Electronic Signature Providers
Electronic signatures provide incredible benefits for businesses in a wide variety of industries. They allow companies to collect legally binding signatures digitally and provide a smoother experience for everyone involved. With electronic signatures becoming more prominent, knowing who the best electronic signature providers are is essential.
Value of Electronic Signatures
Cost
Electronic signatures dramatically decrease the costs associated with signature collection. This includes the cost of mailing documents back and forth and the cost of having customers physically come in just to sign a document. Additionally, companies do not have to spend money having team members sort through documents physically to ensure all the signatures are in order.
Legally Binding
Electronic signatures can have legal effect when the applicable requirements are met. In the US, 15 U.S.C. § 7001 addresses electronic records and signatures within its scope; it is not a universal rule for every agreement or jurisdiction.
Time-Saving
This is one of the most essential components of electronic signatures, as both companies and customers can save so much time digitally signing documents. Additionally, companies can allow customers to sign on mobile devices, providing them with a convenient method of signing important documents. Useful features such as signature tracking make it much easier to track and complete documents that need signatures from several parties.
Security
Companies can provide numerous layers of security to ensure that only the necessary parties can access documents and sign them. This can take the form of PDF encryption or password-secured documents. Other features, such as multi-factor authentication, can provide even more security. 1
Electronic Signature Tips
Identity Verification
While electronic signatures can be legally binding, companies must go the extra mile to verify the identity of the customer signing an agreement. This is especially important for documents that contain secure information that can cause significant damage if in the hands of fraudsters.
Companies can provide much better identity verification by including features such as government ID verification and KYB or KYC. Additionally, identity verification goes a long way in ensuring customers that you are committed to security.
Encryption
Unsurprisingly, encryption is an essential component of good electronic signatures. It ensures that only the necessary parties have access to the document, and without encryption, it would be straightforward for these critical documents to be compromised.
Legal Compliance
Electronic signatures must meet various requirements to be legally binding. Failure to meet these requirements can lead to legal consequences and diminish customers' trust in a company. Therefore, it is essential that companies remain up to date on all the laws that impact electronic signatures.
Secure Records
Companies can keep records of the electronic signature process, which makes it much easier to conduct audits if needed. Companies can also go back and easily see that the necessary parties have signed the document. This requires secure storage that is constantly updated with new security measures, and data is backed up to prevent loss of information.
Electronic Signature Providers
DocuSign
DocuSign's plans range from personal to larger commercial. As is standard with most electronic signature providers, users pay more per month to access more features. For example, their Business Pro plan includes features such as SMS authentication to add an additional layer of security.
DocuSign is centered around a collaborative workflow that makes it easy to use and understand and allows users to sign documents electronically. Unfortunately, registering for Docusign can be difficult for some companies. Additionally, DocuSign does not include other features essential to onboarding customers for financial services, such as risk assessments or additional identity verification.
FormStack
FormStack is another popular electronic signature provider with many valuable features. It is very integration-friendly, making it more adaptable and functional for companies. FormStack also provides other useful features, such as form building, which allows companies to complete the onboarding process more efficiently. Their forms are also compliant with important industry standards, such as PCI compliance, and allow companies to collect information securely.
Formstack is one of the pricier options on the market, and these plans come with limits on the number of forms a company can process in a month. This can add an additional layer of friction for companies that need to process a large amount of forms every month. While being integration-friendly, Formstack is not an end-to-end onboarding system with features such as KYC or KYB.
signNow
With signNow, users are able to connect with other services, such as Google Drive and OneDrive, to streamline document storage. Some of signNow's more expensive plans come with CRM integration and meet compliance requirements such as HIPAA. It is also easy for companies to set up their documents and set the correct fields for customers to fill out.
While it provides many valuable features, signNow lacks more formatting options that could be useful for some companies. Additionally, signNow does not include additional features to control access to documents, such as SMS authentication. Customers are also not provided with a confirmation record with all the information from their electronic signature.
Connect signatures to onboarding records
A signing event should identify the document, recipient evidence and application version. It does not establish that identity, ownership or processing risk has been reviewed. Keep signing and underwriting states separate.
Under’s former application platform is discontinued. The provider examples above remain useful to evaluate signing functions; verify features and terms using current primary documentation rather than a historical comparison.