Electronic signatures have got acceptance at the international level because most countries have developed laws that address this technology on a large scale. The advanced electronic signatures with the legal authority have allowed businesses to use for electronic documents and contracts that have freed the businesses to work where they want to. This idea is more successful in developed countries where almost all the businesses have built on technology-based solutions to make the processing easily.
Many businesses have indeed got success only due to the involvement of technology in their business operations. When you extend our research regarding technology, another truth is that the advantages of linking technology with electronic signature are even greater for completing the contract lifecycle management.
Integrated electronic signature contract and contract management systems can have numerous types of benefits, but overall, there are three major categories of benefits, which are:
- You can complete the signature process faster.
- You can increase the transparency level in your organization.
- Businesses can improve data integrity and compliance.
Let us discuss too many benefits in detail now!
You can complete the signature process faster
While using an electronic signature online form, it is obvious that you will save time when you compare it with a physical signature. The reason is that transmission of hard-copies of the contracts is difficult. It becomes more difficult to handle when one of the parties shows concerns over some specific clauses, terms, or conditions. In this way, a new contract has been prepared, printed, and moved once again. On the other hand, when you use an electronic signature, you only need to place it on the cloud database, the concerned parties access it, give recommendations online if they have concerns, you include the changes in the document, online, send it back through the same channel, the parties sign electronically, and send it back. This small procedure can be completed in just a few minutes and the contract is considered legally binding and enforceable.
You can increase the transparency level in your organization
An electronic audit trail provides you an opportunity to make the whole process of signing contracts transparent and authentic. While using one of the most advanced contract management systems, if you include an audit trail, all the processes have been recorded to make sure that all the parties are involved in the processing and know when and how a specific person has signed. Through the audit trail, we know the persons, who are reviewing the contract, what they are commenting on the contract, which suggestions have been accepted or rejected, and from where they are doing all these activities. In this way, everyone’s response has been recorded to make sure that all are aware of the processing of the contract and its impact in the future.
Businesses can improve data integrity and compliance
To keep an eye on day-to-day processing of the approval process, the businesses develop an automated workflow through an electronic signature. Through this process, the businesses can control all the business areas tightly to make sure that all the processes are monitored and managed properly. Normally, businesses use a dedicated workflow engine for these processes. These workflow engines have a mandate to help the businesses meet all internal and external requirements, which are necessary to achieve compliance and data integrity. Through this workflow, they can also track every stage of service level agreement between the parties. When you include an electronic signature in this workflow, it keeps all the stakeholders engaged in throughout the contract approval process. In this way, you can upload all other relevant documents as well to inform about everything related to the contract and its requirements.
Wrap-Up
Although the electronic signature is only a small part of a long process, we can see that it is the most important one as well that crystalizes the workflow and approves the commitment of all concerned parties and stakeholders. This technology also helps the businesses capture crucial ancillary information with the commitment that all stakeholders give through signing the document digitally. However, to achieve the maximum, businesses need to use this advanced technology with a combination of other tools and software. When we will develop this combination in our organization, we will save time in contract negotiations, shorten the time that we need for signing the contract, and seamlessly create a contract record that will have every information, which we may need at different levels of processing according to the contract requirements.
