One of the biggest drags on productivity, cash flow, and
operational efficiency in most companies is handwritten signatures.
The act of signing a contract may only take an instant, but
all the time it takes to get the right paperwork to the right people in the
organization can add days or even weeks to the pre-contract lifecycle.
Every hour a piece of paper sits in someone’s inbox is
wasted time.
If you want to drastically improve the amount of time it
takes for a contract to move from proposal to execution, you need to kill
handwritten signatures in your organization.
Legality of
Electronic Signatures
Handwritten signatures are almost never needed. Several
federal laws allow for contracts signed over a computer to be just as
binding as contracts signed with pen and paper.
Electronic signatures don’t even have to look anything like
a handwritten signature. You can use a variety of programs to simulate a
handwritten signature if you want. But, you can also have something as simple
as a checkbox.
Have you ever clicked “Yes” when installing software from
the internet? Then you’ve provided an electronic signature to a contract.
Clicking “Yes” or checking a box has the same legal force as signing your name
and initials on a stack of physical pages.
How Electronic
Signatures Enhance Security
Electronic signatures are more than just more efficient than
physical signatures. They are also usually more secure.
You can encrypt all of you’re the digital files you have
stored. You cannot encrypt paper documents. If someone gets a key or breaks
into a physical file cabinet, they can remove documents or easily access
confidential information.
If you encrypt your digital documents, a hacker or unauthorized
employee will not be able to read the data. Even if they somehow gain access to
the files.
Digital signatures are harder to forge and can provide many
different ways of validating who signed the document. Digital forensics is much
more accurate and powerful than handwriting analysis.
It is also much easier to find a digital document that has
been misfiled than it is to find a physical document. Your physical file
cabinet doesn’t have a search bar.
The Last Roadblock to
Going Paperless
Fully adopting electronic signatures is typically the last roadblock
between spending time moving reams of paper around and going paperless.
Becoming a paperless business allows you to save money on
paper, toner, printers, and staff time. It also makes your business more secure
and more environmentally friendly.
In the next three years, any business still relying on
handwritten signatures will be like a business that still relies on the
telegraph. You will be so far behind the competition you may never catch up.
Do You Ever Need a
Physical Signature?
For commercial purposes, the only reason you would need a
physical signature is if another party refuses to move forward without
one.
You may still need a physical signature for personal legal
documents. Most states still require a handwritten signature on wills,
codicils, trusts, and powers of attorney.
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