Technology provides numerous advantages and conveniences relating to working from home. E-signatures are one of these advancements as most documentation requires sign-off from relevant positions throughout different protocols and processes. Here are some ways that e-signatures improve your working-from-home experience.
1. Efficient Signing Processes
E signatures help the working process from home be more efficient because they eliminate processes you otherwise must implement when signing hard copy. For example, with e-signatures, you do not need to scan the paper to send the document. The e-signature means you can automatically send the document without printing and scanning it, making the process more efficient.
If you need to sign documents online and don’t have a printer or scanner at home, you must leave your home to access the gadgets necessary to physically sign papers. In some cases, you may decide to work from where you are to have access to the gadgets. This means you don’t get to enjoy the full experience of working from home.
2. Safekeeping of Documents
Depending on your work set up at home, you might lose certain documents after signing, or you may risk having these tampered with. For example, if you have small children at home, they may find access to your documents and decide to scribble on them, spoiling the documents on your desk. This means you must go through the printing, signing, and scanning all over again. In contrast, with e-signatures, you don’t deal with any physical copies, eliminating the possibility of spoiled documents.
Another scenario is that you may misplace your documents, having already signed them with the intent of handing them over to the relevant recipient. Again, the process must then repeat in comparison to the immediate sending over of documents signed online.
3. Heightened Signature Security
E-signatures provide security, meaning you protect yourself and work more effectively. Some ways that e-signatures provide security include backed-up information of the signatory if the signature requiring verification on the receiving end. Information may include time, day, and location of signature, making tracking possible if required.
The technology behind e-signatures also determines if the signature was modified and then alerts the signatory. Online users may try to modify your signature if there’s a financial benefit, making such alerts important so relevant action swiftly implements.
Should there be any suspicious activity regarding tampering of your signature, you are able to confirm whether you signed or not. This is a dynamic that is difficult when it comes to physical signatures.
4. Time Efficiency
If you need to sign multiple documents, e-signatures are time efficient because you can sign the pages by dragging and dropping your already formatted signature. This is different from having to manually page through documents and sign every single one. It also eliminates the possibility of providing different signatures or slight changes in handwriting, which may cause validity issues. Once there are validity issues, you must start the process after receiving the documents. E-signatures, on the other hand, mean all signatures on each document are uniform as it is a matter of copying and pasting.
5. Track Workflow
The systems surrounding e-signatures are such that you can track your documents. Depending on the settings, you can track where your documents are at each process. This is whether they have been received or whether the document bounced. On the other hand, physical signatures often mean placing them in a folder and not having any control over whether the document is received or filed on record.
6. Environmental Contribution
E-signatures are environmentally friendly, meaning you get to contribute to the wellness of the ecosystem from the comfort of your home. These help in the elimination of paper, which contributes to pollution. Deforestation levels are high because of the demand that’s needed across the globe when it comes to working resources.
When using e-signatures, you do not have instances where you printed the papers for signing, realize some changes are necessary, and then throw the already printed paper in the trash. On the other hand, with e-signatures, you make changes digitally, such as sign and send.
Conclusion
E-signatures contribute to the work-from-home experience by enhancing the conveniences that come with it. E-signatures eliminate layered processes of manually signing documents such as printing and scanning. The chances of a cloned or modified signature reduce because of the verification processes in place. Additionally, you can sign multiple documents at once, thereby saving you time. You can also track your workflow while contributing to environmental conservation by eliminating paper usage.
