esign workflow in businesses
Signing documents is an everyday business activity – be it finalizing contracts, onboarding customers, or issuing loans. However, as stakeholders are dispersed geographically, document signing becomes tedious. Paper-based documents make signing documents costly and inefficient.
An easy solution for this is eSign workflows; digital solutions that facilitate users to authenticate documents by signing them digitally. Consequently, users can sign documents quickly, thereby overcoming the hurdles of manual signatures, such as traveling and scheduling in-person meetings.
Below are the top five reasons why businesses must adopt eSign workflows:
- Improve accuracy
With paper-based documents, stakeholders often miss out on filling a critical part of the information or end up skipping pages that need to be signed. This leads to spending time re-sending documents, delaying the completion of the documentation process. Through highlights and alerts, eSign workflows ensure that there are no gaps in the desired information and, thus, improve the accuracy of the process.
- Enable cross-platform integration
Businesses the world over are increasingly adopting digital solutions such as Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM), and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) platforms to improve productivity. Therefore, executives and managers are spending more time on these platforms. eSign workflows can be easily integrated into these platforms allowing signatories to sign documents right from within the platform, thus saving time and resources.
- Enhance security
eSign workflows enable businesses to safeguard their confidential and sensitive information. Configuring security parameters on documents enables access only to users who are critical to the process. Additionally, documents remain safe from malicious acts as eSign workflow’s smart algorithms allow restricted access such as ‘View Only’ mode and prohibit overwriting any information.
For instance, SignDesk’s eSign solution’s industry-grade SHA-256 algorithm ensures data safety and prevents document vulnerabilities such as malicious access, and undesirable tampering. Thus, eSign workflows deliver a significant security improvement over paper-based documents.
- Comply with regulatory frameworks
Besides encouraging businesses to go paperless, governments globally are introducing and updating their regulatory frameworks to facilitate electronic communication. In India, the IT (Amendment) Act, 2008 stipulates rules and regulations regarding digital documentation and digital signatures to safeguard the interest of users.
eSign workflows complement these regulations by adhering to the necessary government requirements. For instance, the eSign workflow from SignDesk – complies with a broad range of regulatory requirements such as the IT (Amendment Act), and Stamp Acts. In turn, businesses benefit by forming indisputable, and valid contracts.
- Greater ROI
At the time of signing, paper-based documents need signatories and executives to be present in person. This means scheduling meetings and traveling to business offices or customers’ homes. Thus, the entire signing process is expensive and time-consuming. eSign workflows allow users to sign documents right from the comfort of their respective locations. Add the advantages of lower storage costs, higher accuracy and better security and businesses enjoy higher ROI by adopting eSign workflows.
In conclusion, wet signatures and paper-based documents have become vastly obsolete in today’s digital environment. On the other hand, eSign workflows promise multiple advantages over their manual counterparts. As such, businesses must urgently adopt these modern solutions to gain a competitive advantage.