Secure email and electronic signatures – without leaving your email

Retro thinking

Many will writers and estate planners around the UK are still handling client contracts with traditional paper based documentation. This archaic system of print, scan, sign, scan, post and wait is creating unnecessary costs for business in time, materials and labour.

In addition to the physical costs, cash flow also takes a hit with the amount of time spent waiting for customers to respond and signed paperwork to be returned safely.

How many times has one of your signed documents been misplaced or frustratingly lost in the post?

Savings that stack up

Regardless of the size of your business, everyone is looking to save money and increase revenue. Digital signature platforms offer an easy and powerful way to make those savings a reality.

A recent report by AIIM found that:

• 81% of digital signature users saw a payback within 12 months, and 25% saw ROI in three months or less
• Companies lose an average of 17 days per year dealing with paper document issues
• The cost of chasing paperwork equates to an average of £14,800 per employee chasing
• 500 million important documents are sent on an overnight courier service each year at a cost of £100bn

Improving customer relationships

In this age of technology, businesses are operating online, and they’ve come to expect businesses they work with to provide online services.

A recent report by Deloitte reported that 85% of UK adults own a smartphone and 60% have a tablet computer. With so many clients doing business online, it’s essential to modernise the last step in business operations, the signature.

With digital signature software, your customers can sign contracts online with nothing to download or install. As long as they have an Internet connection, they can sign documents no matter where they may be, on any device.

This service adds value for your customers by making it fast and easy to do business with your company.

Improved cash flow

As e-signature software makes it quick and easy to sign documents online, you are guaranteed to see faster contract turnaround. It’s also easy to quickly execute contracts that have multiple signers. After the first person signs, the electronic signature software automatically routes documents to the next person to sign in the workflow. This enables your business to get paid in faster than ever before. We have seen businesses in a variety of industries reporting signed documents being returned up to 500% faster with e-signature software.

Who sent what, where and when?

A common problem with any important email communication is wondering “Has it been signed yet?” You can finally answer this question if you adopt electronic signatures. Digital signature software makes it easy to track your documents and some software will even send signers a reminder email if they forget to sign.

Security and compliance

With paper documentation, you can secure your documents by putting them in a secured filling cabinet. Even with these precautions, someone could still break in and tamper with documents. The only evidence you would have would be a broken lock.

This type of document security is a liability. With a type of electronic signature called a “digital signature”, you can safeguard your documents with a high level of document security and evidence. Each signature is protected with a tamper-evident seal, which alerts you if any part of the document is changed after signing.

Signed documents also come with a highly detailed log of events of the document’s lifecycle. Using this evidence, you can see when each person signed the document, which signers downloaded a copy of the finished document, and much more.

With the introduction of new data protection legislation the EU and UK in May 2018, this level of security will be critical for staying compliant with these new, stringent laws.

In conclusion

The future is bright for contract signing and e-signature software provides a fast and easy way to have documents signed with the added benefits of enhanced security and tracking.

Author: Mike Roberts

Position: Product Manager, Frama UK Ltd

Contact Tel: 07545 292 184

Contact Email: [email protected]