Advantages of Integrating Electronic Signatures for Contract Management
By David Parks
One of the slowest and sometimes frustrating yet most important part of any contract management process is the signature stage. You’ve worked hard to create and negotiate the contract using Contract Logix’s Collaboration Room – regardless of whether it’s a buy-side or sell-side agreement – and now it’s time to secure the necessary signatures so that it can be executed.
Maybe your current process is to walk the agreement around the office with a folder and cover sheet to get wet signatures and track who needs to sign it. Or, maybe you email it back and forth for it to be printed, signed, scanned, and passed along to the next party. If any of that sounds familiar, then it’s time to embrace electronic signatures for contract management which have been legally binding since the E-SIGN Act of 2000.
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In today’s digital age, electronic signatures help you execute agreements faster. They are great for a mobile or remote workforce because agreements can be signed virtually anywhere there’s Internet access. They also significantly improve your end user’s experience of your contract management process. Another big benefit is e-signatures are more secure and audit-ready than paper-based ones. They keep a digital and legally binding audit trail of your approvals.
That’s why at Contract Logix we don’t just support electronic signatures for contract management, we’ve fully integrated the industry-leading electronic signature providers including Adobe Sign, DocuSign, and Sertifi into our contract management software. You’re probably asking, what does integration really mean and why is it important?
A Single Place to Do it All
Let’s say you’ve been working on a contract and have already captured all the redlines and all parties are in agreement with the changes. Now it’s time to get it signed. With our pre-built e-signature integrations, you never have to leave the Contract Logix contract management software to complete the signature process. You can accomplish everything you need to do get a contract signed right in our platform. This makes your life easier and ensures you keep the “source of truth” in your contract management system such as the signed document, signing history, etc.
A Complete Digital Record of Approvals
All the envelope information related to the contract is available right in Contract Logix from the electronic signature provider to give you the instant status of all the required signatures. You can control who signs and where they sign it, you can see who’s received the email notifying them about the need for a signature, who has looked at the document, and who has signed it.
In addition, all this information is time and date-stamped to ensure everything is audit-ready and compliant. Once someone electronically signs the agreement, the system automatically routes it to the next signatory in order. This eliminates any back and forth, saves a ton of time, keeps a complete record of everything, and eliminates a document getting lost on someone’s desk waiting for their John Hancock.
Easily Maintain Version Control
Another huge benefit of integrating electronic signatures for contract management is that once all signatories have signed the document, it’s instantly married back up into the contract management software. That means the signed agreement is automatically uploaded to your contract repository and tied to the contract record. This is important because one of the biggest challenges we hear from prospects who already use an e-signature provider is that people forget to upload the signed document to their document repository.
We’ve solved this problem because as soon as the final signatory signs the document it’s instantly uploaded as the latest version of the contract in Contract Logix. And, if you already have an Adobe Sign, Sertifi, or DocuSign account, all you have to do is load your credentials to begin using it. Sound easy? It is.
Takeaway
If you haven’t already, it’s time to go paperless, mobile, and execute your agreements faster by leveraging our contract management software’s seamless integration with the leading electronic signature providers, Adobe Sign, DocuSign, and Sertifi. You’ll be able to automatically: track signature statuses of the approving parties; notify the appropriate parties via email that a contract has been signed, and check-in executed agreements automatically into the Contract Logix contract management system.
Schedule a demo of our solution and we’ll show you the simplicity and ease of using electronic signatures for contract management and other key benefits of adopting a true CLM solution.