Electronic signature — a solution for coronavirus times
The outbreak of #COVID-19 caused many difficulties in doing business. Closed offices, moving work home and giving up many meetings. Meeting and working together on documents is a standard for some companies. Others are only now implementing this process. One of the prosaic problems that has become apparent is the signing and efficient circulation of documents.
What and how often do we sign?
There are hundreds of documents we sign many times during the month, contracts, annexes, certificates, NDAs, invoices, bills among them. It’s easy when we are in the office and the printed document is waiting for signature at our desk.
This is how many companies operate. The presidents, directors, managers and owners sign the documents themselves, pack them into an envelope and send to the recipient where the reverse process takes place. Alternatively, they arrange meetings with all required persons who are to sign the document. In a current situation, it’s close to impossible.
In addition to documents signed with contractors, individual company departments (even the purchasing department) generate documents for internal needs. They still need to print, sign and attach to the appropriate folder.
How do we sign documents when entire companies work remotely?
Sometimes, to speed up the whole process, we:
- scan a signed document,
- send it by email as an attachment,
- wait for it to be printed, signed, scanned and sent back to us.
This is how the process works in many companies, not only today at #COVID19, but as a default process of exchanging documents that require signatures. Is it convenient and safe? Is such a document valid?
How to do it better?
At Nextapps, we’ve been using the electronic signature (for two years) as well as the qualified signature (for a year), both provided by the Autenti platform. We use electronic signatures for the internal workflow, as well as during cooperation with many companies and offices that honor this form of a signature.
Many companies do not know how an electronic signature works, how much time (and how much paper) it can save. Education is very needed in this area. A working tool is available, but the tool itself is not enough if there is no proper knowledge and promotion.
An electronic signature is the future
Recently, Autenti has received another round of financing, in which the Alior Bank, BNP Paribas and PKO Bank Polski banks are involved. I hope that in addition to developing the platform with new functionalities, a part of the budget would be used to popularise the service.
The very involvement of key financial institutions in Poland sets the direction for the development of services related to electronic signature. Electronic signatures facilitate the work of small companies and enterprises, streamline processes and accelerate document circulation. They can be efficiently integrated with existing company systems.
In the face of the difficulties caused by the coronavirus pandemic, we need simple and effective solutions. The electronic signature should become a standard in every office, at every post office, in courts, banks and all public institutions.
As an Autenti partner, we help companies and institutions implement electronic signatures, customise or design business processes and create dedicated software.
Let me know in the comment, we will help you too.
#paperless #digitalsignature #autenti
