Electronic Signatures for Technology and SaaS Companies

Order forms and master agreements: close deals before quarter end

B2B software deals usually end with an order form that references a master subscription agreement, sometimes with a data processing agreement and a security addendum attached. The customer may need two signatures — a budget holder and someone from procurement or legal — and your side needs a countersignature from whoever is authorised to sign. SignPe handles all of that on one document.

• One document for the whole bundle. Pages are unlimited, so the order form, master agreement and addenda can go out as one file and be signed once, rather than three separate requests.
• Both sides in the right order. Choose Set signer order so the customer’s signatories sign first and your authorised signatory countersigns last. Anyone who opens the document early sees “Waiting for <name> to sign”, and the next person is emailed automatically when it is their turn.
• The fields a contract actually needs. Add Full Name, Designation, Company and Date fields beside each signature, and Initials on pages carrying pricing or liability terms.
• Your account executive kept in the loop. Copy sales, finance or the account manager as observers so they see progress without being asked to sign.

In the last week of a quarter, the Waiting for Others filter in your Documents list becomes a forecast: every order form there is a deal that is not yet closed. The Opened status tells you whether the buyer has seen it, which makes a follow-up call far more useful. Read more about document status tracking.

NDAs and mutual NDAs: signed before the first call

Confidentiality agreements come up constantly in technology — before a partnership discussion, a technical due diligence session, a design review with a prospective customer or an early conversation with an investor. They are usually short, standard and urgent, which is exactly the kind of document that should never wait on a printer.

• Send it from your phone. Open the NDA from Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive or Box in the SignPe app, place the fields and send — see cloud storage integration.
• Sign your side first. For a mutual NDA, sign it yourself and send it on, or add both parties as signers so each completes their own fields.
• Save your signature once. Founders and legal leads who sign often can keep their signature and initials in My Signatures and apply them in a tap.

Our guide to signing an NDA online walks through the whole process from both sides.

Offer letters, IP assignment and contractor agreements

Hiring in technology is competitive and increasingly remote. A candidate who has verbally accepted can still be lost in the days it takes to get a signed offer back. And alongside the offer there is usually more: a confidentiality and invention assignment agreement, an equipment policy, perhaps an equity grant document that needs a separate signature. Contractors and agencies bring their own statements of work and IP assignment clauses.

• Candidates sign from anywhere. New hires without a SignPe account sign as guests after accepting an electronic-records consent screen — useful when your next engineer is in a different country.
• Every clause acknowledged. Place Checkmark fields beside the policies a new hire must confirm, and Initials on the pages carrying IP assignment and confidentiality terms.
• Hiring manager countersigns after. Use signer order so the candidate signs first and the hiring manager or founder countersigns automatically once they have.
• Prepare it before the call. Save the offer as a draft while terms are finalised and send it the moment the candidate says yes. Drafts don’t use a document credit.

If the terms change after sending — a revised start date or salary — void the document so the old signing link stops working, and send a corrected version with its own audit trail. For more on hiring paperwork, see electronic signatures for HR teams and our guide to signing an employment contract online.

Partner, reseller and vendor agreements

Technology companies sit in a web of agreements: reseller and referral partnerships, marketplace listings, technology alliances, and the vendor contracts for the hosting, tooling and services the business runs on. These often involve several signatories on each side and a legal reviewer who needs to know when they are done.

Where your agreements carry a company seal, upload it once and place a Stamp field wherever it is needed. When an authorised signatory is travelling, they can delegate their signing to a colleague in the same organisation, who signs on their behalf; the delegate is notified. If a partner disagrees with a clause, they can choose Decline to sign? and you are notified straight away. See our guide to signing vendor agreements online.

A typical SaaS deal signing workflow

1. 1

   Prepare the order form

   Upload the order form and its master agreement as one PDF or Word file, or import it from cloud storage. Save it as a draft while pricing is confirmed.

2. 2

   Place and assign fields

   Add Signature, Full Name, Designation, Company and Date fields for each signatory, and Initials on the pricing and liability pages.

3. 3

   Set the order and observers

   Choose Set signer order: customer signatories first, your countersignatory last. Copy the account executive and finance as observers.

4. 4

   Track and nudge

   Watch the Activity timeline move through Sent, Opened and Signed. Use Remind for anyone still pending as the quarter end approaches.

5. 5

   File the signed contract

   When everyone has signed, all parties receive the signed PDF. Download it and the audit trail PDF and store them with the customer record in your own systems.

Compliance considerations for technology contracts

Commercial contracts, NDAs and employment documents are routinely signed electronically, and e-signatures are recognised under laws including the US ESIGN Act and UETA, the EU’s eIDAS regulation and India’s Information Technology Act 2000. Rules on specific documents, such as equity grants or agreements governed by another country’s law, vary — confirm with your legal adviser where it matters. The legality guide covers India in detail.

• An audit trail per document. The downloadable audit trail shows the document ID, sent and completed dates, and when each signer was emailed, viewed and signed.
• Access limited to participants. Only the sender, signers and observers on a document can open it, and signers only see the document they were asked to sign.
• Encryption in transit and at rest. Documents travel over HTTPS/TLS and are stored in encrypted cloud storage — see eSignature security.
• Aadhaar eSign in India. For Indian agreements where signer identity matters, Aadhaar eSign adds OTP verification through eMudhra and a PKI-signed PDF.

Customers in regulated sectors may ask how your contracts are signed during procurement. Answer from what SignPe actually records, and keep your own retention and data-protection policies for the signed copies you download.

How to send a SaaS order form for signature

1. 1

   Upload the order form

   Upload the order form, with the master agreement attached as extra pages, as a PDF or Word file.

2. 2

   Add the signers

   Choose Set signer order. Add the customer’s signatory first and your authorised signatory last, and copy the account executive as an observer.

3. 3

   Place the fields

   Add Signature, Full Name, Designation and Date fields for each signer, and Initials on the pricing page.

4. 4

   Send and follow up

   The customer is emailed a Review & Sign Document link. Watch for the Opened status and use Remind if the deal stalls.

5. 5

   Receive the signed copy

   Once your signatory countersigns, everyone receives the signed PDF and the audit trail is ready to download.