Financial services firms carry years of legacy contracts: service agreements, process frameworks and fee agreements, created in different formats and saved in different places. Moving them into a new system usually means manual data entry and checking, which is slow, expensive and easy to get wrong.
This article follows the investor services subsidiary of a global financial firm that faced exactly that problem across thousands of funds and several asset classes. It explains what the firm needed, how AI extraction on ServiceNow handled the migration, and what changed once its contracts lived in one governed repository.
What problems was the firm facing?
Migration at scale
The investor services business managed service agreements, process frameworks and fee agreements for thousands of funds across many asset classes. Migrating and managing them by hand was becoming unworkable.
Scattered storage
Long, multipage agreements sat in separate repositories and shared folders. Nobody had a central view, so finding the right contract and its amendments took far too long.
Manual compilation and monitoring
Staff compiled documents, monitored service levels and defined follow up actions by hand. That consumed time and raised the risk of errors and inconsistent records.
Regulatory pressure
The firm had to meet strict IT control requirements under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and anti-money laundering and know your customer rules. Contract data had to be secure, traceable and ready for audit.
User experience
Whatever replaced the old process had to be simple for staff to use. A complex system would slow people down and push them back to shared folders.
Why did the firm choose a ServiceNow native approach?
ServiceNow was already central to the firm's technology. Running Contractflow natively on that platform meant contracts would sit in the same governed environment as other workflows, under existing roles, single sign on and audit history, with no new platform to secure.
That mattered as much to the security and audit teams as to the business. Sensitive contract data never left ServiceNow, which helped the firm pass a demanding IT audit.
How does AI handle legacy contract migration?
The heart of the project was AI extraction. Instead of staff keying in data from each agreement, AI read the legacy contracts, whatever their format or location, and identified the key elements: parties, term, termination rights, fees, service levels and other obligations. It then populated the matching fields in the repository.
- Collect: gather legacy agreements from every folder and repository into one intake.
- Extract: AI reads each contract and proposes values for each field, with the source text shown.
- Check: contract managers review the extracted data and correct anything the AI got wrong.
- Link: amendments, side letters and related agreements are linked to the parent contract.
- Activate: obligations, service levels and key dates become tracked items with owners.
Extraction removes most of the typing, and the human check keeps the data trustworthy. Today Aavenir AI performs this extraction in Contractflow, and a person approves every result. See AI contract extraction.
What does a good contract repository add?
Storing contracts is only the start. The repository was built to be searched and filtered, so staff can find agreements by keyword, contract type or client name in seconds rather than hunting through folders.
Search goes beyond file names. Staff can look for a clause or a term across every agreement, which matters when a regulator, client or auditor asks a question that cuts across the whole portfolio. With Aavenir Atlas, that question can be asked in plain English across all contracts.
Access matters as much as search. In a firm serving many funds, not every user should see every agreement. Role based access on ServiceNow limits each person to the contracts they are entitled to, and every view and change is recorded, which is what auditors look for when they test controls over client data.
| Before | After |
|---|---|
| Agreements spread across shared folders | One searchable repository on ServiceNow |
| Data keyed in by hand | AI extraction checked by contract managers |
| Service levels compiled manually | Service levels tracked with owners and alerts |
| Reports built in spreadsheets | Dashboards on deliverables, approvals and signatures |
| Audit evidence gathered on request | Data and history held in the governed platform |
How are service levels and obligations tracked after migration?
Once the data was in place, Contractflow tracked obligations, monitored service levels and sent alerts for renewals, terminations and other key dates. That helps avoid penalties for missed deadlines and keeps the firm in step with its commitments to clients.
Dashboards and reports replaced manual spreadsheets. The firm could track deliverables, monitor service levels and see how many contracts were in approval or out for signature, all within ServiceNow. See contract obligation tracking.
What improved for the firm?
Centralizing contracts on ServiceNow standardized the process and gave the business one place to find, read and act on its agreements. Staff spent less time compiling documents and more time on client service. Security and audit teams gained confidence that sensitive data stayed in a governed platform, and reporting moved from spreadsheets to live dashboards.
The same approach applies to any regulated firm with a large back catalog of contracts. Start with the agreements that carry the most regulatory or client risk, migrate them first, and expand once the process is proven. Read more about contract management for financial services.
The bottom line
Legacy contracts hold obligations and risks that nobody can see while they sit in folders. AI extraction, checked by people, turns them into searchable, tracked data, and running it on ServiceNow keeps that data inside a platform your auditors already trust.