Constantly signing documents can be tiresome, particularly when you process several files daily. Fortunately, technology has developed an efficient solution to simplify the task for industries that regularly sign hundreds of documents for approval.
E-signatures, short for electronic signatures, refer to digital signatures used to replace handwritten ones in virtual platforms. E-signatures are legally binding, enforceable, and easy to use, making them an efficient option for getting approval on electronic documents.
Using e-signatures can benefit your company by addressing several challenges in your business operations. Here are a few ways e-signatures can improve your daily processes.
Improves Time Efficiency
The manual document signing process begins by printing the document to be signed, sending it to the people who need to sign it, waiting for everyone involved to finish affixing their signatures, and finally scanning the signed document for uploading purposes.
The abovementioned sequence takes a lot of time and exchanges. E-signatures can simplify the entire task to save a significant amount of time for your business. You will only need a single click on your mousepad to attach an e-signature and send it back through a digital signing platform.
It gets better for documents that need multiple signatures from different people. E-signatures can speed up the process by uploading the document and sending it to everyone who needs to sign. Users can sign in through a link function accessible wherever and whenever they please, improving the speed, convenience, and effort necessary to complete the signing process.
Aside from saving a lot of time, e-signatures can also improve transparency by providing everyone who signed with a digital copy of the document to ensure a secure audit trail.
Reduces Expenses
The expenses for paper supplies, printing equipment, ink, folders, and envelopes might be minuscule initially, but these costs stack up to a significant amount. Going digital with e-signatures can reduce expenses so you can spend more on critical areas like marketing, sales, or customer experience.
E-signatures can also prevent fraud-related losses that often stem from tampered paperwork. Forged signatures are not uncommon and can lead to thousands or millions in financial losses if not appropriately addressed.
Using digital signatures can prevent this with multilayered encryption technology that detects and identifies unauthorized access and modifications quickly, so you’ll know if ever the document has been tampered with.
Encourages a Paperless Workflow
The document turnaround time for manual signatures takes roughly 14 to 90 days, assuming no paperwork is lost or misrouted during the process. However, companies often lose track of essential paperwork during routing, leading to delays and unhappy clients.
Even if no paperwork is lost, sometimes the other party makes mistakes that require them resubmitting documents. While this might take another 14-28 days if done manually, e-signatures can quickly complete resubmissions in less than a minute.
A paperless workflow significantly improves your business by reducing the chances of errors through continuous document tracking and faster processing. It also makes file storage easier since your documents will be digitally stored, not piled inside cabinets and storage units.
Digital signature platforms allow users to monitor documents 24/7 while providing timestamps for each time a copy has been viewed, opened, and signed.
E-Signatures as a Long-Term Investment
Digitizing the signing process can benefit your company and customers in the long run, making it an ideal investment. E-signatures solve fundamental business challenges like time, costs, and operational stability. You can simplify the signing process while improving several business areas with digital signatures.
