What You Need to Know About e-Signatures
In today’s world, everything is digital – including signatures. Signatures are legally-binding agreements to the contents of the document, and an integral part of doing business. Electronic signatures, or e-signatures, allow this to happen digitally, but is it safe? Is it legal? The answer is yes.
Legally-Binding
Just as a wet signature is legally binding, so is an e-signature. The US passed the E-Sign Act in 2000, ensuring the legality of signing documents in this way. Many other countries also recognize digital signatures as legal.
Safe and Secure
Digital signatures can be as simple as a signature scanned, or cut and pasted, into a document, but these options aren’t the most secure. They’re sufficient for internal documents, but won’t withstand regulatory compliance audits.
However, digital signature services take signatures a step further. By using encryption, audit trails, and other tools, they authenticate the signature, making it even more secure than a traditional signature. These services are typically accepted by compliance auditors.
Other Benefits
The biggest benefit of e-signatures is their convenience. Documents can be signed and automatically returned, without the lag time of printing, mailing, faxing, or scanning. This helps keep the workflow moving. It also reduces errors, altering the signee to all the areas that need to be signed prior to the document being returned. With e-signing, you can sign documents wherever you are, on any device, for the ultimate convenience.
Digital signatures are also environmentally-friendly by reducing paper waste. By eliminating the need for a hard copy just to capture a signature, you can reduce your printing significantly – along with your carbon footprint and your print budget.
In today’s digital world, it seems out of place to have to print, mail or fax documents just to get a signature. Electronic signatures, also known as e-signatures or digital signatures, are the solution. This simple way of signing is both safe and legally-binding, streamlining the document-signing process.
