Why HR teams move onboarding paperwork to e-signature
Human resources runs on signed documents. Every hire needs an offer letter, an employment contract, often a confidentiality agreement, and a stack of policy acknowledgements. Every contractor needs a services agreement. Every policy update needs the whole team to confirm they have read it. On paper, each of those means printing, posting or handing over a pen, then filing the result somewhere it can be found again.
SignPe replaces that with one flow. You upload the document — PDF, Word (DOC or DOCX) or a photo of a form — place the fields each person needs to complete, add the signers and send. The new hire gets an email with a Review & Sign Document button, signs in their browser or on the SignPe app, and you get the signed PDF back along with a complete audit trail.
It suits HR teams of any size: a founder hiring their first employee, an office manager onboarding a few people a month, or a people team running dozens of contracts across an organisation. The free plan covers your first three documents with unlimited signers on each, so you can run a real hire end to end before you decide on a plan.
Offer letters: send and close offers the same day they are approved
The gap between “we’d like to make you an offer” and a signed offer letter is where good candidates drift away. When the letter has to be printed, signed by a manager, scanned and emailed, a day can easily become a week. With SignPe the approved letter can be with the candidate within minutes of sign-off.
- Two signatures, in the right order. Use Set signer order so the hiring manager or director signs first, and the candidate is emailed automatically the moment it is their turn. Anyone who opens it out of turn sees “Waiting for <name> to sign”.
- Fill in the details on the page. Add Full Name, Date and Text fields for start date, salary confirmation or notice period, alongside the Signature field.
- No account for the candidate. Candidates sign as guests after accepting a short electronic-records consent screen. Nothing to install, nothing to download.
- Copy the recruiter. Add a recruiter or line manager as an observer so they receive updates without being asked to sign.
If the candidate declines, you are notified straight away. If the offer changes before they sign, void the document — the old signing link stops working and the candidate is told — and send the revised letter as a new request.
Employee agreements: contracts, policy acknowledgements and NDAs in one flow
An employment contract is rarely the only document a new hire signs. There is usually a non-disclosure or confidentiality agreement, an IT or acceptable-use policy, perhaps a handbook acknowledgement. SignPe lets you prepare each one with the fields it needs and send them together, so the new starter deals with their paperwork in one sitting.
- Initials on every page. Place Initials fields on each page of a long contract, and Checkmark fields beside clauses the employee must confirm.
- Company details captured once. Company and Designation fields record the employee’s title exactly as it appears in the agreement.
- Your company stamp. Where your organisation stamps its contracts, upload the stamp image once and apply it from your saved library alongside your signature.
- Reuse what you send often. Keep your standard agreement as a saved draft or in cloud storage, and send a fresh copy whenever you need one.
Because the signatory on your side signs from a saved signature, countersigning ten contracts a week no longer means drawing your signature ten times. Choose Apply to all fields of the same type and every signature box assigned to you fills in one go.
Contractor onboarding: bring freelancers on board without paperwork delays
Freelancers and contractors are often remote, often juggling several clients, and rarely willing to print anything. A services agreement, a statement of work and an NDA should take them five minutes on their phone, not a trip to a print shop.
- Sign from any device. Contractors sign in any modern browser or on the SignPe app for iOS and Android. Pen strokes feel like ink, with black, blue or red ink and a Clear button to start again.
- Paper forms too. If an agreement only exists on paper, scan it with the SignPe app’s document scanner — it detects edges automatically and captures up to 20 pages per scan — and send it out like any other file.
- Contracts from your cloud. Import agreements directly from Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive or Box instead of downloading and re-uploading them.
- Reminders do the chasing. Automated reminders nudge signers so agreements do not stall, and the Remind button emails anyone who has not signed yet with one click.
Policy acknowledgements: track who has signed what, with dates and an audit trail
When a policy changes — a new code of conduct, an updated leave policy, a data-protection notice — HR needs to show that each person received it and confirmed it. Collecting those confirmations by email leaves you cross-referencing replies. In SignPe every document carries its own status and history.
| What you need to know | Where SignPe shows it |
|---|---|
| Has it been sent and received? | Sent and Received statuses, each with a date and time |
| Has the employee opened it? | Opened status in the document’s Activity timeline |
| Who still needs to sign? | Waiting for Others filter in your Documents list |
| What do I need to sign myself? | Action Required filter |
| Proof of signature | Downloadable audit trail PDF with document ID and each signer’s emailed, viewed and signed times |
The signed copy is emailed to everyone when the document completes, so the employee keeps their own record too. See document status tracking for how each status is recorded.
A typical HR signing workflow
Prepare the documents
Upload the offer letter or contract. If you get interrupted, leaving the wizard prompts Save as draft? so you can finish later from your Drafts folder — drafts do not use a document credit.
Place the fields
Drag Signature, Initials, Full Name, Date, Designation and Checkmark fields onto the page and assign each one to the hiring manager or the employee.
Set the order
Choose Set signer order so internal approvers sign first. Add HR or the recruiter as an observer.
Send and track
Each signer is emailed in turn. Watch the status move from Sent to Opened to Signed, and use Remind if someone stalls.
File the result
When everyone has signed, all parties receive the signed copy. Download the audit trail PDF for the employee file.
First-day paperwork in person
If a new starter is in the office, use In person Signing: open the document on a tablet or phone and hand it over to sign on the spot. The signature is recorded in the same audit trail as a remote one.
Compliance considerations for HR documents
Electronic signatures are recognised for most everyday business agreements under laws such as the US ESIGN Act and UETA, the EU’s eIDAS regulation and India’s Information Technology Act 2000. Some documents and some jurisdictions have specific requirements, so check with your legal adviser for anything unusual. Our legality guide covers the Indian position in detail.
- Consent to electronic records. Guest signers accept an electronic-records consent screen before they sign.
- Only participants can open a document. Employee contracts are not visible to anyone who is not a signer, observer or the sender.
- Encryption in transit and at rest. Documents travel over HTTPS/TLS and are stored in encrypted cloud storage — see eSignature security.
- Aadhaar eSign for India. For Indian employers, Aadhaar eSign adds OTP verification through eMudhra and a PKI-signed PDF.
Employee records contain personal data, so apply your organisation’s own retention and data-protection policies to the signed copies and audit trails you download.
How to send an offer letter for e-signature
Upload the offer letter
Upload the approved letter as a PDF or Word file, or import it from Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive or Box.
Add the signers
Choose Set signer order, add the hiring manager first and the candidate second, and add the recruiter as an observer.
Place the fields
Drag a Signature and Date field for each signer onto the page, plus a Full Name field for the candidate.
Send
The hiring manager is emailed first; the candidate is emailed automatically once the manager signs.
Receive the signed copy
When the candidate signs, everyone receives the signed PDF, and the audit trail is ready to download.
