Irrespective of the fact that you have a business to run or a freelance project to complete, connecting with your clients, signing contracts, and approving payments are a few things that we all do. The standard procedure starts with one of the parties’ mailings or sending the contract by post. Upon receiving the document is printed, read, and duly signed. The validated document is then sent back to the sender either through an email or via post.
Right?
Apparently, yes!
But do you think such a process still exists? Considering the uncertain situation where most of us are working from home? Is it possible to post the contract or email and expect a reply the next day?
To be honest, this form of signatures is long gone. For one, not everyone has the resources to print the document from the mail, sign, and scan. Also, people are looking for a quick response so the method (takes days) isn’t feasible. This is where the concept of electronic signatures comes in. Not sure what it means? Let us explain.
What are electronic signatures?
According to CocoSign, electronic signatures are the digital counterpart of a physical signature. The process of signing still involves two parties, their signatures, and a contract. What changes is the mode where the document is signed.
Instead of having a pen and paper, electronic signatures have a device screen and their free hands to digitally sign a document. Meaning that organizational leaders can keep running their business without having to worry about the document signing processes.
Not sure if your business needs to adapt and install tools that facilitate eSignatures?
Here are six ways in which electronic signatures work for you and your business.
6 benefits of Electronic Signatures
1. Reduces processing time
Sending documents for approval, validation or authentication takes no less than a couple of days. The onset of coronavirus has only added to the count making the process lengthy. With the deployment of electronic signatures in the process, you can easily expedite the process as the documents are shared online.
Unlike wet signatures, digital signatures have no such thing as printing the document or scanning it. All that you need to do is share the document with the concerning party and then they can sign the document digitally. Once done, the tool notifies the sender helping them process the document faster and better.
With digital signatures, you can sign your documents online, and therefore, there is no need for sending the contracts through post/physically. So, the travel or shipping time for both parties reduces too. All-in-all contract processing and signing become hassle-free with digital signatures.
2. Save costs
Imagine the yearly expenses of managing, storing, and processing paper documents, let alone sharing, and maintaining. Also, in some cases where the other party is living far away or even in another country. In such a scenario, the shipping or travel cost will increase manifolds when you sign documents in a conventional way.
With electronic signatures, you need not have paper or ink to create or sign a document. Additionally, it cuts down the money spent while traveling places to get a document signed. So, it is a win-win for both the signing parties as a decent amount of money by digitizing this process.
3. Eliminates Error
Losing out on a document or a physical paper is no big deal. It is possible that while tracking paper documents, your employees misplace the same. On the other side, errors in reading long documents or missing important points are also common when you have a printed document. This may lead to big problems for an individual or organization.
Such is not the case with digital documents. They are all saved online and there doesn’t lie the possibility of misplacing or losing potential information. You can search for specific terms of your interest and check whether the clauses related to it are correct or not. This way, troubles, and errors can be avoided while using digital signatures.
4. Easy to Track
Printed documents generally end up on the shelf in a pile. Employees change jobs and new employees may even miss noticing a few documents. Keeping track of a whole bunch of such documents, signed at different times, is very different physically. But that’s not the case with digitally signed documents.
Online software and other tools that encompass the facility of digital signatures help businesses keep tabs on who has accessed the document and whether the same is signed on not. Concerning contracts, any changes made in the document are reflected and all the concerning parties are notified about the same. This helps update documents on the go.
5. Totally secured
One thing people worry the most about online or digital processes is the security of organizational data. In case you are choosing a trusted service provider for signing documents, you won’t have to worry about this.
Digital signatures are tamper-proof and most of the time, they are done over video calls between the concerning parties. All of the members are duly added to the call so that they can verify the person and the signature. If not willing to do it on a video call, your business may even opt for using a trusted identity e.g email to verify the authenticity of the process. This eliminates all possibility of fraud, ensuring that everything is protected.
6. Improves User Experience
Digital signatures are accessible remotely, meaning that no one needs to leave their premises to get the document signed. Irrespective of the demography of the sender and the receiver, tools that provide the ease to do digital signatures can be accessed remotely. This improves the user experience making it a win-win for all.
Conclusion
Having said the above, one thing to note is that the process is legally approved and also verified by all the parties. Whether you belong to the banking industry or the financial sector, the legal industry, or the corporate world, adopting eSignatures would make your life better. With all 6 benefits that electronic signatures yield for a business, your venture must not think much about adopting it in the process.
Nina Smith 
Nicola Holder