10 Things You Need to Know Before Using Electronic Signature

Are you planning to use an electronic signature for authenticating documents or is your client seeking digital signatures for the agreement shared by them? Either be the case, it is important that you are a few things pertinent with digital signatures before you integrate them within your line of business operations.

What is an Electronic Signature?

Ok, let us first see the traditional way of signing documents.

Suppose that you are a financial advisor and before engaging with any business, you have a list of protocols that you put forward for the company. It is expected that they agree to the above in order to seek your services. So, as a traditional process, you get the documents printed, signed by you, and then sent via post to the client.

It takes 2-3 days for the document to reach the client’s address. He would then refer to the details and if acceptable, sign the same and revert back with the approval.

Now imagine all of this happening within a couple of hours? Yes, that’s exactly what electronic signatures do. They are the digital counterpart of manual signatures and are more secure.

Fascinating right?

It does but that’s not it. Here are a few more things that you should know before using digital signatures. You can visit here to view more about CocoSign.

10 Things to Know About Digital Signatures

1. The first thing to know is whether these signatures are real or just an image or the signature? While a few debates about electronic signatures to be the image copying the intent to sign, in reality, they are actual signatures signed electronically by the company or the customer. There are multiple companies that offer such software facilitating digital signatures such as CocoSign Online.

2. Would you need a digital certificate to keep the signatures secured? Yes, you would. No matter how efficient or secured your network is, a digital certificate is a must. The fact that most of the software uses the digital image of the signature, a digital certificate enables them to validate the authenticity of the image as placed on a document.

3. Do you need to pay for the certificate? Apparently yes. There aren’t any third-party certificates that offer lifetime activity. You would always need to reactivate your digital certificate to deem them enforceable.

4. Are digital signatures secured? Apparently yes. Apart from the fact that they eliminate the need for paperwork, these signatures are authorized and cannot be lost under any circumstances.

5. Can such signatures tamper? Stating that they won’t get tampered would be wrong. However, there are certain measures that can be undertaken to keep yourself updated whenever such a thing happens.

6. Digital software that allows you to sign without logging in or directly from the email isn’t legit and it is important that you do not trust them. Always be careful when signing a document. Double-check the mode or the software to be on the safer side.

7. Digital signatures aren’t only for the legal sector. It is a common misconception that it is only the legal industry that would benefit from such signatures. In fact, every industry requires agreement approval from the customers and so digital signatures are applicable everywhere.

8. A major advantage of using electronic signatures is that they eliminate the need for paperwork. Traditional methods require you to create a paper trail to track and monitor the process. With digital signatures, everything would be accessible online. This reduces the time and effort spent on getting a document signed or approved.

9. Not every company or client would happily work via digital signatures. So you must first recheck with the company or your client to know whether or not they accept such a form of approval.

10. There are multiple vendors that offer software for uploading documents and sharing them for electronic signatures. What you choose is your decision. Where some would give you the scanned images others would mandate an audit trail. Go through the different vendors, check the services, and then sign up for the one that meets your requirements best.

Conclusion

Cocosign is one of the leading vendors that provide digital signatures. You can consider them when looking for reliable and trustworthy digital signature software.

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