e signature in word

Companies generate a lot of paperwork! Too much of it reduces your business efficiency, slows down data collection, storage, and retrieval, increases chances of errors, & has security issues. As more and more businesses automate their processes, the need to evolve from a handwritten signature to an electronic signature becomes increasingly crucial, fuelled by customers’ digital presence, demanding the availability of services from anytime, anywhere.

Handwritten signatures are swiftly getting replaced by electronic signatures worldwide due to their ease of use, quick return on investment, time saved on manual processing, speed, security, and verification by governments, banks, and regulatory authorities.

You can see the sharp surge in popularity for electronic signatures compared to handwritten signatures as per the latest trending data from Google.

Source: Google Trends

So, what makes electronic signatures better than handwritten signatures? Let’s find it out.

Supports Work from Home:

From public transport struggles to global health concerns, sometimes things get in the way of getting to the office and forcing you to remain at home.

How to make sure that your contracts and agreements do not get affected if you work from home?

Now, we live in an era when companies have made work from home compulsory. We look at some of the different ways that electronic signatures help keep your company going forward, no matter where you are or what department you work in.

- Close deals much faster as you don’t have to rush to the client physically for esigning the document

- Helps in employee hiring by automating & accelerating the employee agreement process

- Improves governance by centralizing the storage & management of all signed versions of the documents.

How to use electronic signatures while working from home?

You only need to install the esignature app on your device, connect with other parties to use the same. You would be able to create new documents online by uploading or using readymade templates. After that, you add email ids of signees needed for esigning the document by drawing, uploading, or typing the signature. Finally, you can send the document securely to clients, colleagues and speed up business processes without being present in offices.

Money and Time Savings:

Do you know that an organization spends 15% of its revenue creating, managing & distributing paper files for documentation?

Going paperless and adopting e signatures in a business helps you in so many ways. It restricts resources, workforce, and hardware equipment needed for procuring, printing, scanning, and mailing signed documents. The frees up time, allowing you to focus on essential tasks, saves processing time, and increases business response time, encouraging more cash flow in the industry.

Digital processes help fast-track business transformation by automating document flow, minimizes repetitive tasks to replace the time-consuming processes involved in manual capturing of data, re-entering data on machines, scanning, and storing it. It helps your team serve the customers more efficiently and create memorable experiences for them.

Electronic signatures need fewer resources like ink, paper, and postage resources. They support instant digitization of the business approval process. You don’t need to be in the office to prepare and esign a document. All necessary documents are ready online and forwarded to other signees in the online network. Electronic signatures apps empower you to access and esign a document using tablets, smart phones & laptops. So, you save a lot of time spent getting the document signed and sharing it with respective stakeholders without delay.

Enhanced Security:

A handwritten signature can’t assure you that the original document is signed by a genuine person as fraudsters quickly forge the signatures. Also, it is difficult to identify and authenticate the original signature from the fake ones.

On the contrary, electronic signatures only allow relevant invited parties to esign a document. If an online form needs esignature from other signees, the signer adds the signees’ email ids to access and esign the record on an esignature app.

Here are the details of the secure process of sending a document for esignature with the LunarPen app

• Receive an email notification to sign a document on the esignature app
• Go to the email and view the document shared for esigning
• Verify the identity of the signee before esigning a document
• Please review the document before signing it
• Draw, write, or upload the signature
• eSign the document securely

Electronic Record:

It is not easy to track changes in the document with a handwritten signature.

eSignatures comes with an audit trail feature to track every change in the document and capture details of when the document is opened, changed, viewed, and signed by a verified user. Audit trails maintain system activity and user activity records. It assists in detecting performance problems, flaws in applications, and security violations.

LunarPen audit trail helps you with all the tools to access, edit, send and sign the documents securely using the industry standard 256 bit HTTPS encryption. You can track all the details of the document right from

• The time on which a user created the document
• When the signee receives the document
• When the signee consents to esign the document
• When other stakeholders receive esigned document

Saves Environment

Around 40% of the world’s harvested trees produce papers. Even though the paper is recyclable, an A4 size paper requires 10 liters of water per sheet and emits methane, a greenhouse gas on rotting. Industry research firm Gartner estimates that as much as 3% of a company’s revenue is spent on paper, printing, copying, scanning, storing, transporting, and maintaining information files. Now you can realize the hidden costs of doing a handwritten signature.

Using an esignature for official work ensures:

• No chopping down of trees for paper production
• No paper wastage due to electronic transfer of data
• Protects natural habitat of animals and earth’s natural biodiversity
• Minimal usage of natural resources like water for paper production
• Reduction in carbon footprint as esigned data is accessible from anywhere
• Reduces electronic waste as you don’t have to buy printing machines

Indestructible Documents

Documents with handwritten signatures are prone to destruction due to mishandling, workplace accidents and can be easily lost, damaged, or forged. This forces the company and its workforce to leave the current prioritized task, trace the document, start every related business process from scratch, and waste valuable business hours.

Electronic signatures give a massive advantage to your business:

• It is difficult to destroy documents in electronic format
• Secure cloud servers ensure data is never misplaced
• eSigned information is challenging to tamper and duplicate

Conclusion

There are many crucial business processes requiring signatures, such as the approval of contracts, invoices, and employee evaluation forms. Handwritten signatures slow down these processes as they are dependent on the exchange of paper and the signatory’s presence. Now you can see why electronic signatures fit better in modern business practices than handwritten signatures. They flawlessly integrate into an organization’s business processes and don’t depend on geographical boundaries and a person’s physical availability. They complement businesses in need of digital transformation, speed, safety, and security. Use the LunarPen to Fastrack and turnaround day-to-day business processes in a single click.