Using an electronic signature service
These days, it’s not uncommon for freelancers of any stripe to never see a client face to face. Everything is done electronically — communication, exchanging drafts, and working with contracts.
Most of us who’ve worked remotely on client projects know the contract cycle well. We negotiate the terms of work with a client. Either we or the client draw up a draft of the contract and email it to the other party. Tweaks are made, and the final version is sent either as a word processor file or PDF. And that’s where things become something less than fun: we print the file, sign it, and then either fax a copy or scan and email it.
That’s definitely not the most efficient workflow. A lot of time and effort is wasted that way. There are other ways of doing this. Lately, I’ve been using a signature graphic that a friend cooked up for me. I just insert it into a file and don’t have to worry about printing. But even that isn’t one of the most efficient way of doing things.
What is? How about using an electronic signature service? To be honest, while I’d heard of such services I really didn’t know (or bother to find out) much about them until I read this post at Sitepoint.com.
I’m definitely intrigued. Enough that I plan to take a closer look at some of these services. I’ll keep you posted on what I learn and whether or not I use one.
Do you use an electronic signature service? If so, what are the good and bad that you’ve run into? Feel free to leave a comment.
Photo from http://sxc.hu
Once you start using an e-signature service, you will wonder what you were doing before! Not using an e-sign service for your contracts is like using an email system that cannot REPLY.. Imagine that to reply, you had to print out your email, then physically mail it back, or fax it! You’d hardly ever be able to respond!
Using DocuSign (www.docusign.com) – you can send contracts for signature right from your application! Your productivity will skyrocket!