Sarah Worsham

Getting a contract signed by a customer is a must for many companies before they can get started on a project or ship a product.  Or maybe you use outside contractors and need to put an agreement in place before they can start work.

The contract signing process can be long and drawn out and often costs time and effort to see it all the way through.  However, it’s a necessity in the business world.  And most of us put up with the hassle because it means actually getting paid (pretty important!).  Since we’re a service company, we use contracts for all our customers and contractors.  It often can take up to a week to get a contract signed and back in our hands.

Yesterday I tried out EchoSign, which automates the entire process.  I uploaded a copy of the contract for the customer and EchoSign let me choose options such as who signed first and how it was signed (electronic signature vs. efax).  Then it emailed my client a link straight to the contract for them to review and electronically sign.  Once they signed it alerted me so I could sign.  Then it emailed us both a copy of the signed contract.  While the process took overnight to complete (because that’s when my client got around to signing it), I didn’t have to do anything other than upload the document and sign it when it came back.  Easy!

EchoSign offers a free plan which includes one user, up to 5 signatures (from you) and 5 stored documents per month.  The first paid plan starts at $14.95/mo for one user, unlimited signatures and up to 500 documents stored.  All the way up to enterprise at $299/mo for 10 users and a customized amount of signatures and documents.  They also add other features for the paid plans, such as account sharing, mobile scanning, pdf encryption, to name a few. (More info on their pricing plans)

For any company that needs contracts to do business, but spends a lot of time getting the proper signatures, EchoSign is worth a look.  After the great experience I had with the last contract, I know I’ll be using it for all our clients and contractors.

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