by looking at your document – its length, complexity-  all of these are factors that you should be considering when choosing a document automation provider. It might be a surprise, but not all tools have the same automation capabilities. What do we mean by this? Well, most tools should be able to do your basic form filling functions and some simple conditional text statements, but many do not include the heavy automation functions that you will need. We’ve split out the most common things to think about below.

Important automation features

• Mathematical functions / calculations – being able to include a clause if a question equals “yes” or “no” is one thing, but can the tool aggregate financial values or build complex operations? Examples could be calculations to sum numbers in a document, or they could be far more advanced and resemble an excel formula. This might not be a day one requirement,  but if you think you might want the flexibility to do advanced automation in the future, then ask about these.

• Repeating / looped text – do you have areas in your documents where there might be a need for multiple repeating table rows, or text depending on the nature of the transaction? A common one might be where you have multiple directors and need to capture their addresses. Repeating text is vitally important but many modern automation tools don’t offer this as it is surprisingly difficult function to build. 

• Conditional formatting – do you often need to amend the formatting at the end of a list depending on how many limbs there are? For example, the classic legal list of “; and” vs. “;”. Make sure to ask your prospective vendors if they have ways of automating these kinds of lists, since they are a pain to draft manually!

• Formatting and house styles – one of the most important requirements when selecting a document automation software and also one of the most missed. It is vitally important that the tool you select can allow you to download your document in perfect word house styles. Many modern looking tools are not capable of doing this as it is very hard for web generated documents to output the document into word and retain all of the important house styles. There is also a difference between looking the same in word, and actually containing the styles. Get your vendors to show that the style names are all retained upon download.

• Coded automation versus no-code automation – all tools will tell you they are low-code/no-code but sadly this is often true. Whilst it might not be ‘code’ in the purest sense, it certainly is not easy to pick up. It’s very easy to look simple on a demo but make sure you ask relevant questions. How long does it take to learn? What is your typical training schedule? Is it all typed logic, or is it done through visual UI? Unfortunately, there is often a tradeoff between ease of use and functionality. The very best tools combine ease of use with a set of powerful functions – make sure you ask your document automation tool where on the spectrum they are.

• Clause libraries – often with legal documents, standard clauses (think GDPR, Governing Law, Change of Control etc) are centrally maintained by legal teams as they’re very important to the business. It’s important to consider whether you want to make sure that these clauses are always kept up to date in all templates. If so, then you’ll need to make sure that your vendor supports something like a clause library, where all these clauses can be centrally stored.

• Data tables – a lot of information that’s needed to populate a contract might be quite repetitive, or might be stored in an excel spreadsheet. A great example might be the names and addresses of a list of entities, or perhaps a product / component list. Some vendors will offer ways of storing this data directly in their platforms – it’s a handy way to speed up the drafting process when you need to call upon batched information.

Once you’ve looked at the contents of your documents, you then need to think about how they’re actually drafted in your organisation. Think about the processes they go through (approvals, sign-off and whether multiple individuals need to feed into them).