NDA software: What is NDA management software?

Make sure your confidential business information stays confidential. Discover what NDA management software is and how it can protect your business secrets.

Secret recipes, proprietary programming innovations, contract terms — whatever kind of business you run involves plenty of confidential information. A nondisclosure agreement (NDA) keeps that sensitive information within the circle of approved business partners.

When you juggle multiple clients or large-scale projects involving dozens of people, it can get challenging to manage all those NDAs. Here you’ll learn what NDA management software is and how it helps you keep your confidential information hush-hush.

What is NDA management software?

NDA management software is exactly what it sounds like — a computer program (or a suite of programs) designed to make managing NDAs easier. There’s no set template for what such software should be, and the included features vary between different solutions. In general, though, any NDA management software worth its salt will let you send NDAs out and request signatures, track your mailed requests, and integrate with your other business software.

How do I know if my business needs NDA management software?

Identifying the right time to start using NDA management software in your business operations is crucial for efficient document management and confidentiality maintenance. Implementing NDA management software can streamline these processes, especially if your business deals with sending and managing multiple NDAs on a daily basis or if the NDA process involves several team members or departments.

This software becomes particularly beneficial when the volume of agreements makes manual tracking inconvenient. It’s also helpful when ensuring consistency and compliance across all NDAs, which becomes complex due to the involvement of multiple stakeholders. In these types of situations, NDA management software not only enhances efficiency but also reduces the risk of human error and improves compliance tracking.

How can NDA software help my business?

Implementing NDA management software is a smart move for businesses looking to optimize their confidentiality agreements process. Some of the benefits of incorporating NDA software into a business’ operations are:

• Time and cost savings. Transitioning to a digital NDA process eliminates the need for physical documents, which saves time in sending and managing NDAs. In addition to this, the immediate delivery of NDAs to partners or even employees speeds up the signing process, which enables business relations and projects to start.

• Environmental benefits. By making the NDA process digital, a business can also contribute to environmental conservation efforts through reduced paper usage. This ultimately saves trees and reduces the carbon footprint.

• Improved tracking and management. You can easily monitor the status of an NDA — including when it was received or signed. You can also send automatic reminders to parties who still need to sign the NDA, ensuring prompt action and decreasing time delays.

• Legal assurance. NDA software can also help you ensure you have a legally binding contract vs a non-binding contract. This helps make sure that the NDAs you send out meet all legal requirements when it comes to enforceability.

Is there anything NDA management software can’t do?

Even though NDA management software significantly streamlines the creation, distribution, and management of NDAs, there are a few things it can’t do:

• Provide legal advice. NDA management software can generate and manage NDAs based on templates and predefined parameters, but it can’t offer legal advice or even interpret legal requirements specific to your situation or jurisdiction.

• Negotiate terms. This type of software makes the process easier, but it doesn’t negotiate terms on behalf of parties. Negotiations, adjustments, and understanding the nuances of each party’s needs and concerns still require direct human interaction.

• Ensure compliance with all jurisdictions. Laws and regulations regarding NDAs can vary significantly by jurisdiction. While NDA management software can be updated for broad compliance, ensuring adherence to all local laws and international policies may require additional verification in certain cases.

• Enforce agreements. NDA software can ensure that agreements are properly executed and stored. However, it can’t enforce the terms of an NDA even if there is a breach. Enforcement requires legal action and is not really a function that software can perform.

• Guarantee security. Although most NDA management software offers different strong security measures, there’s no system that’s fully immune to breaches. The responsibility for ensuring that sensitive information continues to be protected also involves implementing best practices in IT security.

Streamline NDAs with the right NDA software.

Acrobat makes it quick and easy to create NDAs and request digital signatures. Your business partners can sign the NDA on any device and instantly send it back. You can also track the process from start to finish. Acrobat integrates with the most popular business software, so once you’ve decided who needs to know what, you can send NDAs out accordingly.

Get your nondisclosure agreements issued and signed smoothly with contract management tools, and discover how else Adobe Acrobat for business can help.