Start-up MyContracts.com Offers Management Services

A Santa Monica start-up has joined the list of companies offering Web-based contract-management services.

MyContracts.com stores and monitors clients’ contracts on its Web site, sending e-mail reminders about payment and renewal dates, among other things.

Launched in September, MyContracts.com handles real estate, insurance, service and equipment contracts. It is aiming its service at small to mid-size firms of 50 to 500 employees.

The company is building its business through deals with brokers and consultants, such as CB Richard Ellis, Aon Enterprise Insurance Services and Ernst & Young, which are offering MyContracts.com’s service to clients. About 80% of MyContracts’ 280 customers have come through its partners.

MyContracts co-founder and Chief Executive Mark Friedman said the start-up builds on a 5-year-old company he also founded, Westmark Harris, which markets a program that helps companies monitor real estate leases. Its clients, mostly Fortune 500 firms, found they overpaid on contracts by 5% to 10% through inattention to such details as renewal or buyout dates.

“If you miss those dates, the bill keeps coming, and it can get very expensive,” he said.

Friedman believes MyContracts could grow to be 10 times as large as Westmark Harris, which has revenue of $5 million. The newer company has a broader product line and larger pool of potential customers, he said. And unlike Westmark Harris, its technology is Web-based.

Other young companies have peeled off portions of the contract-management business. Redwood City, Calif.-based DiCarta, for example, markets revenue-recognition programs to other software companies whose transactions involve not only outright sales but complicated lease deals that require close monitoring.

And Portland, Maine-based I-Many sells contract-management software to Fortune 500 firms, including Procter & Gamble.