Why gyms, studios and wellness businesses use e-signatures
Fitness and wellness businesses sign people up all day. A new gym member signs a membership agreement and a waiver. A yoga or pilates client completes a health questionnaire before their first class. A massage therapist or physiotherapist needs consent before treatment. A personal trainer joining the team signs a contract. On paper, that is a clipboard at reception, a queue of people filling in forms, and a filing cabinet of signatures that someone has to find again when they are needed.
SignPe moves those forms onto a screen. You can collect a signature at the desk by handing over a tablet, or send the form by email so the client signs on their phone before they arrive. Either way, each form ends up as a signed PDF with an audit trail, sent automatically to everyone who signed it. Studio owners and managers can run all of it from the web app or the SignPe app for iOS and Android.
Waivers and releases
Whether a liability waiver or release is enforceable varies by jurisdiction and depends on its wording, not just on how it is signed. SignPe records the signature and the evidence; confirm the wording and use of your waivers with a legal adviser.
Membership agreements: sign up new members in minutes
A membership agreement sets out the term, the fees, the notice period and the house rules. It is the document a member will be shown if they dispute a cancellation, so every page that matters should be clearly acknowledged.
- Fields for each detail. Add Full Name, Email, Date and Text fields for the member’s details and start date, and Checkmark fields beside the terms they must accept.
- Initials on the key terms. Place Initials on the pages with the minimum term, cancellation policy or freeze rules, so it is clear each one was seen.
- Your side countersigns. Use Set signer order so the member signs first and your manager countersigns; the next signer is emailed automatically.
- Your studio’s stamp. Upload your company stamp once and apply it from your saved library where your agreements carry one.
Members without a SignPe account sign as guests after accepting an electronic-records consent screen, so there is nothing to install. See sign without an account.
Waivers and health questionnaires: before the first session
Liability waivers, pre-exercise health questionnaires and treatment consent forms are usually the first thing a client signs, and the thing most likely to hold up a class or appointment if they arrive without it done. There are two ways to collect them in SignPe:
- At the desk — choose In person Signing (In-Person Signing on mobile) and hand your phone or tablet to the client. They read the form, sign with a smooth pen that feels like ink, and hand it back.
- Before they arrive — send the form to the client’s email. They select Review & Sign Document, accept an electronic-records consent screen and sign in the browser as a guest.
Use a Checkmark field for each question or declaration the client must confirm, Text fields for any details they need to write in, and a Date field so every form is dated. Where a participant is a minor, add their parent or guardian as an additional signer with their own fields — every document supports unlimited signers.
Health questionnaires and treatment consents contain health information. The healthcare page covers good practice for sensitive forms, and our guide to filling and signing medical consent forms online walks through it from the client’s side.
Trainer, instructor and therapist contracts
Most studios work with a mix of employed staff and independent trainers, instructors and therapists who rent space or work on a session basis. Each arrangement needs its own agreement, and many of those people are teaching elsewhere during the day.
- Contracts signed from a phone. The signing page works in any modern browser, so an instructor can sign between classes without a laptop.
- Company and role on the page. Company and Designation fields record who signed for each side and in what capacity — useful where a trainer signs through their own business.
- Copy the people who need to know. Add your studio manager or bookkeeper as an observer so they see when the contract is signed without having to sign it.
- Saved signatures for the owner. An owner who signs often can save their signature and initials in My Signatures and use Apply to all fields of the same type to fill every matching field at once.
For more on employment paperwork, read our guide to signing an employment contract online, or see the human resources page.
Front-desk paperwork without the filing cabinet
Alongside the big agreements, reception handles a steady flow of smaller forms: photo and social media consent, membership freeze or transfer requests, personal training package terms and locker agreements. SignPe keeps them in one Documents list.
- See what is outstanding. Filter by Draft, Action Required, Waiting for Others and Signed to see which forms are still waiting on a client.
- Bring your existing forms. Upload PDF, Word (DOC, DOCX) or images (JPG, JPEG, PNG) up to 20 MB, or import from Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive or Box.
- Scan the paper ones. The SignPe app’s Scan option turns a paper form into a PDF with automatic edge detection, up to 20 pages per scan.
- Remind before the session. Press Remind to email everyone who has not signed yet; automated reminders also nudge signers so forms do not stall.
Sent to the wrong client?
If a form goes to the wrong email address, void the document straight away. The signing link stops working and the recipient is told the document was cancelled.
A typical new-member signing workflow
Upload the form
Upload the membership agreement or waiver as a PDF or Word file, or import it from cloud storage.
Place the fields
Add Signature, Full Name, Date and a Checkmark for each declaration. Add a parent or guardian as a second signer for a minor.
Choose how they sign
Send it to the client’s email before their first visit, or choose In person Signing and hand them a tablet at reception.
Track and remind
Watch the status move from Sent to Opened to Signed, and send a reminder if the form is still pending the day before.
Store the signed copy
The signed PDF goes to everyone who signed it. Download it and the audit trail and keep them with the member’s record.
Compliance considerations for fitness and wellness forms
Electronic signatures are recognised under laws including the US ESIGN Act and UETA, the EU’s eIDAS regulation and India’s Information Technology Act 2000, and membership agreements are commonly signed electronically. Waivers and releases are a different question: whether they hold up depends on local law and the wording of the document, and rules on minors, consumer contracts and health information vary by country and state. Confirm those with a legal adviser. The legality guide covers India in detail.
- An audit trail per document. The audit trail PDF shows the document ID, sent and completed dates, and each signer’s emailed, viewed and signed times.
- Only participants can open a document. A client’s health questionnaire is visible only to the people on that document.
- Encryption in transit and at rest. See eSignature security for how documents are protected.
- Keep the circle small. Add only the people who must sign, and use observers sparingly — anyone on a document can see it.
SignPe provides the signature, the encryption and the evidence, not a legal or regulatory determination. Apply your own data-handling and retention policies to the signed copies you download.
How to collect a waiver on a front-desk tablet
Open the waiver on your tablet
Upload the waiver in the SignPe app, or import it from your cloud storage.
Choose In-Person Signing
Select In-Person Signing as the signing mode.
Place the fields
Add a Signature, Full Name and Date field, and a Checkmark beside each declaration.
Hand the tablet over
The client reads the waiver and signs on the screen with their finger or a stylus.
Finish and file
Once signed, the completed PDF and its audit trail are saved to your account, ready to download.
