SMB Series: Top 10 eSignature Use Cases for Small Businesses

Electronic Signatures help you streamline and digitise business processes. Whether you’re looking for a good place to start or for additional use cases to increase your organisation’s efficiency, check out these top 10 ways that Small Businesses (SMBs) use Docusign eSignature.

1. Sales contracts

For many businesses, sales contracts are the most frequently signed item—and the most important. This can include multinational enterprise business-to-business sales or even a residential cleaning business. One area where electronic signatures have gained tremendous acceptance is residential real estate transactions. In fact, Docusign has been a part of tens of millions of real estate transactions.

Business examples: B2B sales, real estate contracts, service businesses

2. Vendor/supplier agreements

Small businesses are often at a disadvantage in negotiating with vendors, so it is valuable to be able to lock in the price and terms quickly, as soon as an agreement is reached. Rather than waiting hours or days, you can finalise the agreement within minutes.

Business examples: retail, consumer or business services

3. New customer forms

If your customers need to fill out forms or other paperwork to do business with you, electronic signatures have a place in your business. Not only do you save on paper and printing, but you can also eliminate rekeying of data, which saves time and translates to virtually no errors.

Business examples: salons and spas, doctor’s offices

4. Change orders

For project-focused businesses, change is constant. There may be a surprise situation in the middle of a lengthy project, or the clients may simply change their minds. By adding electronic signatures to change orders, you can avoid project holdups and easily maintain a complete, documented “paper” trail for review in the cloud anytime.

Business examples: architects, web designers, construction.

5. Customer approvals

For businesses that deliver anything custom-made, that last approval prior to manufacture is critical. Electronic signatures let you capture and store approvals with ease, so you can quickly move on to completing the order.

Business examples: print shops, custom art/furniture

6. Employee onboarding

There’s plenty of paperwork associated with hiring a new person The contact forms, benefits enrollment, automatic deposit for paychecks… the list goes on. All those documents can be handled securely and with ease using electronic signatures.

Business examples: any with more than one employee

7. Intellectual property licensing & other legal agreements

Because Docusign electronic signatures are legally binding with a court-admissible audit trail, they are ideal for common legal documents, such as intellectual property licensing.

Business examples: franchise stores, technology companies

8. Non-disclosure agreements

In a competitive world, non-disclosure agreements provide security, enabling you to do business more freely. Using traditional pen and paper, they are highly inconvenient, so often go overlooked. With electronic signatures, it’s so easy and fast—they can be signed via a mobile device, or even in-person, enabling you to hold your discussions with confidence.

Business examples: employee NDAs, licensing negotiations, protecting IP

9. Distributor/channel agreements

If partnerships with dealers, distributors or other sales channels are core to the success of your business, electronic signatures can make it easy and more attractive to do business with you.

Business examples: technology companies, wholesalers

10. Parental consent & age verification

Whether you work with kids or need to verify the age of your employees to serve alcohol at your restaurant, electronic signatures can integrate with ID verification solutions to make it easy.

Business examples:  kids’ camps and school field trips

What are you waiting for? Sign up for a free trial to start digitising your business processes today. Or, if you’re already a customer, check out this Docusign University learning path to help you expand the ways you use Docusign.