Wet ink contract signing is time-consuming, obsolete, and flawed. In a fast-paced business environment, clinging to this traditional signing method can hamper your business efficiency and productivity.
What’s the solution? You can use modern contract management tools and sign your contracts digitally. Digital signing makes collecting consent to legal agreements a lot easier, more compliant, and more secure. As per a survey conducted by EY News, 84% of organizations use eSignature tools in their contractual processes.
This blog offers detailed insights on electronic contract signing—a modern and efficient approach to accepting and executing contracts. Get detailed information on how eSignatures can accelerate your CLM processes. Let’s start.
What is eSignature in Contract Management?
An electronic signature is a digital way of signing a contract made possible through contract signing software. Digital signatures are an evolved approach to traditional ‘wet ink signing’ where contract parties have to mark their consent on paper contracts physically.
However, which of the two approaches is better: eSignature or traditional signature? Let’s find out.
| Criteria | eSignature | Traditional Signature |
| Quick Signing |  | |
| Affordable Signing | |  |
| Remote Signing Availability | | |
| Audit Trail | | |
| Multiple Signing Options | | |
| Legally-binding | | |
6 Reasons Why You Should Sign Contracts Digitally
“Why should I use digital signing instead of wet ink signing?” If this is your question, here are a few noteworthy reasons why signing contracts electronically is beneficial for your CLM process.
1. Speeds-Up Contract Signing
With physical signing, either the contracts need to be transported to different locations, or involved parties have to gather under one roof to sign the agreement. Either way, this approach delays contract signing and deal execution.
On the other hand, electronic signing accelerates time-to-sign by enabling contract parties to sign anytime, anywhere. Electronic signing helps skip through the bottlenecks like time zone differences and logistics, and accelerates the contract lifecycle management process.
2. Reduces Cost-Per-Sign
Signing a contract manually comes with a cost. Apart from printing, ink, and transportation, this cost may also include the cost of signing errors and legal fees. An incorrect signature can become a major hurdle in contractual processes.
Electronic contract signing helps bring down cost-per-sign to almost zero. First, there is no cost associated with printing, ink, or transportation. Moreover, eSignatures are pre-verified and endorsed, making them free from human errors, thus bringing down contract signing costs.
3. Enables Remote Signing
Are you planning to expand your business internationally? If so, wet-ink signing a contract with the counterparties can be tricky. The person signing the document may need to travel far distances to close the deal—hampering brand experience and delaying deal closure.
By taking the signing process online, you can enable your counterparties to sign the agreement remotely. The ability to sign contracts from across the world helps organizations expand internationally without worrying about legal hassles and paperwork.
4. Offers Detailed Audit Trails
Tracing signatures helps ensure their authenticity and enables legal teams to resolve contractual disputes. With physical signatures, it is challenging to trail the signature back to the signee without a witness.
Online contract signing software, on the other hand, offers detailed audit trails on the platform. It is possible to trace the signature back to the signee using IP addresses, identification keys, logs, certifications, and other authentication mediums. This helps ensure the validity of the electronic signature.
HyperStart’s agreement signing software solution offers detailed audit trails and activity logs to ensure transparency and accountability throughout the redlining and signing process.
5. Provides Diverse Signing Options
There are limited ways to accept a contract manually, the most common of which are hand-signature, seal, and stamp. However, there are many ways of signing documents online like:
Hand-drawing signature: This method is as simple as scribbling your signature on an electronic document.
OTP-based signing: Generate an OTP on your mobile number or email address and enter the OTP as a signature.
Clicking an ‘Accept’ or ‘Agree’ button: Sign high-stake contracts sophisticatedly through a single-click ‘agree’ or ‘accept’ button.
Digital signature files/symbols: Add your signature’s digital copy (image file) to the document as a token of acceptance.
Adding the signee’s name to the document: Sign contracts by simply typing in your name—which is attached to your IP address.
6. Ensures Global Legal Validity
Different countries have different laws and regulations on what is considered an accepted contract. Moreover, traditional signatures may not be ample for a contract to be legally binding.
Electronically signed documents, on the other hand, are legally recognized in global jurisdictions. eSignature laws like eIDAS (electronic IDentification Authentication and trust Services) for EU countries and UETA (Uniform Electronic Transactions Act) of the USA give eSignatures legal validity and value—ensuring electronically signed documents are valid.
Don’t Let Signing Delay Deal Closures
Collaborate with counterparties and get to a yes faster with HyperStart’s digital contract signing solution.
Who Uses Electronic Signatures?
Different business teams use contracts differently in an organization. As a result, how agreements are signed varies from one business team to the other. Here are a few examples:
Sales: Sales representatives use eSignatures for NDAs, MSAs, SLAs, proposals, and other documents. Digitally signing agreements helps close deals faster.
Legal: Using eSignatures helps legal staff accelerate contract TAT and handle large volumes of legal paperwork on the go.
HR: Employment contracts, offer letters, onboarding forms, employee NDAs, etc., can be automatically generated and signed electronically—giving the HR team more bandwidth.
Finance: Digital signing helps accelerate financial approval in CLM processes. Moreover, financial documents like invoices, purchase orders, and expense reports can be signed digitally.
Procurement: Procurement teams can use eSignatures to manage vendor agreements. It helps boost vendor contract finalization and streamline procurement operations.
Top 3 Electronic Contract Signature Software
You can either choose an eSignature tool and integrate it with your contract management software, or select a CLM solution that offers eSignature functionality. To help you cut down the chase of finding an eSign service vendor, here we have listed 3 of the best digital signing solutions.
| Criteria | HyperStart | Ironclad | SpotDraft |
| Pricing | $ | $$$ | $$ |
| Learning curve | Simple & Intuitive | Steep | Simple |
| Savings Per Contract | $20 | – | $20 |
| Bulk Actions |  | | |
HyperStart stands out as a competitive option for electronic contract signing. With a well-trained AI model and a complete set of CLM functionalities, this tool is excellent for signing contracts and other legal documents.
Create, Agree, and Find Contracts 80% Faster
HyperStart is your one-stop contract administration platform. Autopilot contracts with AI and skips CLM bottlenecks.
Features of HyperStart’s Digital Contract Signing Solution
1. Multiple Signing Options
Sign contracts through DocuSign, Adobe Sign, Dropbox Sign, OTP, Aadhar, and other legally binding eignature methods.
Add stamps to your agreements that comply with governing laws and jurisdictions.
2. No-Code eSignature Workflows
Integrate signature steps in your contract approval workflows.
Determine signature processes and set custom conditions for ad-hoc, sequential, or parallel signing.
3. Sign Reminders
Get real-time status of contracts due for signatures.
Send reminders to signatories for pending signatures for faster acceptance.
4. Auto-Sign Bulk Contracts
Bulk-sign pre-approved contract templates for accelerated CLM processes.
Set multiple internal and external signatories for agreements.
5. Detailed Audit Trails
Access detailed audit trails and track changes across contract versions.
Use activity logs to pinpoint revisions and key events.
Execute Contracts in 2 Clicks With HyperStart
Leverage native signature methods and integrations using HyperStart’s fully compliant signature options.
4-Step Process of Signing Contracts Using HyperStart
1. Prepare Your Agreement
The first step is to prepare your electronic documents—drafting the agreement and getting it reviewed by the relevant parties. You can create contracts using pre-approved templates, clause libraries, or even draft one from scratch.
Once drafted, the agreement is set up for approval using HyperStart’s contract workflow automation software. Here, the relevant parties review, redline, negotiate, and finalize the agreement.
2. Select Signatories From the Workflow
Once negotiated, set signatories for your contract’s approval workflow. You can set as many signatories as you want to and even create signature steps such as:
Ad hoc signature: Pseudo-signatures can be used for routine approvals or internal documents. This helps avoid delays due to the signatory’s unavailability.
Parallel signature: There is no fixed order for signing the contract. Any signatory can sign the contract at any time.
Sequential signature: Signatures are collected in a pre-defined order. The next signatory cannot sign the contract until the preceding signatory has agreed to the contract.
3. Send Contracts for Signing
Once you have created the signature workflow, you can send the contract to your counterparties for signing. The internal parties can sign the contract directly using HyperStart. For external parties not using HyperStart, you request signatures via email.
4. Remind Signatories of Due Signatures
You can get the real-time signature status of the signatories and identify bottlenecks in the signing process. Send reminders to the signatories in case they have not signed the contract already to accelerate the contract acceptance process.
Follow this simple process and your contracts are signed within a few clicks. HyperStart focuses on providing a sleek and effortless signing experience—elevating your overall CLM efficiency in the process.
Collect Legally-Binding Signatures Digitally with HyperStart
Electronic signing is a new and efficient way to agree to contracts. This approach surpasses the limitations of wet-ink signing and helps streamline CLM processes. If you are looking for a reliable, secure, and automated solution to consent to contracts electronically, choose HyperStart.
Owing to its integrations with DocuSign, Adobe Sign, Dropbox Sign, OTP, Aadhar, and other legally binding eSignature methods, HyperStart helps collect signatures effortlessly. HyperStart offers unique contract eSigning functionalities that foster efficiency, speed, and compliance in contract management. Book a demo today to learn more.
