Have Documents Signed In The Cloud

The cloud is responsible for emptying many a server room. Now it’s time to start emptying those file cabinets and the mailing room as well. Next to go is the decidedly old fashioned process of putting pen to paper to sign official documents. No need anymore, now that electronic signature has arrived.

What makes this all possible is a change in the law that establishes the validity of electronic signatures in the US under the ESIGN and UETA laws. Similar laws have been passed in other countries as well. If you haven’t heard of this, do a little research and satisfy yourself that you can switch to electronic signatures on your important documents and have them just as valid as ink on paper.

Electronic signatures free businesses from the time and expense of copying paper documents, sending them through the mail to be signed, and then waiting for the completed documents to be returned and placed in the files. Even FAXed documents have costs and time lags involved. That assumes that the party you want to sign has access to a fax machine. No? It’s a long trek down to the office supply or shipping store to use their fax machine.

All of this activity is now sped up, if not to the speed of light then at least to the speed of the Internet. Don’t bother trying to write your own documents on a word processor and then email them to the person in question. Standard email and its typed signature files aren’t worth much of anything other than easy communication. What you need is a controlled process that meets the requirements of the electronic signature laws but is still painless for both you and your clients.

Such a service is RightSignature. This is a cloud-based service that creates secure, legally binding agreements through an electronic signature process you can use from any Internet connected computer or even a smartphone. Here’s how it works. First you create your document as a Microsoft Word file, PDF, Google Doc or web applications such as FreshBooks. You upload this to your RightSignature account. Then enter the name and email of each signer on the document plus any CC’s that you want to include. Describe the subject of the document, add a message if you wish, and click to send.

Whoosh! Your signers are automatically notified by email that you’ve send them a document to sign. They sign online using their computer mouse or gestures on an iPhone to create a handwritten signature that looks like it was made with a pen. Note that this all takes place online in the secure RightSignature website. When complete, all signers and cc’s get a copy of the document as a PDF email attachment. The document includes a signature certificate which contains the signer information, audit log and unique identification number. The document signed online is stored in a secure archive so you can retrieve it at any time. No more worries about misfiled documents or damage from fires or floods.

In this age of the Internet and the cloud, doesn’t it make sense to gain the productivity advantages of electronic signatures? If that sounds right to you and your business generates documents that need legally valid signatures, then take a 5 document free trial of RightSignature now. See if you can really face going back to the old days of pen and paper once you’ve tried the new electronic way.

The Green Way To Get Documents Signed

We’re drowning in a sea of business paper. All that talk about computers creating the paperless office was 180 degrees out of phase with what really happened. As soon as there were high speed printers, business users started printing at high speed. This went on for decades, culminating in the rise of the professional business document shredder. They come by your office with a van full of high power slicing and dicing equipment and shovel the paper in like tree branches going into a chipper shredder. Is there any way to break this costly cycle of buying more paper so you can print more documents and then shred them to make more paper? There is, and you can thank your lucky cloud for it.


It’s cloud services that are finally starting to break the paper cycle. Clouds are nebulous things, so to speak. There is no hardware for you to deal with. You just access those clouds from your iPad, smartphone, desktop or notebook computer and accomplish what you had in mind. While on the go, you probably aren’t anywhere near a printer anyway. That means the business processes you use to get your job done have to be designed to work without paper.

This puts us in the interesting dilemma of half the people being fully interconnected online with the rest in a limbo state of half-online and half-offline. Many businesses and organizations still need those offline products like signed paper documents to copy, mail and file. Are you really going to trust email messages for your non-disclosure agreements, W9 tax forms, purchase orders or employment agreements? If it needs to pass a legal sniff test, a tweet, text message or an email just won’t do.

Fortunately, all is not lost. You may not be able to use casual online communication methods to support legally binding documents, but there is an electronic technology that does just that. Just in time, too, because business, government, health care and other serious endeavors are about to go paperless in a big way. The process is called electronic signature.

Electronic signature isn’t brand new. It’s just coming into the limelight with a recent stampede toward mobile computing and productivity oriented cost reductions. It supersedes makeshift solutions such as faxing (still paper intensive) and scanning paper documents so you can email them and have them printed off again at the far end. Electronic signature is a purely electronic system that doesn’t assume there is any actual paperwork to begin with.

RightSignature is a company in the forefront of this technology. What they’ve created is a way for e-signatures to replicate pen-and-paper signing when using a mouse and browser. The electronic documents then include handwritten biometric signatures that are legally binding. They are compliant with the E-Sign Act, UETA Act and European Directive that all establish the validity and legality of electronic signatures worldwide.

Getting a document signed is as simple as uploading a PDF or Word File to the RightSignature system, entering the required signers’ names and emails, and clicking send. RightSignature then contacts the signers by email to tell them how to access the online documents and sign them. When complete, all parties are notified and get electronic copies of the signed documents, plus a copy is archived.

It’s very similar to what you accomplish now, but without the flurry of copying, the cost of overnight mail, nor the interminable wait for physical documents to be delivered, signed and sent back. It’s estimated that the cost of processing a signed document can drop by more than an order of magnitude using the electronic signature process.

Would you like to give it a try? If you are a business or organization that needs to send out documents for signature, you can have a 5 document free trial right now. No credit card is required. Only buy the service if you like the way it works. Get your RightSignature Electronic Signature Free Trial started and see if you really want to go back to drowning in all that paper.