Are you applying for a business loan or already have? Or had some repairs done on your facilities? Maybe you’ve signed a contract with a certain technologically inclined customer or vendor. In any of these instances, you (or one of your employees) probably had to electronically sign a digital document. So, the next question is: Why isn’t your company using this technology of document management systems?

If the answer is, “We are,” kudos to you (assuming it’s working out). But if your reply is, “We’ve always used paper and don’t want to deal with the expense and hassle of converting to digital documentation,” you may want to reconsider — because it’s not going away.

Why Go Digital with Document Management Systems?

For businesses, there are generally three reasons to use digital documents with e-signatures:

1. Speed

When you can review and sign a business document electronically, it can be transmitted instantly and approved much more quickly. And this works both ways: your customers can sign contracts or submit orders for your products or services, and you can sign similar documents with vendors, partners or consultants. What used to take days or even weeks, as paper envelopes crisscrossed in the mail, now can occur in a matter of hours.

2. Security

Paper has a way of getting lost, damaged and destroyed. That’s not to say digital documents are impervious to thievery, corruption and deletion, but a trusted IT solutions company should be able to outfit you with software that not only allows you to use digital docs with e-signatures, but also keep the resulting files encrypted and safe from anyone or anything who would do them harm.

3. Service

This may be the most important reason to incorporate digital docs and e-sigs into your business. Younger generations have come of age, if not grown up, with digitized business services. They expect this functionality and may prefer a company that offers it to one that still requires them to put pen to paper.

What About The Law?

Many business owners hesitate to dive into digital docs and e-sigs because of legal concerns. This is a reasonable concern. However, e-signatures are now widely used and generally considered lawful under two statutes:

• The Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce Act of 2000, a federal law.
• The Uniform Electronic Transactions Act, which governs each state unless a comparable law is in place.

What’s more, every state has some sort of legislation in place legalizing e-signatures. There may be some limited exceptions in certain cases, so check with your attorney for specifics.

Is Now The Time?

To be clear, investing in document management systems with e-signatures, and training your employees to use them, is a major strategic initiative. You need to ensure the return on investment will be worth the effort. We can assist you in evaluating whether now’s the time to “go digital” and, if so, in setting a budget for the software purchase and implementation.