Alice Alfano
The Pitfalls of Poor Clickwrap Practices
Electronic contracts have become the standard for businesses drafting and finalizing their agreements without having to rely on traditional paper mediums. Despite their ubiquity, many still don’t understand how to properly implement online agreements.
Online agreements make it simple for parties to agree to contractual terms, but many are executed incorrectly. Implementing a clickwrap solution will help you avoid this situation and execute contracts without fear of something going wrong.
What Are Clickwrap agreements Used For?
Clickwrap agreements are a type of online agreement that prompt the user for their input to accept or decline stated terms. The benefit of a clickwrap solution is that it provides a legally enforceable mechanism that businesses can use to make agreements without having to meet signees face to face.
Proper clickwrap practices allow you to enforce online agreements and ensure accountability when creating contracts, but users should be aware that unenforceable online agreements can be detrimental to their business in the long run.
Unenforceable Online Agreements: 3 Key Problems
When online agreements aren’t enforceable, they can be severely detrimental to the operations of a business. If an important online agreement is considered invalid, it makes it nearly impossible to receive compensation on your end, which can leave you trying to get a court to enforce it through arbitration.
Creating a legally binding agreement between two parties isn’t as simple as it seems. While a contract is considered valid if both parties have agreed to its terms, the ability to prove consent is far more difficult, and this is problematic because there are a multitude of issues you can run into if your contract is unenforceable.
1. Wasted Time
Unenforceable contract agreements make it harder for organizations to properly manage their resources and staff. In many cases, decision-makers force their IT specialists to build custom clickwrap agreement “solutions” that end up not even being enforceable.
Of course, these can take quite a bit of time for IT to build, making it harder for smaller organizations, or those on a budget, to keep up with ongoing changes. “Homebrew” clickwrap solutions also waste the legal department’s time because they constantly have to work with IT to have agreements manually updated when they want to make changes to their terms.
2. Costly Litigation
There’s nothing worse for a company than having to deal with an ongoing lawsuit. Litigation is expensive, and businesses that don’t have proper online agreements in place will end up paying more in court fees than they would by simply having a proper clickwrap solution in place from the start.
Resolving disputes in court drains vital resources that could be used elsewhere, so it’s undoubtedly important to make sure your online agreements are enforceable before executing any contracts.
3. No Documentation
One of the biggest issues that companies face when using online agreements is ensuring the existence of a proper audit trail. The ability to track, manage, and store contracts and other legal documents is essential for conducting business online.
There are many cases where businesses are forced to go to court to litigate a contract even though they know for sure that the other party agreed to the terms, but this is only a problem if you can’t provide the audit trail to prove it. A part of enforceable agreements is that they’re capable of handling disputes and providing clarification should legal issues arise.
Introducing Klix, a Simple-to-Use CLM Tool
If your online agreements aren’t enforceable, or if you aren’t sure, then maybe it’s time to partner with a professional partner that knows CLM inside and out. Malbek is taking the risk out of collaboration with Klix, the online agreement software designed to improve the workspace experience for all teams. Simplify the process of contract negotiation for you and your clients with Klix.
Unenforceable online agreements result in wasted time, costly litigation, and a lack of proper documentation. You won’t have any of these problems with Klix, as it gives you access to a single contract repository that can be shared across workspaces, bringing all of your contracts under a shared roof. You can use Klix by itself for your contract negotiation needs or pair it with any of Malbek’s other pre-existing CLM tools.
See for yourself how Klix is the one-click wonder for enforceable online agreements. Request a demo today!
