What Small Businesses Must Know About eSignatures?

In this digital environment, 85% of corporate contracts are still printed, signed, and scanned manually. This paper-intensive workflow generates huge roadblocks in the effectiveness of your business. Plus, it can also hinder the client experience.

It has been observed that 35% of SMB leaders face problems with incomplete documents or the ones signed by the inappropriate person.

eSignatures provide small businesses with a simple solution to these problems. Previously small businesses needed to struggle a lot to find answers to their queries. Like, are these signatures safe? Are they legal across the states in the United States? To do this, the answer is,

a. eSignatures Have the Same Legal Status Like Physical Signatures

eSign is federally recognized form of signing. ESIGN Act in the U.S. and eIDAS in the E.U. avert denial of legal impact and validity of any electronically signed contract due to its electronic format.

Today, more than 60 countries all around the globe have embraced eSignature technology that is enforceable and legal in the court of law, as long as the signature process is designed and deployed as per the needs of the law.

b. eSignatures and Digital Signatures Are Different

Although these terms are used interchangeably, they are different. An eSign platform is equivalent to the digitized version of handwritten signatures. Companies leverage it to show their intention to accept and approve the contents of the business contract.

The digital signatures are advanced electronic signatures. They use algorithms in order to create a digital fingerprint. So, these fingerprints or hash of a digital certificate are unique to every contract. It links to the person’s identity who has signed the document.

c. eSignatures Are Legal for Many Contract Types Across Industries

Now it has become easy to sign proposals electronically, rent documents, sales contracts, and any other agreement. But there are some major exceptions stated by electronic signature laws around the globe. For example, the UETA and ESIGN Act don’t identify the eSigning of property wills, transfers, or some other legal notices.

d. The Solution Doesn’t Require Technical Expertise at the Time of Implementation

Implementing eSignatures into the business workflow is simple. Cloud-based electronic signature solutions are rolling out in-built integration abilities.

Your staff can sign electronically from within the other existing business tools like Office 365. This will free up your valuable time and you can focus on other critical activities. It has been observed that 40% of SMBs have observed that electronic signatures have enhanced staff productivity. Plus, while selecting software, you must focus on the intuitive user experience. By this way, you can have the team up and running sometime.

Does the business process change after implementation?

Ideally, any changes brought to the business by an eSignature software is considered useful. With the help of the system, SMBs can execute the electronic contracts leveraging the same document management software.

Why Small Business Owners Use Electronic Signatures?

The Covid-19 pandemic has brought physical document exchange and physical signature to a standstill. So, in this case, SMBs had to struggle a lot to maintain their business operations. And today, electronic signatures allow no-document approvals on daily paperwork. You can self-sign, send signature requests, and store the contracts from anywhere and at any time.

Using electronic signature software for SMBs:

a. Minimizes paperwork turnaround time from several days/weeks to minutes
b. Automates tedious paperwork and enhances employee productivity and effectiveness
c. Offers no system learning curve and does not require massive set-ups
d. Save paper, courier, ink, and productivity expenses when compared to traditional signature process
e. Helps businesses to monitor incomplete signatures and sends reminders to the signers.
f. Eliminates the need for human intervention while signing documents
g. Users can send signature requests to several parties at the same time
h. Compliant with ESIGN Act, eIDAS regulation, and other eSign laws.

To Sum Up

No matter whether you are running a large enterprise or small-scale business in order to enjoy optimal profits, you must use each second. When you are wasting your productive hours in handling document signatures and managing them, it can impact the overall business. Hence, in order to prevent these conditions you must leverage eSignatures when it comes to signing different business-related contracts.

So, it is the right time to implement robust electronic signature platform and get ready to witness better business expansion. Now, you can replace manual signing with eSignatures.