In the “life cycle” of a contract, from the start of negotiations to the end of its validity, the signing and archiving of documents only take up a small amount of time. Nevertheless, they are significant cost factors for companies.

The reason: contracts are often signed extremely inefficiently on paper and have to be physically archived. Every time a document comes into contact with a person in this way, costs are incurred – for example, by sending it by post or indirectly through the working time required for transport, processing and archiving.

But there is another way: digitising contracts and signing them digitally saves a huge amount of time and money – on all sides. Find out how you can save almost 50 euros per signature.

The contract signature interface often generates high costs

Even in companies where digitalisation is supposedly well advanced, everyday life often looks like this: Communication with customers or other companies is almost exclusively digital. Contract negotiations or even dialogue after a contract has been successfully concluded are conducted entirely online via email, telephone or video conference.

This saves all partners time, costs and emissions that would otherwise be caused by business trips, for example. The advantages of the digital world are fully utilised.

When it comes to the actual signing of the contract, however, the procedure is almost anachronistic: the contract is printed out on paper and signed by hand and sent to the other contracting party, unless a representative of the parties even physically travels to sign it.

The interface for signing the contract itself is therefore not digital and generates effort and costs:

  • Printing costs
  • Costs for travelling or sending by post
  • Waiting times for the signature
  • Costs for processing and archiving

The latter point also plays a major role in the long term. After all, if a contract is physically signed, it must be stored properly so that it can be presented as evidence in court, for example, if necessary.

Although it is also possible to “digitise” contracts in these cases, for example by scanning them, this also generates effort and it is at least questionable whether a scan alone has enough legal significance to make the additional physical storage still appear necessary.

This expense may still be justifiable for a single contract. However, if the volume of contracts is large, for example because contracts are part of your business model such as rental agreements in the property sector, the costs for analogue contract management add up and can account for a significant proportion of your total business costs.

Digitising contracts has major advantages

Let’s assume that contracts could be signed and archived completely digitally with full legal validity. The advantages become apparent at first glance:

  • The time required for the signature process can be reduced to just a few minutes.
  • There are no costs for printing, sending or travelling for signatories.
  • Archiving contracts digitally is more time and cost efficient, the documents are easier to find and withstand time, decay and weathering

If contracts with end customers are part of your business model, there are additional advantages:

  • You offer your customers a much more convenient user experience and set yourself apart from the competition.
  • You can process more contracts in the same amount of time and increase your profit margin due to the reduced costs – estimated at up to almost 50 euros per signature! – also increase your profit margin.
  • They can identify signatories beyond doubt and thus put a stop to fraudsters.

You can read more about the advantages of digital contracts in the linked blog article.

Successfully digitise contracts

The decisive step for the digitalisation of contracts is the act of signing the contract itself. If you can do this digitally, the other benefits follow almost automatically.

Fortunately, the digital signing of almost all contracts is already possible and legally secure today! Digital signatures, as defined by framework regulations such as eIDAS in the EU or ZertES in Switzerland, offer full legal validity with significant cost savings.

It only takes a few minutes to digitally sign a legally valid contract with Certifaction’s solution, for example. You can find out exactly how this works in the linked article, including step-by-step instructions.

In cases where storage in paper form is legally required, the digital twin is there for you, which you can generate from the Certifaction app with just one click, for example. The contract signature is also fully digital here, so you can still make significant cost savings.

Digital contract management & data protection

In addition to digital signatures, some providers also offer complete digital contract management solutions. However, in most cases these have a glaring flaw: data protection.

If your data is stored on the servers of a contract management provider, they often have direct access to it. Some providers even flirt with this access, for example by marketing artificial intelligence for the automatic evaluation of contracts as a feature. The question arises: if an AI can access your documents, can a human employee do the same?

If your documents contain very sensitive information, this is a major risk. Especially since not only the contract management providers themselves can gain access, but also cyber criminals, industrial spies or even actors such as the US government, which can obtain data from any company based in the USA via the CLOUD Act.

Some companies rely on no-signature lists for particularly sensitive documents, but these also generate effort and additionally hinder digitisation. There is a better way:

With end-to-end encryption (E2EE), where the data leaves your end device already encrypted, eSignature providers cannot even read your data. So you don’t have to worry about anyone else reading it. This is the approach taken by Certifaction.

Find out now and benefit

If you digitise your contracts, you can benefit enormously in the long term. The most important step here is to digitise the contract signature. This is child’s play with applications such as Certifaction – a signature only takes a few minutes and saves you almost 50 euros at the same time.

Try our free version or get in touch with us using the contact button below. We will be happy to advise you on how we can digitise your business and make it more profitable.

You are also welcome to use the other resources on our website. Did you know, for example, that the mere scanning of signed, fixed-term rental agreements does not fulfil the formal requirements in Germany, but a qualified electronic signature does?

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