February 9, 2008

Digital Signatures: Be More Productive and Move Faster

One of the slowest parts of doing business is the obligatory forms one must fill out once an agreement is reached. You and your counter part at the "other" company agree to do something. But guess what, your admin, finance and legal teams must then get together and have you and your staff sign documents, which must be countersigned by the other companies staff.

With electronic signatures, the work of signing documents is electronic and holds up in court as being legally binding. Many of you might feel more comfortable seeing a hand written signature image on a document. Electronic signatures, however, should be considered for speed and efficiency.

I just tested EchoSign's electronic signature and document management service and it's simple, fast, efficient and quite feature rich. Here's how it works.

I setup a test account and in a few minutes I was presented with an online console - very well designed. Main options include

• Sending a document to be signed
• Creating a form and sending it to be signed
• Approve a document that's already been sent for your signature

When sending a document for signature you can have the option to enable a digital signature or require the recipient to fax you a hand written signature.

When the recipient receives your document for signature the process is easy. They type in their name and initials and that's the digital signature - that's it. If they prefer to fax a signature they can print the document, sign it and fax to Echo Sign.

EchoSign facilitates all parties signing the document, sends all parties a copy of all signed documents (digital or hand written) and manages all your electronically signed documents for you. Pretty neat and efficient.

Learn about electronic signature legality here.

tags: echosign , electronic signatures | 0 comments