Glossary

Glossary of Terms

The following list of terms and concepts and their definitions are those commonly used in ASC vocabulary and in the industry to describe contract, document and forms lifecycle management. Just click a letter below to browse alphabetically.

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• Approval Process Workflows: Workflow processes specific to approval requirements. They can be set up so approvals are sequential (serial) or so multiple parties can work on their respective contract components and approve simultaneously (in parallel).
• ASC Contracts Enterprise: ASC Contracts Enterprise is a full feature, highly customizable contract management system that includes web services, content searching and OCRing, and for an additional fee also offers contract management options such as e-signature, work share and integration capability. ASC Contracts Enterprise provides various delivery models including single-tenant SaaS or on-premise at an additional cost.
• ASC Contracts Lite: ASC Contracts Lite is an online contract management repository that provides storage and easy access (anytime, anywhere) for all your contracts and agreements. Meant for five users or less, ASC Contracts Lite enables the capture of standard contract details (e.g., account, contract, attachment, tasks and notes) and includes the ability to run searches and reports, helping users effectively manage contract expiration and renewal.
• ASC Contracts Professional: ASC Contracts Professional adds the ability to customize, tailor, extend or build new contract management objects; create new forms and wizards; add contract management business rules and approval workflows as well as allow multiple access control lists. Meant for 25 users or more, ASC Contracts Professional also offers add-ons (at additional cost) such as a web services API, content searching and OCRing.
• ASC Contracts Team: ASC Contracts Team edition builds upon the Lite contract management system by adding features such as the ability to create (generate) contracts using pre-defined templates and clause libraries and ensuring that the correct contract version and clauses are used every time. Intended for 25 users or less, ASC Contracts Team also gives users the option to create contracts with unique barcodes, enabling contracts and documents to be automatically filed in the online contract repository safely and accurately.
• Auto-generation/auto-creation: Auto-generation or auto-creation of contracts and documents refers to the ability to generate or create documents automatically using online wizard-based templates and tools.
• Clause Level Workflow: A clause level workflow refers to a workflow enabled at the granular clause level for engagement of required parties specifically when their review is required (e.g., someone requests an edit to the clause).
• Clause Library: A clause library is a selection of centrally managed clauses that can be used ("plug and play" from auto-generation/creation wizard) in contracts and documents.
• Cloud Computing: Cloud computing is the concept of everything as an on-demand service, from software, to platforms, to web servers. Access is subscription or license based and generally more affordable and flexible then more traditional installed software and tools.
• Compliance Management Workflows: Automated workflows coupled with business rules, related decision points and approvals process to streamline corporate governance and standards/regulatory controls.
• Configure, Price, Quote (CPQ): Configure, Price, Quote (CPQ) refers to the end-to-end process of generating quotes and proposals, managing and enforcing pricing scenarios and policies, and configuring products/services to match specific customer requirements.
• Contract Image: A contract image is a scanned image of a contract that is uploaded/attached as part of a contracts electronic record in a contract management database.
• Contract Management or Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM): Contract management refers to the requirement to automate, streamline and simplify buy-side, sell-side, employee, HR and other contract lifecycle management processes including negotiation, templates and clause libraries in a central searchable database.
• Contract Templates: Contract templates are set template standards to help automate and facilitate faster, more consistent contract generation to produce contracts that include appropriate corporate terms and conditions, compliance and approval workflows and other business rules.
• Cost of Goods Sold (COGS): Cost of goods sold (COGS) refers to the direct inventory (or stock) costs of those goods (e.g., purchase, conversion, materials, inventory readiness, direct labor costs, allocated overhead) a business has sold during a particular period. COGS excludes indirect expenses such as distribution and sales. 
• Customer Relationship Management (CRM): CRM is a strategy to automate, synchronize and centralize management of data and business processes related to an enterprise’s customer, client and prospect interactions. The focus is sales activities, but CRM also manages related marketing, customer service and technical support processes.  
• Digital Signature: A digital signature is a mathematical scheme for demonstrating the authenticity or validity of a digital message or document (created by a known sender, not altered in transit). It is most commonly used for software distribution, financial transactions, and in other cases where proof of forgery or tampering is critical.
• Document Management: Document management refers to a strategy to centralize and manage documents via a searchable online repository that automates, tracks, stores, creates and manages electronic documents, meta data and images of documents simply and effectively.
• Enterprise Grade: Enterprise grade or enterprise level means that the system or software has proven security, scalability and stability; is easy to deploy and integrate; and is hardened and robust enough to support a large enterprise with lots of users.
• Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP): Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems automate and integrate cross-organization internal and external management information providing seamless information flow and business insight between finance/accounting, legal, procurement, manufacturing, sales, customer service, marketing,  etc. 
• Environmental Health & Safety (EHS): Environmental Health & Safety (EHS) or variants thereof (SHE, HES, HSE) refers to a regulated need for organizations and government agencies to provide an environmentally responsible, safe and healthy work environment. It is often the name of the responsible department as well. The EHS guidelines were created by the International Finance Corporation in 1998. US-based organizations are subject to EHS regulations found in Code of Federal Regulations. 
• E-Procurement: E-procurement (electronic procurement) entails the online purchase and sale of supplies (business-to-business, business-to-consumer or business-to-government) as well as supplier management and auctioning. 
• E-Signature: An electronic signature (e-signature) is any electronic means that indicates either that a person adopts the contents and intentions of an electronic message/document or that the person who claims to have written a message is the one who wrote it (and that the message received was not tampered with).  
• Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA): The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977 (FCPA) is a United States federal law known primarily for two main provisions, namely accounting transparency requirements under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and bribery of foreign officials.
• Form Management:  Form management refers to a strategy to centralize, automate and streamline the creation, capture and management of custom, definable forms or records (e.g., Account Open), including all approval workflows and business rules, in an online searchable repository.
• Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA): The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) was signed into US law in 1996. HIPAA has two primary functions: to protect health insurance coverage for workers and their families when they change or lose their jobs and to establish national standards for electronic health care transactions and national identifiers for providers, health insurance plans, and employers specific to health data security and privacy.
• Image Capture: Image capture refers to the practice of scanning or capturing an image of a document, usually a signed contract. It is usually then saved as a PDF and associated with the appropriate online record.
• Lead Generation Management: Lead generation management is used, most commonly in Internet marketing, to manage, generate and measure consumer interest or inquiry into products or services of a business. Leads can be generated to build mailing lists, for sales qualification, etc. Tactical lead generation methods include advertising, organic search engine presence and customer referrals. 
• My List: My List is a user-focused to-do list inherent in all ASC solutions. The intention is to help focus each user on tasks critical to their function and not distract them with details and options that they do not need.
• Local Exchange Carriers (LEC): There are two types of Local Exchange Carriers (LEC) -- Incumbents (ILECs) and Competitive (CLECs).
• Local Reciprocal Compensation: In LECs' exchange-based interconnection agreements, where a traffic imbalance exists, the party which originates less traffic than it terminates may be entitled to compensation, this is called Local Reciprocal Compensation (LRC).
• Meta Data: Meta data is the data "wrapper" or intelligent container for effectively managing contracts and documents in online databases.  The meta data describes the context and contents of the digital contracts and documents according to predefined standard fields of collected information.
• On Demand: On demand is used to imply accessible "in the cloud" but also the concept of availability anytime, anywhere.
• On Premise: On premise means onsite at the customer location or premises.
• Open Development Platform: An open development platform provides developers with full access to the framework APIs used by the core application enabling them to take free advantage of the application for proprietary integration and capability enhancements (subject to security constraints enforced by the framework itself). 
• Parent-Child Hierarchy: Within a document or contracts management system, documentation is associated and managed via a hierarchical tree which enables easy access to documents according to their expandable parent-child relationships. For instance, a main contract might be the parent document while associated materials such as revisions, master services agreements (MSAs) and non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) might be child documents.
• Pricing & Quoting Management: Pricing & quoting management refers to the facilitation and automation of RFx (RFP, RFQ, RFI) management, sourcing and procurement, bidding, tendering, sales and price configuration and collaborative negotiation in an online searchable database management system.
• Pricing Module: A pricing module is a business process management solution component that enables auto generation of prices (pricing automation) based upon pricing rules (by region, by customer, volume discounts, etc.) established by the user.
• Quote to Cash (QTC): Quote to Cash (QTC or Q2C) is a term for the integration and automated management of end-to-end business processes on the sell side, including pricing, quote creation, negotiation, contract and order management, invoicing, and receipts payable.
• Quote to Order (QTO): Quote to Order (QTO or Q2O) is a term for the integration and automated management of end-to-end business processes on the sell side, including pricing, quote creation, negotiation, and contract and order management.
• Sales Force Automation System (SFA): Sales force automation (SFA) systems are information systems used to automate sales and sales force management business processes in CRM marketing and management. When integrated with a marketing information system, they are often simply called customer relationship management (CRM) systems. 
• Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX): The Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX)  legislates acceptable conduct regarding the retention of electronic and paper records for public companies, executives and the general population. It establishes new standards for corporate accountability and increases penalties for corporate wrongdoing. The act is intended to protect investors by improving the accuracy and reliability of corporate disclosures. SOX has wide-reaching implications for American organizations and industry experts expect similar legislation to follow in other leading global economies such as Bill 198 and NI 52-109 in Canada. SOX is also known as the "Public Company Accounting Reform and Investor Protection Act" (in the US Senate) and the "Corporate and Auditing Accountability and Responsibility Act" (in the US House).
• Smart Form Features: Smart form features include intelligent and customizable form attributes such as dropdown selectors, checkbox and radio button options, date controls and add row capabilities.
• Stark Law: Stark Law governs and moderates physician self-referral -- or the practice of a physician referring a Medicare and Medicaid patient to a medical facility in which he/she has a financial interest (e.g., ownership, investment, or a structured compensation arrangement).
• Tab-based Views: A tab-based view is one that permits users to switch from tab to tab for specific views of content as required (rather than having everything on one page for instance). Tabs can be logically segmented according to required information parameters.
• Tamper Proof: ASC's unique barcode technology enables original documents to be traced and regenerated instantly, eliminating any potential for repudiation, as document owners can confirm whether each page’s content is changed/unchanged when proof of tampering is required. 
• Traffic Imbalance: Traffic imbalance occurs for traffic that is interchanged between Local Exchange Carriers (LECs) and between LECs and Sharees (those sharing infrastructure facilities of an existing LEC) as well as between individual subscribers. 
• Terms and Conditions Library: A terms and conditions library is a set of standardized and approved corporate language terms and conditions provided to help automate and facilitate contract generation by producing contracts that include appropriate corporate terms and conditions.
• Wizard Based: A wizard based tool is one with an easy-to-use user interface (UI) that automatically guides you through next steps based on decision tree type criteria. For instance in creating a new contract, you might first select the type of contract and the wizard will auto generate the appropriate template with standard terms and conditions for you.
• Workflow Management: Workflow Management refers to the ability to define, automate and enforce custom workflows for rules and decision points that govern business processes.
• Zero Footprint:  Zero footprint means that software is web-based with no plug-ins required. The software will work right from the client's desktop with no downloads, installation or configuration required.