Many analysts will point to the rise of remote work and in-office/remote hybrid schedules as a reason that eSignatures have become more common in the last several years. But the fact of the matter is that eSignatures would be beneficial to any organization even if remote work was not a thing.
That is because the benefits of electronic signatures are wide ranging. eSignatures do make remote work more efficient and viable, to be sure—but that is only the beginning. Implementing an eSignature solution can increase efficiency, save money, improve security, and more.
Whether you call it eSignature software or an eSignature solution, giving your internal and external stakeholders a way to sign documents electronically is one of the best choices you can make for your organization.
Before diving into the significance of electronic signature technology and how it can benefit your organization, we need to clarify what an eSignature is. It is a method of providing a signature electronically—not that complicated, right?
However, as with any technology, there is the simple answer and then there is the more detailed and nuanced answer which makes that simple explanation possible. So let’s break down exactly what we are looking at.
eSignatures have been around in one form or another since approximately 1999. That, at least, is when the first legislation codifying their legality was introduced in the United States Congress. Eventually, that legislation would be signed into law in the year 2000 as the Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce Act.
Over the years, laws and regulations around digital signature technology have evolved and become more specific. The end result is that electronic representations of a person’s signature are just as legally recognized and binding as a written signature on paper.
This is great because it opens companies and organizations that have been smart enough to adopt the technology to the myriad benefits of electronic signatures. So just what are these benefits? How can they help you with your day-to-day operations?
Use of electronic signatures helps an organization in several ways. Some benefits are apparent, but others may surprise you.
The costs that accrue over time with paper-and-ink signatures start out small but, over time, can become massive. And some of the ways those costs accrue may surprise you—it isn’t just the cost of ink and toner.
But let’s start there. A quality printer that can handle the volume of printing required by your team needs to be filled with paper. Often you will need paper of varying sizes and possibly varying stock. Those costs add up. Then you add toner and ink on top of that.
Then you have to factor in the cost of storing your backlog of paperwork. You need secure cabinets, and you need to pay for a large enough space to store them without impeding your team from doing their work—including taking the time to organize all those documents so that it doesn’t take forever to find relevant paperwork when it is needed.
And that’s just the beginning. You can’t talk about eSignature benefits without talking about saving time as well.
Because time is money, this section goes hand in hand with the last point. Reliance on analog signing methods takes longer than signing electronically. A big reason for this is the wait times related to pen-and-paper signatures.
There is no comparison between the time it takes to print a document, send it to a signatory by mail or courier, and then for that signatory to send the document back to you vs the near instantaneous ability of an eSignature to get to the signatory and back to you.
One of the great benefits of electronic signatures is that the software that you use for them can facilitate automation of time-consuming tasks. For example, we can look at Dropbox Sign (formerly HelloSign).
Dropbox Sign allows you to save templates for your most frequently used documents. That means you can simply enter the key information for your current needs and the document will automatically populate that information without you needing to go through and manually update every field one at a time.
It is also designed to integrate with your document management system to automatically track the progress of documents that have been sent out for signing and sending notifications when those documents have been successfully signed and completed.
This also helps prevent human error. You can set up your submission protocols to ensure that any empty signature fields prevent the signatory from submitting the document back into your system.
This is one of the benefits of electronic signatures that can go under the radar, but it is one of the most important. eSignatures help bolster security in a few ways.
With analog documents, there is no “validate signature on document” button that will ensure that the person signing is the right signatory. eSignature solutions can use multi-point identifications to make sure that the person signing your document is the correct person.
Utilizing an eSignature solution as part of your enterprise document management system also lets you track who has viewed a document and when/what changes have been made to that document. This protects you from potential fraud from disreputable entities.
These examples are just the beginning of the benefits of electronic signatures. The more you learn about eSignatures, the more benefits become apparent.
From the ability to sign from mobile devices anywhere in the world to proving to prospective employees that you want to make their onboarding paperwork as easy to complete as possible, eSignatures are incredible tools.
And with a solution like Dropbox Sign, you get a tool that seamlessly integrates with your full technology stack—not to mention that you will get a tool that can scale along with your organization’s growth.
The time to embrace an eSignature solution is now. And if you have eSignature software that can’t do everything that has been mentioned here, the time to upgrade is now.
We at TEAM IM have collective decades of experience optimizing our partners’ document management systems—including finding the right eSignature solution to suit their current needs and future growth. Reach out today and start saving time and money while improving security and efficiency.
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