By now you are probably familiar with our e-signature tools. They allow you to email your proposals and changes orders to your customers so that they can view and sign them. This is one of our most popular features and it really shows your customers a level of professionalism that can set you apart from your competitors. However, the e-signature tool is not just a cool marketing feature: getting these documents signed will protect your business and improve your relationships with your customers.
At Knowify, we believe that a clear and transparent signature process is essential for any contracting business. It helps that one of our founders is a former attorney that in his previous life had to deal with multiple disputes around contracts. With that experience in mind, we designed the contract management tools in Knowify that will help you build safer and more reliable business relationships with your customers.
These are some of the advantages of using electronic signatures:
1. Professionalism
You start the relationship with your customer on the right foot. If your level of organization around the bidding process is impeccable, they will feel more comfortable giving you the job.
2. Clarity
The customer can review the terms of the agreement and request changes if they need to. Immediately after the e-signature, you and your customer get a signed copy of the agreement. There are no misunderstandings about what was approved and that helps you get started with confidence.
3. Efficiency
No more paper copies being circulated around and no more delays because the paperwork is not signed. Nowadays, everyone has Internet connection, either on their phones, at the office or at home. Besides, once the document is signed, you don’t have to worry about storing the paper copy in one of your folders. Knowify automatically stores it in the your Documents section and you can reference it whenever you need to. Many of our users have the really good practice of sending the signed contract along with the invoices when they bill the client. Customers appreciate that.
4. Time savings
By entering the terms of the agreement in Knowify, you are already streamlining the rest of work at the office. You can turn the contract into a plan to track your job or bill your customer knowing that the invoice will reflect the terms of the agreement. This is ideal if you have multiple people in the office involved in the bidding/billing process.5. Time savings
5. Legal coverage
Disputes around jobs are a serious issue. You want to avoid them by all means and having a signed document with the terms of the agreement can be a life saver. In both the US and Canada, e-signatures have the same validity as paper signatures. We would argue that they are even stronger: you have an email trail of the document being sent to the customer and signed back, and we store additional information on our end about this transaction in case you ever need it.
We’ve worked with thousands of contractors over the years and the best ones always have a high level of organization around their contracts. Do not wait until it is too late to get organized. Start today.