Approval Request Template
Approval Request Template
Tables, Zaps
Compliance review: Define risk levels for purchase requests
Transform how your legal team handles contract approvals by using AI to categorize, reviews and rate documents, so your team can focus where the risk is highest.
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Overview
It's easy for teams to end up drowning in a sea of NDAs and vendor agreements.
Manual contract review quickly eats up legal team's valuable time, creates bottlenecks, and prevents teams from focusing on strategic work. Plus, cross-functional stakeholders need to wait days or weeks stuck in procurement.
This template uses AI to perform initial risk assessments. It categorizes documents, flags potential issues based on your custom risk criteria, and routes them to the appropriate team members. When we implemented it at Zapier, we found our team could focus on negotiation strategy and high-value work while routine contracts move through a standardized, reliable review process. Plus, we weren't holding up stakeholders and procurement anymore.
Why build an automated AI contract review system?
- Save time spent on initial contract reviews by automating the first-pass assessment of routine legal documents.
- Standardize risk assessment with customizable criteria tailored to your organization's specific legal requirements.
- Create an automatic audit trail of all contract reviews with comprehensive documentation that keeps you prepared for compliance needs.
What key features come with the automated AI contract review template?
- Intelligent document categorization — Automatically sort contracts by type and route them through the appropriate review pathways based on document category.
- AI-powered risk assessment — Apply customizable risk matrices that evaluate contracts against your organization's legal playbook and flag potential issues.
- Risk rating system — Automatically classify contracts as red, yellow, or green based on predefined criteria to prioritize legal review efforts.
- Centralized intake system — Capture all necessary contract information through a customizable form that stakeholders can easily access and complete.
- Automatic document storage — Store contracts in your preferred cloud storage solution with consistent naming conventions and folder organization.
- Instant team notifications — Alert appropriate team members about new contracts requiring review, including AI-generated risk assessments.
- Progress tracking dashboard — Monitor contract status from submission through review to approval in a centralized database.
- Continuous improvement metrics — Generate performance reports on turnaround times, risk distributions, and other key metrics to optimize your legal operations.
Who should use this template
An automated AI contract review system is ideal for:
- General counsel and legal leaders → Maximize your legal team's capacity by automating routine contract reviews, allowing your attorneys to focus on strategic work while maintaining consistent quality standards.
- In-house legal teams → Eliminate the bottleneck of first-pass contract reviews and create a systematic approach to risk assessment that scales with your organization's growth.
- Legal operations managers → Implement measurable efficiency improvements in contract workflows with built-in performance tracking and process standardization.
- Procurement teams → Ensure vendor agreements consistently meet your organization's requirements for payment terms, renewal conditions, and other standard clauses.
- Compliance officers → Maintain audit-ready records of all contract reviews with comprehensive documentation of risk assessments and approval decisions.
How does this template work?
This template builds you an automated contract review workflow that handles documents from submission to final review with minimal manual intervention. Here's how:
- A stakeholder submits a contract review request through a user-friendly form, providing essential details like contract type, counterparty information, and attaching the document.
- The system automatically categorizes the contract (NDA, vendor agreement, etc.) and routes it through the appropriate review pathway.
- The contract is automatically saved to your preferred storage solution with a standardized naming convention for easy retrieval.
- Based on the contract type, an AI review is conducted using your customized risk criteria. For NDAs, this might include checking for non-solicitation clauses or non-standard governing law. For vendor agreements, it could involve evaluating data sharing provisions and compliance with procurement policies.
- The contract receives a color-coded risk rating (red, yellow, or green) along with specific reasons for any elevated risk levels.
- All findings are automatically recorded in a centralized database, creating a complete audit trail of the review process.
- The appropriate legal team member receives an instant notification with the AI's findings, allowing them to prioritize their review efforts based on risk level.
- As the contract moves through the review process, stakeholders can be automatically notified of status changes, maintaining transparency throughout.
- The system tracks key metrics like turnaround time and risk distribution, enabling continuous improvement of your legal operations.
The entire workflow operates without requiring manual handoffs between steps, ensuring nothing falls through the cracks and maintaining consistent evaluation standards across all contracts.
Frequently asked questions
Is this automated contract review workflow secure and compliant with legal standards?
Yes, this workflow uses enterprise-grade security with encrypted data transmission and storage. All contract data remains within your existing systems (Google Drive, Slack), and the AI analysis follows industry compliance standards. The workflow includes audit trail tracking to maintain full transparency of all review activities.
Can I use a different contract management system instead of Google Drive?
Yes. This automation works with other document storage and contract management tools. For example, if you don't use Google Drive, you can swap in tools like Dropbox, SharePoint, or dedicated contract platforms like DocuSign CLM or ContractWorks instead. Zapier supports thousands of apps, making it easy to adapt the workflow to your existing stack.
How accurate is the AI-powered contract analysis and risk assessment?
The AI provides highly accurate initial analysis for common contract types like NDAs and vendor agreements, with a color-coded risk rating system (red/yellow/green) to prioritize review efforts. However, this automation is designed to enhance—not replace—legal expertise, and all flagged contracts should still receive appropriate legal review based on your firm's protocols.
Does this contract review automation require coding or technical expertise to set up?
No coding required. This is a no-code Zapier automation that can be set up in minutes using simple point-and-click configuration. The workflow includes pre-built templates for intake forms, risk assessment criteria, and notification settings that you can customize to match your firm's specific requirements and approval processes.
Can this workflow handle complex legal contracts beyond basic NDAs and vendor agreements?
While this template is optimized for common contract types like NDAs and vendor agreements, it can be customized for more complex legal documents. You can adjust the AI analysis criteria, add custom risk factors, and modify the categorization rules to handle specialized contracts relevant to your practice area.
