Benefits Of Using Electronic Signatures For Transforming Business Agreements

Key takeaways

• Efficiency: E-signatures save time by speeding up document completion, often from days to minutes.

• Cost Savings: They reduce expenses associated with printing, paper, and postage.

• Security: E-signatures offer enhanced protection with features like encryption and audit trails.

• Convenience: They enable signing from anywhere, supporting remote work and improving the customer experience.

• Versatility: The benefits of e-signatures apply across various industries, from sales, to legal, finance and HR.

Benefits and features of electronic signature

What are the benefits of electronic signatures? Electronic signatures have revolutionised how businesses manage their agreements. From small businesses to global corporations, all kinds of organisations are discovering the benefits of electronic signatures.

Those that are using electronic signature solutions report faster document completion times, with 41% of agreements completed in 15 minutes or less. The average saving is around £30 per contract due to reduced costs and improved employee productivity.

The shift away from traditional paper-based processes is about gaining a competitive edge. Electronic signatures are helping businesses to:

• Close deals faster by removing the use of post and manual processes

• Increase the security around contracts

• Reduce operational costs by eliminating paper-based processes

• Enhance customer experiences with streamlined workflows

• Support remote and hybrid working environments

• Meet evolving compliance requirements with robust security features

As organisations continue their digital transformation journeys, electronic signatures have become essential in enabling faster, more secure, and more efficient agreement processes across all sectors.

What is an electronic signature?

An electronic signature offers a legally recognised way to provide your consent or approval on an online document. There are various ways to add your signature to a document electronically, including inserting a signature or clicking accept.

Discover more about how to create an electronic signature.

What are the advantages of signing documents electronically?

Electronic signatures deliver significant advantages over traditional paper-based signing, transforming how organisations handle their documents and agreements.

Here's how e-signatures are making a difference:

Time and Efficiency

• Electronic signature solutions can help you complete documents in minutes rather than days or weeks.

• An electronic signature solution can enable instant signing from any location or a mobile device.

• Using e-signatures can reduce the need to post documents, eliminating the delays from printing, posting, and manual handling.

• Using e-signatures can help you track your document status in real time. You can see which signers have completed the document or who you are still waiting to sign.

• When using e-signature, recipients receive automatic reminders and follow-ups, which saves time chasing after people.

Cost Savings

• The use of electronic signatures reduces the need to spend more on printing and postage, and reduces the amount of paper organisations need to use. In 2021, the transport and logistics company Maersk saved over 1.8 million sheets of paper by using electronic signatures

• Lower administrative overheads and cut costs for document storage.

• Adopting e-signatures helps employees save time spent managing paperwork, which can free them up to help customers or colleagues with other queries.

Enhanced Security - security benefits of electronic signatures

Several people also opt for e-signatures rather than wet signatures because of the benefits of improved security and the ability to use electronic identification and authentication.

• An electronic signature solution can help organisations implement more robust encryption and authentication of signatures in their processes. This can offer benefits over using a handwritten signature, which could be copied.

• Create detailed audit trails of all signing activities.

• Prevent document tampering and unauthorised changes. For example, if you are using DocuSign electronic signature, all changes after signing are flagged to all parties.

• Meets legal requirements and maintains compliance with data protection regulations.

Improved Accessibility

• Electronic signature solutions help support remote work and hybrid working arrangements. Employees can send documents to customers and get them signed while working remotely.

• Using e-signatures can enable multiple signers to complete documents simultaneously rather than meeting in person to sign.

• Employees and customers can usually access agreements from any internet-connected device, so they can access documents even if they work away from the office or home.

• An electronic signature solution remotely helps eliminate geographical barriers to completing agreements.

Better Customer Experience

• Using an electronic signature helps to reduce friction when completing agreements across all kinds of contracts. The process for customers is smooth, and unnecessary delays are avoided.

• Using electronic signature solutions enables quick and convenient document completion.

• Today's e-signature solutions support various document formats and types. Digital signatures, such as advanced electronic signatures and qualified electronic signatures, also enhance security and ease of identification online.

What is the purpose of the electronic signature?

Electronic signatures enable customers, employees, and others to signify their agreement to a document or contract. Organisations can streamline their operations by adopting electronic signatures while ensuring security and compliance. The technology accelerates business processes and provides a better experience for all parties involved in the signing process.

What are the benefits of an electronic signature for businesses?

This article outlines many of the benefits of using electronic signatures for small businesses and there are many benefits for large organisations too, for both customers and employees.

In summary, here are some of the benefits of using e-signatures

1. Speed: Around four in five Docusign agreements are signed within 24 hours; 44% are signed within 15 minutes. This improvement can free up employee time to work on new contracts or increase sales.

2. Cost savings: Docusign customers save an average of £30 per contract by increasing productivity and reducing print and postage costs.

3. Customer experience: It is easier to track the location of contracts and monitor the signing process, which leads to an easier signing process for customers.

4. Increased security and compliance: You can protect your documents with encryption, enhanced signer identification and compliance control.

5. Reducing paper usage

How have businesses automated contracts and agreements?

Electronic signature solutions have helped organisations automate their contracts and agreements in many sectors. Platforms like Docusign eSignature have integrations that allow users to adopt e-signatures into their usual processes. The software also has templates for different sectors and departments and streamlined approval workflows.

Benefits of electronic signature in Healthcare

The use of electronic signatures has helped automate tasks such as enabling the creation of simple patient forms, which can provide a smoother patient intake process.

Benefits of electronic signature in Finance

Using electronic signatures in finance has helped streamline regular processes like account opening and loan approvals. Digital signatures also help organisations comply with 'Know Your Customer' regulations in finance.

Benefits of Electronic Signature in Human Resources

Electronic signatures help human resources departments facilitate the hiring and onboarding process. They eliminate time-consuming tasks like printing, mailing, scanning, and filing, reducing HR staff administrative burdens.

What are the benefits of digital signatures?

Digital signatures are a specific type of electronic signature, and one of the benefits is that they offer an enhanced layer of protection when signing documents. A Qualified Electronic Signature requires face-to-face identity verification, either virtually or in person. An Advanced Electronic Signature requires individuals to provide proof of identity when they sign the document. This identification could be an electronic ID, a photo of their passport, an identity card, or a driver's license.

How can you get started with electronic signatures?