Detailed comparison of physical signing and e-signing

Have you ever noticed that administrative tasks take up a lot of your time? We bet you have, and you’ve been dreaming of doing less of those but never had time to actually optimise. With the world making all of us reconsider the way we work, now’s the best time to proceed.

Let’s face it, taking care of paperwork the old-fashioned way a.k.a. preparing piles of documents and signing them by hand (and most likely you or your employees need to chase some people around to get the signatures), printing, scanning and sending them by mail or courier, is a waste of time. Today, with the 21st-century technologies in place, there’s no point in frustrating yourself with such processes. Yet, surveys show that more than 50% of companies still print documents solely for the reason of adding a signature.

To better understand the difference, let’s compare the two processes.

So what really happens when you sign documents by hand? To make it clearer, let’s talk numbers and detailed steps of a paper document signing process.

  1. Printing. In order for a document to be signed, it needs to be printed. So you find the document on your computer, open it, adjust printing settings and click print. Let’s say it takes max 5 minutes.
  2. Sorting. Once the documents are printed, you go to a printer (as it’s probably not on your table) and pick the documents up, maybe you need to sort them, to separate several copies, maybe clip them or add to a file. Let’s give this max 5 more minutes.
  3. Signing. If it’s not you who’s signing, you have to go search for the person you need to get a signature from (or your employee does). This part can be a bit challenging. The meetings can overlap, some unplanned things might come up and there are a million other scenarios proving this step usually doesn’t happen in a minute. Of course, papers can be left on the signee’s table with a note but how often do people forget or don’t even notice such notes? Either way, some reminders follow, wasting time of at least two people. The document is signed at some point. How long did it take? 20 minutes, 1 hour, 2 days? Too long. By the way, don’t forget that signing itself takes time as well — if it’s a 10-page document, you’ll have to put your signature on each page, on 2 or 3 copies!
  4. Scanning and emailing a copy. Once the document is signed, it’s usually scanned and emailed to another party which also needs to sign the document. Often, just to confirm that it’s been signed from your side and the original is already on its way. 5 more minutes? Well, if you write a longer email, it might take 10.
  5. Sending by mail or courier. If you have to deliver the original version of this signed document, you’ll probably send it out by mail or courier. This means you fold the document, add it in an envelope, write down an address, glue a postage stamp. Then you either go to a post office or call out a mailman or courier. Preparing document for sending it out probably takes you 10 minutes, plus the waiting time for a courier. And now imagine if your employees deliver documents physically or you organise a meeting just because you need to sign a document. How many hours travelling and getting stuck in a traffic jam does that take?
  6. Waiting for other parties’ signatures. And now you wait. The document reaches the other party in a day at best. They go through the same process you did. The whole document’s journey starting from you sending it out and ending back in your hands probably takes 3-4 days or longer.

That’s about right. And we’re not even talking here about getting documents lost somewhere in the process, spotting mistakes that require to repeat the whole process all over again, or later searching for specific documents in large archives.

A magic trick to stop wasting resources

Now, what’s your option? There’s a proven solution called signing documents with e-signature! Let’s talk details once more.

  1. Logging in. To sign an e-document, you only need to open a browser, type www.dokobit.com, authenticate yourself with a chosen solution and here you are.
  2. Uploading a document. Just click an Upload a document button and add a document you need to sign.
  3. Sending. Add addressees, set signing deadline. The document to other signing parties is sent right away.
  4. Signing. Once a document is uploaded, by clicking Sign button you can choose a tool to sign: Mobile ID, eID, USB or Smart-ID, and confirm the signing action entering a PIN code.

Yes, it’s that simple. And you shouldn’t just take our word for it, you should try it yourself! Signing a document using Dokobit takes max 5 minutes. Other parties will get notifications to their emails and will be able to sign your document right away, without even registering. In case a person forgets to sign but you’ve set a signing deadline, they will get a reminder.

Once businesses go digital with document signing and signature collection, they never go back! Join hundreds of other companies like yours and enjoy countless advantages of e-signing. Check out our solutions here.