Payworks Shows How AI-Powered Agreement Management Transforms Client Onboarding
Payworks, a Canadian payroll and HR provider, eliminated fragmented intake processes by integrating Docusign Intelligent Agreement Management (IAM) with Salesforce and achieved a a 41% faster close rate for sellers.
For many firms, onboarding new customers represents the single largest roadblock to capturing revenue. According to the OnRamp State of Onboarding 2026 Report, 57% of SaaS leaders report opens in a new tab that onboarding friction directly impacts revenue generation.
“Technology should remove friction, not add to it. Our goal is to make it easier for customers and employees to get what they need, when they need it.”
To break through this frustrating bottleneck, companies like Payworks are migrating to advanced, AI-enabled agreement management technology. Research from Docusign and Deloitte reveals that transforming agreement management processes delivers massive, measurable outcomes across industries:
36% average gains in operational efficiency
29% average cost savings
72% average improvement in agreement accuracy
The question for leadership is not if agreement workflows should be automated, but how quickly they can be modernized to support scalable growth.
Why do fragmented onboarding processes hurt revenue?
Payworks, a Canadian-operated provider of HR and payroll solutions, was frustrated by segregated, disjointed sales and customer onboarding processes that limited its ability to scale. Payworks sought technology to streamline operations and reduce friction for both internal staff and clients.
“Our client intake and contracting processes were very fragmented, and inefficient processes are never good for any business. Our biggest hurdle to overcome was to find the right technology to help us transform that process and the business.”
Willie MalcolmVP of Operations, Payworks
This friction negatively impacted revenue capture, customer experience, and the team.
“Whenever there's friction in processes, there’s a cost,” Malcolm says. “The obvious one on the sales side is the ability to convert leads into cash, but there's also a human element that can't be ignored. For us, fragmented processes impacted both internal user and client experiences. You want people to be engaged and excited to come to work, and when there’s friction and a poor experience, it hurts that.”
For Malcolm, this friction was holding the company back from achieving its ambitious growth goals.
“We realized that inefficient processes would not enable us to scale to where we wanted to be,” Malcolm says. “At the same time, we realized we would need better technology in order to scale. That really got us thinking about the next steps to take to support the growth of the business.”
How to integrate Docusign IAM with Salesforce for automated onboarding
To eliminate onboarding friction, Payworks integrated Docusign Intelligent Agreement Management (IAM), an AI-powered platform designed to automate, analyze, and manage the entire contract lifecycle, with its Salesforce CRM platform. This integration transformed its sales workflow into a sleek, two-step automated process.
The two-step automated contract workflow
Pre-population intake data: Docusign IAM automatically extracts existing customer details directly from Salesforce CRM fields.
Generate contracts instantly: The system generates contracts dynamically, reducing manual data rekeying, blank fields, and human errors.
“The big ‘a-ha’ moment was seeing the intake data coming into our CRM and realizing the need for sales to rekey and enter that data multiple times. Now, we’re able to leverage that data to generate our contracts much more seamlessly.”
Willie MalcolmVP of Operations at Payworks, Payworks
The result? Faster signatures and a happier team.
The shift from manual, error-prone file exchanges (Word, PDF, Excel) to an integrated IAM system delivered immediate, measurable operational improvements.
Payworks Docusign IAM integration results
Time to sign | Reduced average time to sign by 25%. |
Same-day completion | 87% of agreements are now completed in a single day (up from 55%). |
Sales velocity | 41% decrease in time to close deals for sellers |
“The move to IAM has been big from a productivity standpoint. We’ve gained hours back for our sales team, but just as importantly, we’ve enhanced their experience with the product.”
Willie MalcolmVP of Operations, Payworks
“The move to IAM has been big from a productivity standpoint,” Malcolm says. “We’ve gained hours back for our sales team, but just as importantly, we’ve enhanced their experience with the product.”
This success was recently recognized, with Payworks being named a 2026 Docusign Customer Awards winner in the Champions of Operations category for seamlessly integrating IAM with Salesforce.
What are the long-term benefits of AI agreement management?
As organization leaders look to the next three to five years, the integration of AI and automated agreement management platforms will be the defining factor in scaling client services.
For leaders navigating digital transformation, Malcolm offers a direct piece of advice: “Don’t hesitate.”
“There's no better time than now to embrace it. Leverage it for the areas where it's going to add lots of value and really try and transform your business to meet your goals and get to the next level.”
For Payworks, Docusign IAM has established a reliable, flexible foundation to extend these efficiencies to other corporate processes.
“The partnership with Docusign has redefined what success looks like for our team,” Malcolm says. “From my perspective, it's actually moved the bar farther for us. We now have technology that's going to allow us to really stretch ourselves and achieve goals beyond what we would have been able to do without it.”
Read the full Payworks case study on AI-powered customer onboarding.
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