Contractually

Although new to the digital signature scene, Contractually boasts several impressive features to speed up the negotiation process. You can use their lawyer-reviewed forms, add one of your own, and even customize your forms with their online contract editor, which notifies all parties of any changes made to their contracts, as well as the differences between different versions.

Contractually also goes some way to eliminating confusing emails and other communications around negotiations with built-in questions, requests, and replies that are kept with the contract and that are visible to all participants. Plus, all messages, attachments and change histories are stored with contracts for future reference.

ContractPal

ContractPal calls itself an “electronic signatures cloud” and offers several features to help reduce certain hassles of contract negotiation, like incomplete documents, which are reduced through what it calls a “reflexive questioning engine.”

ContractPal also automatically routes forms and agreements based on content and parameters you set so that you’re not waiting on approvals or revisions. Plus, it can even accept payments.

GoPaperless

GoPaperless is another solution that provides simple digital signing of documents. Not quite as feature-rich as Contractually or ContractPal, it’s an easy-to-use alternative that offers basic “click to sign” functionality with security through layered encryption, password-protected signing sessions and session activity tracking.

It also provides the ability to export to a variety of formats, as well as have multi-party contracts with a controlled sequence of signers.

DocuSign

Another simple and straightforward solution, DocuSign’s basic-level service collects electronic signatures, authenticates recipients and tracks all activity for a document and is available online and through mobile devices, like the iPhone and iPad.

It offers several additional features with its more advanced editions, including collaboration, document routing, and user and group management.

Adobe eSignatures

Adobe eSignatures has been around for a while and was reviewed by Charlie just last year.  It offers perhaps the most basic of e-signing solutions and is free to use. Just upload your document, enter the email address of your recipient, select a due date, and sign the document yourself, unless you opt to sign after all other signatures have been collected.

RightSignature

RightSignature might tout the fastest process for sending electronic documents for signature with its “one-minute send,” but it also offers more elaborate features than services like Adobe eSignatures, such as handwritten signatures, webcam photo authentication, digital fingerprints and iPhone mobile signing.  It also offers a unique “NaviGuide” flag to point signers to the next required field, as well as a checklist and progress meter to show users what needs to be done to complete the process.

EchoSign

EchoSign works in more of an email-like interface and allows you to control how your documents are signed, whether by e-signature or fax. Its “MegaSign” feature is helpful for documents that require acknowledgement from large groups of people, at the end of which a complete activity report is generated showing who has and hasn’t signed the document. This is helpful for things like policy changes and other situations where you need all employees to sign off on something.

What applications do you use for negotiating contracts and getting them signed online?

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Just provide your name and an email address, and you’re ready to go. If you wish, you can upload an image of your signature, or the system will add a generic one for you.

When you need to have a PDF document signed, you can upload it, enter the email addresses of the recipients, add a short cover message, and select a due date. eSignatures will send a reminder when the due date is approaching.

The other parties can review the document online and add their signatures. You can sign first, or after everyone else has signed. A copy will then be ready for download for up to six months.

Documents signed using Adobe eSignatures are certified that they have not been changed after being signed. Adobe Reader and Acrobat will detect changes and the certification will disappear.

Adobe says that eSignatures complies with both the ESign Act of 2000 and the Uniform Electronic Transactions Act (UETA), making its electronic signatures legally valid in the U.S., although there are other factors to take into consideration when choosing whether to sign documents electronically.

Although Adobe eSignatures is in beta, it seems to be well designed and stable. eSignatures will be joining several other cloud-based electronic signature services (for more on the cloud, check out our Structure conference in June), but its simplicity, and Adobe’s marketing power, will make it a formidable competitor.

How do you sign documents?

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Contract Templates and Wizards

The hardest part in getting contracts in place is the drafting of the agreement itself. Unless you already have a lawyer who has created your documents for you, finding the best template can take a lot of time and effort. No matter how good a contract template is, it’s rare to find one that perfectly suits your situation. The good news is that there are some useful resources that can do this for you at the fraction of a cost of hiring a lawyer. Do-it-yourself solutions such as FastDue and RocketLawyer are good places to start, and we’ve covered both of these in the past.

RocketLawyer has a collection of business legal forms ranging from consulting agreements to articles of incorporation. You fill out a simple questionnaire and a document is customized based on your answers. Other features include e-signature and the ability to collaborate on documents. Google Docs users can also use free RocketLawyer templates, but you’ll have to customize them yourself. If you want to know more about RocketLawyer, start by reading Imran’s review.

FastDue also provides templates for contracts and agreements, although not as many as RocketLawyer. One advantage, though, is the variety of forms on offer, including past due notices, invoices, expense reports, and receipts. The forms also include interactive messaging, allowing your clients and colleagues to make comments directly on the document itself.  The free service offered is enough for a freelance contractor, but you can sign up for the premium service if you want something more robust.  Thursday covered FastDue’s services in a previous article if you want to learn more.

Sending and Signing

Once you have your contract ready, it’s just a matter of sending it and having it signed. Some contract creation wizards offer free e-signature functionality as part of the service, but there are plenty of other e-signature apps. Here are some of them:

• EchoSign. There are two ways to sign a document via EchoSign. Users can simply type in their initials or, if they prefer an “old school” analog approach, they can print the document, sign it and fax it in. EchoSign can also integrate with Google Docs and Zoho Writer.
• DocuSign. Just like EchoSign, DocuSign is a web based e-signature service. Additional features include CRM integration the ability to embed your signable documents within your web site. It also offers mobile signing if you want to use your cell phone or BlackBerry.
• E-lock. E-lock has signature solutions for both the web and your desktop. The desktop application integrates with MS Excel, MS Word, and Adobe Acrobat.

For colleagues and clients who prefer a written signature rather than a digital one, you could send your contracts via online faxing solutions such as MyFax and eFax. To make the process easier, I just pull up one of my scanned signatures on file and paste it into the document. Then, I export the entire contract as a PDF and send it off as an e-fax, avoiding any printing on my end.

There are a couple of disadvantages to e-signing, however. Some people might not read their contracts thoroughly. To prevent this you should attach a note emphasizing the importance of reading the entire document or even discuss it on the phone paragraph by paragraph, if needed. Also, you need to make sure that e-signatures are legally valid in the states and countries where each signatory resides.

With all these available tools, we no longer have an excuse to take contracts for granted. Getting the right document and the necessary signatures is only a few clicks away.

How do you manage your contracts and other legal documents? What tools do you use?

Photo by stock.xchng user wagg66

Digital Signatures: The Facts

A digitally signed contract is just as legitimate as one signed by hand in most countries. There is plenty of precedent dating from the time when people were first signing and returning contracts by fax. If you ever need to, you can take someone to court to enforce a contract signed electronically. However, policies on accepting digital signatures can vary from company to company. Where one company will be perfectly comfortable accepting all your paperwork by email, another may want you to fax or mail in signed documents. We’re moving towards being able to do business without hard copies of our documents, but we’re not quite there.

The Strength of a Signature

There are several different ways that you can sign a document electronically. The big difference is in how the signature is verified:

• Your computer: Some software timestamps your signature and records the computer you used.
• Your IP address: Especially common with online services, your signature is recorded along with your IP address
• Public Key Infrastructure: Your signature is verified with a certificate issued by a trusted third party.

There’s a trade-off between the options: It’s harder to verify the first two options than PKI, but it can be difficult for an individual to get the required certificate for PKI. There are some online applications that use their own certificates in order to verify your signature, such as RightSignature. In comparison, Adobe Acrobat Professional allows you to create a digital signature that is verified based on the computer used. It can also use a certificate, but if you do not provide it with one, Adobe Acrobat will rely on your computer for verification.

Choosing a Signature Solution

Assuming that your employer or client doesn’t have an online application or a software package that they’d prefer you to use for your digital signatures, you’ll have to decide which option works best for you. It’s hard to find an option that is free as well as trustworthy. As long as you’re willing to spend a little bit of money, though, you can manage your contracts inexpensively. Personally, since I already have Adobe Acrobat on my computer, I rely on it, although I do not have a certificate to use with the software. While this is considered to be a less secure system than PKI, I haven’t had any problems with any document I’ve signed (even my 1099s). The downside is that Adobe Acrobat does not manage the entire signature process in the way that many online applications can — some will even send out emails reminding people to sign contracts.

What app do you use for digital signatures?

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