I have spent a considerable amount of time working with and speaking to Security Alarm companies, Industry Experts and Funders on the benefits, compliance and best practices of electronic signatures. For what is historically a paper-based industry when it comes to handling business processes, contracts, and internal documents, eOriginal has had the opportunity and pleasure to work with a few innovative Security Alarm Companies to help them to streamline their business processes using SmartSign, our electronic signature and life-cycle management solution.

Today, many other Security Alarm Companies have taken the initiative to begin looking into the benefits of electronic signatures. While more and more companies are looking into eSignatures, there seems to be a few common questions and concerns. While most perceived barriers can be easily overcome, security alarm companies and funders should take into consideration a few key points when evaluating and implementing electronic signatures such as:

• How to present FTC regulated Consumer Disclosures.
• Will your Funders (Banks) approve of the process?
• Will going electronic affect your RMR?
• Will other companies be able to purchase or acquire my contracts?

These are just a few areas of interest that need to be addressed. Now the benefits are apparent; other than saving time and money, your organization will have a few important advantages over your competition.

• Have contracts, lease agreements, installation forms, signed and processed in minutes
• Easily facilitate contract renewals, especially in states outlawing the evergreen clause
• Reduce labor and material costs associated with printing, faxing, scanning, shipping, and archiving

In just a few short days eOriginal, along with industry leaders, will be addressing the most common questions and concerns in a 60-minute educational webinar. What we hope to accomplish is to simply bring a better understanding to how electronic processes can replace aging paper-based systems. If you are interested, please don’t hesitate to register or contact us to learn more about the webinar or our experience with security alarm companies.

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A few weeks ago I wrote a post, “What Does it Really Cost to have 10 Documents Signed”, where I explored the average costs associated with physically shipping, filing, and managing documents. I reviewed the costs of everything from printing to filing, but looking back, I realized I really only took a good look at the initial front end costs and benefits. There’s a whole other side I’d like to explore on the long terms benefits to moving to an electronic process and leveraging our Trusted Repository.

When you sit down and think about it, what can happen to your documents a few months or even a few years down the road? For our purposes for this post, we’ll ignore disasters such as floods, fire, or any other natural disasters. Even though they are real concerns for many businesses both large and small, let’s just focus on pure business related matters like legal challenges, audits, and administrative costs and effects.

So what happens if one or more of your contracts/agreements are challenged in court or if you are being audited? The Trusted Repository gives you the utmost control to track access and protect your documents throughout their entire lifecycle. The Trusted Repository uses digital “tamper seals” to protect the documents and their associated audit trails. This allows you to track every action taken against your document from when it was signed to who had access providing a better evidentiary package than paper-based processes. Since the signing process takes place in a closed-loop system, we can establish with all reasonable certainty that the signature and everything associated with your documents haven’t been compromised, something that is a lot harder to prove with paper.

When being audited, think of the number of documents you’ll have to pull from storage, physically transfer, and keep secure during the entire process. The task can be very daunting. However, through an electronic process, the steps needed to be taken can be made a lot simpler and easier. The Trusted Repository allows you to retrieve documents in real-time. All you’ll need to do is simply identify the documents you need and through a few clicks of your mouse and maybe a few keys punched, you’ll be finished in a fraction of the time.

The administrative costs of both instances can really pile up depending on the number of documents, storage facilities, and employee salaries all factored in. Just think of the time it takes to pull one file, let alone ten plus. In the long run, you may never face a legal dispute or get audited, but the right system not only saves and makes you more money in the short term, but it also protects you in the long run. Offering solutions that make us a complete package (short and long term) for our clients are why we are able to build a consistent and impressive ROI for our clients.

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We all know how important it is to make every customer feel like they are your most important customer.  One great way to do this is to customize each signers experience so that each signer not only experiences exactly what they need to see and do, but they do and see it in the manor you want them to do it.

No matter how simple or complex your companies workflow (or each signers workflow) is eOriginal SmartSign can easily and effortlessly help you brand each workflow for you businesses’ needs. SmartSign Web has always allowed your organize to brand and customize the signing experience your signers see. Now SmartSign allows you to take it one step further. With eOriginal Transaction Types and eOriginal Role Based branding options, you may simply group like documents for your online repository into one grouping. This grouping allows you to set the default order each document will be shown to your signers, as well as which documents are required or optional by default.

SmartSign then takes this one step further to allow you to customize any and all branding and workflow options to that specific Transaction Type and even each specific signer.

• If you want one logo and set of colors for Transaction Type A and another logo and set of colors for Transaction Type B, that is easy as a click of the mouse.
• If you have a set of four documents and want to show documents 1 and 2 to Signer A, but documents 2 and 4 to Signer Two, just as easy.
• If you want notification emails to go to different distribution lists or want to use SmartSign’s push service to update different system based on the Transaction Type, even easier.
• If you want each set of customizable instructions to be different for each signer, because you just customized the documents each signer would see…you guessed it, simple as pie.

With SmartSign’s interactive dashboard you may quickly and easily create a transaction with any of your Transaction Types with just 1 click! If you would like to learn more about the use of SmartSign’s Transaction Types, Role Based Sort Order, and/or any other branding options please contact your customer support representative.

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SmartSign offers a number of methods for keeping track of your signer’s activities. The integrated Signature Tracker allows you to search for pending, in process and completed transactions in an ad hoc fashion, and to filter the results by date, status and other parameters. In another issue I’ll go into more detail on that, but this week I’ll talk about Email Notifications.

To enable email notifications, you need to be assigned a SmartSign administrator permission. If you do not see Branding Options under the Administration drop down menu, contact your company’s administrator or our support team. If you have access to the Branding Options page, click on the Workflow tab. Under the Email Notifications section, you will see a link to “Add a New Notification Rule For:” [action]. The list of actions includes when a signer enters, withdraws, completes signing, etc. Select your desired action and click the link.

The notification dialog pops up and allows you to define your recipients. You can address the notification email to specific email addresses or distribution groups. You can also tell SmartSign to copy the sender of the original signature invitation. Additional users can be copied or blind copied, depending on your business rules.

Some actions allow you to also include attachments, such as copies of the documents and a detailed history report. Attachments always come in Adobe PDF format. The history report includes all the user events recorded on the document, plus detailed signature information if the user has completed the signing process.

Click Save and you are done. Your new email notification rule will fire automatically the next time your configured event is triggered within SmartSign.

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Scott Palubinsky

Sales and Marketing Coordinator

The FHA is experiencing unprecedented growth increasing their market share from 3% to 35% in a relatively short period of time. This growth has prompted the FHA to seek efficiency enabling them to be more competitive and responsive to the industry’s trends. Realizing the benefits associated with a paperless process, the FHA is working to establish guidelines and procedures for the use of electronic signatures and records for the FHA insurance case binders.

What does this mean for the mortgage industry?  Margo Tank, Partner at Buckley Sandler LLP and counsel to the Electronic Signature and Records Association (ESRA), believes that FHA’s decision to embrace technology is significant for the agency and for the mortgage industry for a number of reasons:

• Forward Thinking.  The FHA’s thought-leadership in developing a set of guidelines designed to expedite the use of electronic records and signatures will establish the FHA as an innovative leader in the mortgage industry.
• Accelerate Electronic Adoption.  Many lenders are ready to embrace the use of electronic signatures and records but have been slow or reluctant to do so due to a lack of regulatory guidance and acceptance. Agency guidance will with out a doubt drive the use and acceptance of electronic signatures and records by the numerous entities that are part of the mortgage loan process.
• Flexibility and Improved Customer Service.  Through the incorporation of electronic signatures and the acceptance of electronic records, the FHA can be responsive to market demands and the need for change in the industry to stay competitive. Greater efficiency and reduced processing costs will enable the FHA to better serve its clients.
• Enhanced Data Security.   Electronic signature processing and records management will make sensitive customer information more secure. In today’s world, clients want the assurance that their information is protected.

In developing these guidelines, FHA understands the benefits of increased efficiency. Their goal is to move to a entirely paperless process, allowing them to fully realize the many benefits of technology, including transparency and reduced costs.

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As a financial professional for over 25 years, it becomes more evident every day that SaaS is a strong and powerful model designed to help companies of all sizes easily adapt and adopt new technologies while growing their business.  In today’s tough economic climate, companies need to do more with less.  Companies operate with smaller staffs, attempt to limit infrastructure investments, and are continually pressured to outperform their competitors. For many, SaaS is the answer and rightfully so.

In developing and executing any business plan, so much needs to be accomplished with limited resources.  eOriginal’s SmartSign® Web electronic signature solution does just that… help businesses thrive by streamlining their processes and allowing businesses to do more with less resources in a shorter period of time.  As Controller, I have watched our company migrate to many web-based applications including our financial accounting software, payroll services, email services, marketing campaigns, internet presence, web traffic monitoring, and so much more.  

In today’s world, software providers are continually bridging the gap between desktop applications and web-based applications where SaaS was thought to be too risky or underdeveloped.  Web-based applications have reduced the need for heavy infrastructure, intensive IT staffing, eased cash flow requirements, and greatly reduced set up times.   SaaS applications can be deployed in a matter of days allowing businesses to spend resources on other areas of their business playing a key role in the business’ success.

I firmly believe SaaS applications provide some of the most powerful and efficient tools available to companies.  The savings for a larger and more complex company only exponentially grow.  eOriginal® is both a scalable SaaS provider, enterprise solution provider, and consumer ourselves of several SaaS providers.  The model works in many environments and its applications are limitless.

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