Sending a document for signature

Getting a document signed is usually straightforward and occasionally takes three weeks. The difference is nearly always in how the document was prepared.

Ask what the recipient needs first

This is the single most useful step and the one most often skipped. Some organisations accept a drawn signature on a returned PDF. Some require a specific signing platform. Some, for certain transactions, need a qualified electronic signature with a verified identity certificate. A few still want wet ink.

Two minutes of asking prevents the round trip where a signed document comes back and is rejected.

Send a document that can be signed

If the file is a flat scan, the signer has to print it, sign it, and scan it back. That is a twenty-minute task involving a printer, which is why it does not happen the same day.

If it has real form fields and space for a signature, it takes a minute on a phone.

Make it obvious where to sign

Signature blocks with a line, a printed name and a date field. Initial boxes on pages that need initialling. If a schedule needs signing as well as the main agreement, say so in the covering message, because it will otherwise come back with one signature.

Lock what should not change

Fill in the parts that are settled, names, dates, amounts, and flatten them, so the values become permanent page content. A form sent out with everything still editable comes back with something altered, usually accidentally, and you will not notice.

Number the pages

Sounds trivial. It is how you discover that page seven did not come back, and how the signer knows they have the whole thing.

Keep the file small enough to arrive

A large scan will bounce off a corporate mail server, and the bounce sometimes goes nowhere useful. Compress before sending. If it is still large, split it into logical parts rather than zipping it, which some organisations strip entirely.

After it comes back

Check the signature is on the version you sent. Amended documents get signed more often than anyone likes to admit, and the difference can be a single number.

Check every page that needed initialling has been initialled.

Then keep the signed copy as the record. If it was returned as a link rather than a file, download it. Links expire, and the copy you hold is what you can produce later.

One caveat

None of this is legal advice. Where a signature carries real consequences, the cost of asking a solicitor what form it needs to take is very small next to the cost of an agreement that turns out not to bind anyone.

Preparing the document properly

Fill in everything that is settled, names, dates, amounts, references, and flatten those values so they become permanent page content. A document sent out fully editable comes back altered, usually by accident, and the change is easy to miss.

Leave only the signature fields open. If the signer needs to supply information as well as a signature, make it obvious which parts are theirs.

Number the pages. It is how the signer knows they have the whole document and how you discover that page seven did not come back.

Making it easy to sign

The practical difference between a document signed the same day and one signed in three weeks is usually whether the recipient needs a printer.

A flat scan requires printing, signing and scanning back: a twenty-minute task involving hardware many people no longer have at home. A document with a clear signature area can be signed on a phone in a minute.

If you are sending a form that must be signed by hand, say so explicitly, so the recipient can plan for it rather than discovering it at the point of trying.

Multi-party signing

When several people must sign, decide the order and say what it is. Parallel signing produces several partially signed copies that then have to be reconciled, which is worse than it sounds.

Where each party initials pages as well as signing, be explicit about which pages. Otherwise you will receive documents initialled inconsistently and have to go back.

Keep track of which version each party signed. This is the failure that causes real problems: two parties signing documents that differ by a single amended figure.

Checking what comes back

Compare the returned document against what you sent. Amended documents do get signed, and the change can be one number.

Comparing the text of the two files takes a minute and catches it definitively, which reading does not.

Confirm every page needing initials has them, and that the signature is on the final page rather than a superseded one.

Keeping the record

Keep the signed file itself, not a link to it. Links expire and hosted copies change; the file you hold is what you can produce later.

Keep the covering correspondence alongside it, since that establishes who sent what and when.

None of this is legal advice. Where a signature carries real consequences, the cost of asking a solicitor what form it must take is very small next to an agreement that turns out not to bind anyone.