Is Your Current E-Signing Solution Holding You Back? Discover What Features Can Boost Efficiency and Security

The right e-signing platform should enhance your workflow, not complicate it. With advanced tools like Agrello, businesses can eliminate the time-consuming steps associated with traditional and basic digital signing processes, such as creating, managing, and tracking documents manually. Whether you need to handle multiple contracts at once or ensure legal compliance with minimal effort, choosing the right tool can significantly impact your operational efficiency.

In this post, we’ll explore how you can evaluate whether your current e-signing solution is truly serving your business and what features to look for to ensure you're maximizing productivity, security, and ease of use.

Let’s get started by identifying the common limitations of basic e-signing tools and how a solution like Agrello can elevate your document management process.

Identifying Common Shortcomings in Current E-Signing Solutions

Many businesses adopt basic e-signing tools thinking they’ll be sufficient for their needs. However, over time, these tools may reveal limitations that hinder productivity and create unnecessary frustrations. Here are some common issues that might signal it’s time to reevaluate your current e-signing solution:

1. Manual Workarounds Still in Place

Despite moving to a digital platform, some companies still find themselves handling parts of the signing process manually. This often involves emailing contracts back and forth, printing and scanning documents, or manually filing signed contracts. These steps are not only time-consuming but also introduce the risk of lost documents and miscommunications. For example, approximately 71% of companies cannot find 10% or more of their contracts. This can lead to penalties, missed renewals, and other financial impacts.

For example, if you have to chase down signatures via email and manually track the progress of each contract, you're losing valuable time that could be better spent on more critical tasks.

2. Lack of Bulk Processing Features

If your business deals with a high volume of contracts or repetitive agreements, manually processing each one can be overwhelming. Many basic e-signing tools do not offer features like bulk document creation or signing, meaning you have to create and send contracts one by one.

In contrast, advanced tools like Agrello allow you to automate these repetitive tasks. For example, Agrello can automatically generate multiple contracts from an Excel sheet, eliminating the need to manually create each document. Agrello’s bulk document creation feature enables users to generate multiple contracts simultaneously from an Excel sheet or template, dramatically reducing the time and effort required to manage high volumes of documents​​.

3. Limited Security and Compliance Measures

For industries where compliance and security are critical, relying on a basic e-signing solution can expose your business to unnecessary risks. Many basic tools do not provide strong encryption, detailed audit trails, or the level of compliance required by EU and other international regulations. Without these features, your contracts may not meet the necessary legal standards, putting your business at risk of legal complications.

Agrello’s platform, for instance, offers legally compliant, secure e-signatures that meet EU regulations. This not only ensures the safety of your documents but also guarantees that your business stays compliant with the latest legal requirements​.

4. Lack of Integration with Existing Workflows

An e-signing tool should enhance your workflow, not disrupt it. However, many businesses find that their current solutions don’t integrate well with their existing tools, like Microsoft Office, Google Drive, or other document management systems. This lack of integration forces users to switch between different platforms, increasing the risk of errors and workflow disruptions.

Agrello, on the other hand, integrates seamlessly with popular tools like Microsoft Office and Excel, allowing you to manage your entire document workflow within a single, easy-to-use platform​.

5. No Clear Overview of Document Status

Managing multiple contracts without a clear overview of their status can lead to delays, confusion, and missed deadlines. On average, companies lose about 9% of their annual revenue due to poor contract management practices. Many basic solutions lack features that provide real-time updates on contract status, leaving businesses unsure of which contracts are pending, signed, or overdue.

Agrello simplifies this process by offering a dashboard view that gives users an instant overview of their entire contract management process. With Agrello, you can easily see which documents are awaiting signatures, which ones are complete, and where follow-ups are needed, ensuring nothing falls through the cracks​.

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What to Look for in an E-Signing Solution

Now that we’ve covered some of the common issues with basic e-signing tools, it’s important to understand the key features to consider when choosing a more effective solution. A robust e-signing platform should streamline workflows, enhance security, and improve overall efficiency without complicating existing processes. Here’s what to keep in mind when evaluating options:

1. Automation and Time-Saving Features

One of the main advantages of an advanced e-signing solution is its ability to automate repetitive tasks. If your current tool requires significant manual effort, upgrading to a platform with bulk document creation and automated reminders can significantly reduce the workload. For example, platforms that allow you to create multiple documents from a template and populate them with data from an Excel file can save a great deal of time, especially for businesses handling a high volume of contracts.

2. Ease of Use and Quick Onboarding

No matter how powerful an e-signing platform is, it won’t deliver value if it’s difficult to use or requires long, complex onboarding. The best tools are designed to be intuitive and easy to implement, especially for teams with limited technical expertise. A solution with a clear, user-friendly interface and a straightforward onboarding process ensures that your team can start benefiting from it quickly, without the need for extensive training.

3. Comprehensive Security and Legal Compliance

When dealing with sensitive contracts, security and compliance are essential. Look for platforms that offer strong encryption, secure authentication methods, and features like audit trails to track every step of the signing process. It’s also crucial that the platform meets relevant legal frameworks such as eIDAS or ESIGN, depending on your location. These features ensure that your e-signatures are legally binding and that your documents are protected against unauthorized access or tampering.

4. Seamless Integration with Existing Tools

Another important consideration is how well the platform integrates with the tools your team already uses. Whether it’s Microsoft Office, Google Drive, or other document management systems, the e-signing platform should fit seamlessly into your existing workflows. Integration capabilities, like those offered through Zapier, can help connect the platform to a wider range of business applications, making it easier to streamline document management processes without unnecessary disruptions.

5. Real-Time Document Tracking and Status Overview

Efficient document management requires visibility into the status of your contracts. A good e-signing tool will offer real-time updates on document progress, from signatures pending to completed agreements. Having a clear overview of your contracts allows you to track deadlines, follow up on pending actions, and ensure that nothing gets overlooked.

6. Scalability and Affordability

As your business grows, your e-signing needs will likely evolve. Look for a solution that can scale with your business, offering flexible pricing options that accommodate additional users and more advanced features as needed. While it’s important to find a platform that meets your current needs, it’s equally important to ensure that it can handle future growth without drastically increasing costs.

The Agrello Advantage

When evaluating e-signing solutions, it’s important to consider how well they address your specific needs, especially if your business handles a high volume of contracts or operates with limited IT resources. Agrello offers a practical set of tools designed to tackle some of the most common challenges businesses face with document management and signing. Here’s how Agrello stands out, particularly in areas where many basic solutions fall short.

1. Bulk Document Creation for High Volumes of Contracts

For businesses that need to handle multiple contracts simultaneously, Agrello’s bulk document creation feature can be a significant time-saver. Rather than creating, sending, and tracking contracts one at a time, Agrello allows you to generate hundreds of documents at once, using data pulled from Excel. This is especially useful for companies with standardized contracts, such as employment agreements or recurring legal documents.

This feature not only speeds up the creation process but also minimizes the risk of human error, as all documents are generated from pre-approved templates​​.

2. Seamless Integration into Existing Workflows

Agrello is designed to integrate smoothly with the tools businesses already rely on, such as Microsoft Word and Excel. This means you can continue working within your familiar environment without needing to learn new software or disrupt your existing processes. Additionally, with integrations through Zapier, Agrello can connect with thousands of other applications, allowing you to automate tasks even further and streamline your entire document management process​.

3. Enhanced Security and Legal Compliance

For industries where compliance and security are crucial, Agrello offers secure e-signature methods that meet legal standards, including compliance with the EU’s eIDAS regulation. This ensures that all e-signatures processed through Agrello are legally binding and secure. The platform also provides detailed audit trails that track every action taken on a document, from the initial creation to the final signature. This transparency is critical for businesses that need to maintain strict compliance records​​.

4. Real-Time Document Tracking and Status Overview

One of the key advantages of Agrello is its ability to provide users with real-time updates on the status of their documents. Through its dashboard, users can see which contracts are pending, signed, or awaiting further action. This reduces the need for constant follow-up and helps teams stay organized by having a clear view of which tasks are completed and which need attention​.

5. Affordability with Flexibility to Scale

Agrello’s pricing model is tailored for small and medium-sized businesses, making it an affordable option without sacrificing functionality. As your business grows, Agrello’s features and pricing can scale with you, ensuring that you can manage larger volumes of contracts or add more users without a significant increase in costs. This flexibility makes it a practical solution for businesses looking to improve their e-signing processes without overcommitting to an expensive enterprise solution​​.

Case Study: How Smarten Saved Time with Agrello

A real-world example of how an e-signing solution can transform business operations comes from Smarten Logistics, the largest Estonian capital-based third-party logistics (3PL) service provider. With over 300 employees and a high turnover in their workforce, Smarten’s HR department found themselves spending excessive amounts of time manually preparing, sending, and tracking employment contracts.

The Challenge

Due to the seasonal nature of their business, Smarten frequently needed to hire additional workers during peak periods. This meant that the HR department was often responsible for preparing and managing a large volume of employment contracts. Manually tracking the status of these contracts—whether they had been signed, and if so, by whom—created inefficiencies that ate up a significant portion of the HR team’s time. Additionally, all the signed contracts had to be organized into folders, which added more manual work and increased the chances of error.

When a legal update required changes to all existing employment contracts, the HR department was faced with the task of manually preparing, renewing, and organizing over 300 contracts. This was not only time-consuming but also increased the risk of mistakes and delays.

The Solution

Smarten implemented Agrello’s e-signing platform in late 2022, focusing on its bulk document creation feature to streamline their contract management process. The HR department uploaded several employment contract templates into Agrello, allowing them to quickly generate multiple contracts using the data stored in Excel.

With this setup, two HR specialists were able to prepare all the contracts, while the HR Director could easily review and sign them digitally. Agrello’s dashboard view also provided real-time visibility into the status of each contract, eliminating the need to chase down unsigned documents or manually organize them. Instead of emailing contracts back and forth, the entire process became automated and centralized​.

The Results

By switching to Agrello, Smarten’s HR department was able to save approximately one week’s worth of manual work during their peak hiring season. The platform’s reusable templates and bulk document creation tools enabled them to generate, sign, and store contracts more efficiently, with fewer errors and much less effort.

Mari-Liis Kreem, the HR Director at Smarten, expressed how Agrello simplified their process, stating, “The time required to learn and start using Agrello doesn’t compare to manually preparing 300 contracts. Once the initial data is correct and available in Excel, further contract creation is incredibly quick and easy.” She also noted how the platform provided a clear overview of all documents, ensuring the entire HR department could work together seamlessly​.

Conclusion

In today’s business environment, having the right tools can make all the difference when it comes to efficiency and productivity.

If your current e-signing solution is causing more headaches than it’s solving—whether through manual processes, lack of integration, or limited security—it may be holding your business back from achieving its full potential.

As we’ve discussed, upgrading to a more comprehensive e-signing platform can significantly improve how your team handles document management. By automating repetitive tasks, ensuring legal compliance, and providing real-time visibility into the status of your contracts, a robust solution like Agrello can help your business save time and reduce errors.

The Smarten Logistics case study demonstrates just how impactful these features can be. By switching to Agrello, their HR department saved a week’s worth of manual work during their busiest season, highlighting the real-world benefits of a solution that’s designed to simplify and streamline the signing process.

To help you evaluate the right e-signing solution for your business, we also provide an Evaluation Matrix that you can download either in Word or Excel format. This matrix will assist you in comparing different solutions based on key criteria such as bulk document creation, security, and integration capabilities.

If you’re ready to explore how an e-signing platform can elevate your business’s efficiency, we encourage you to take the next step:

• Try Agrello for Free: Sign up for a free 14-day trial and see how Agrello’s automation, bulk creation, and secure e-signing tools can transform your contract management processes.
• Book a Demo: Schedule a personalized demo to explore how Agrello can fit into your existing workflows and provide solutions tailored to your needs.

Don’t let outdated or inefficient e-signing tools hold your business back. Take control of your document management processes and boost your team’s productivity with a solution built to meet today’s challenges.

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