The four biggest pitfalls of notifications via outlook

by House of Control | 9/14/20 10:48 PM

Many finance departments do their best to keep control of contracts and agreements by using Excel or CRM to give them an overview of agreements, expiry dates and figures. They put calendar appointments in Outlook, with the notification feature set to remind them to renew or renegotiate contracts on a given date.

They think they are in control, but in reality, this is a false sense of security. In practice, there is an enormous risk that this system will not work the way they plan. Your company is at risk of paying huge amounts in unnecessary costs, which will have a direct and adverse affect on your bottom line.

The four biggest pitfalls of notifications via Outlook:

  • Calendar notifications can easily be overlooked on a busy day. You click on ‘dismiss’ and forget all about them.
  • Notifications are not escalated. You only receive one notification, and no one else in the organisation is aware that something is urgent or that a deadline is approaching.
  • Dependent on one person. This method depends 100 % on one person, so if that person is sick, on leave or on holiday, the company is at risk of missing an important deadline.
  • Technical problems. If you set up an alert 3, 4, 5 or 8 years in the future, system upgrades between now and then could affect the data in your calendar. The method is not watertight.

Important deadlines and contracts should not depend on one person. Companies need a proper management tool with notifications that escalate if an agreed action is not initiated according to plan.

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