Most companies don't know what's actually in their contracts. Payment terms, delivery conditions, contractual penalties: everything is stored in file folders and scattered drives. This costs liquidity every day.
Contract management is not an IT issue, it is a liquidity issue. Here you can see the difference between the status quo and a structured system.
In four structured steps, we transform your contract management from a cost driver into a liquidity lever.
Record all supplier and customer contracts, extract key terms, and document terms and conditions in a structured manner.
Identify and quantify the gap between supplier payment terms and customer payment terms.
Automatic comparison: What does the contract say? What is actually happening? Discrepancies become immediately apparent.
Streamline processes, systematically utilize discounts, secure cash flow, and continuously monitor.
Enter your key data and immediately see the liquidity potential hidden in your contract management.
Our approach is modular: we start where your potential is greatest and scale the system step by step.
Centralized recording of all supplier and customer contracts. Key terms, durations, conditions, and special conditions are structured and searchable at any time.
Gap analysis between supplier and customer payment terms. Renegotiation strategy, cash discount management, and systematic cash flow improvement.
Automatic comparison: What does the contract say, and what is actually happening? Discrepancies are immediately visible as alerts before they become a problem.
Process optimization from order to payment: Cut processing times in half, eliminate manual steps, reduce error rates, and systematically secure cash flow.
Every industry has its own contract structures and vulnerabilities. Our solutions are tailored to the specific requirements of manufacturing in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.
Framework agreements, call-off orders, delivery schedule agreements: contracts are highly complex and margins are tight. Every unused cash discount day costs liquidity.
framework agreementsProject contracts, advance payments, milestone payments: the cash conversion cycle is long. Contract management determines project profitability.
project contractsToo many contracts for Excel, too few for SAP CLM. This is exactly where our Smartsheet-based approach delivers maximum impact with minimum effort.
Smartsheet solutionFEW Automotive faced the challenge of transparently managing complex supplier and customer structures with a growing contract base. Lighthouse Consultings worked with the team to build a structured system that restores transparency and controllability.
Founder, Lighthouse Consultings. 20+ years of operations in the manufacturing industry. Smartsheet ENGAGE 2025 speaker, Forbes Business Council, DHBW lecturer on digital transformation.
Cash flow management is one of five levers. Combined, they achieve the greatest EBIT effect.
Pricing changes, increasing EBIT
Synchronize sales, production, and capacity
Structured initiatives up to income statement impact
Portfolio and gate review systems
The working capital gap describes the gap between your customers' payment terms (e.g., 60 days) and your suppliers' payment terms (e.g., 30 days). You have to pre-finance these 30 days, which ties up capital and generates interest costs.
For a manufacturing company with EUR 10 million in sales and a 55% purchasing volume, a gap of 30 days means around EUR 450,000 in tied-up capital. The capital costs at an interest rate of 5% amount to approximately EUR 22,500 per year, solely due to the timing difference.
The order-to-pay process covers all steps from placing an order with the supplier to completing payment: purchase requisition, purchase order, goods receipt, invoice verification, approval, and payment.
In manually controlled medium-sized companies, this process often takes 10-20 days. With a structured and automated approach, 2-3 days is realistic. The days saved can be used to take advantage of discounts or better payment terms.
No, most medium-sized companies do not need an expensive CLM system. The first step is structured recording: each contract is documented with its key terms (contractual partners, term, payment terms, discount conditions, notice periods, penalties).
We use Smartsheet as our platform because it is powerful enough for complex contract structures, yet simple enough for the operational team. A basic structure for 50-200 supplier contracts can be set up and operational in just a few weeks.
This is the key point of compliance monitoring. Typical discrepancies include: deliveries that do not arrive on the agreed date (no penalty is pursued), invoices with prices other than those agreed, or payments that are not made by the discount date.
With a structured system, these discrepancies are automatically detected. The system compares actual booking and delivery note data with the contractually agreed values and generates alerts before damage occurs.
The first results are visible after just 4-6 weeks: the contract database is set up, the working capital gap is quantified, and the first cash discount gains are realized. These are measurable amounts in EUR, not vague promises of efficiency.
The most important KPIs: Working capital gap in days (target: reduction), cash discount utilization rate in % (target: over 80%), order-to-pay throughput time (target: under 5 days), contract compliance rate (target: over 95%). All values are visible in real time in the cash flow cockpit.
In a free initial consultation, we analyze your current situation and show you specifically what potential your contract management has.
Or: Read the FEW Automotive case study →Select an appointment directly, free of charge and without obligation.
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