Message of the Week 19 - 23 April 2021

E-signatures: Providing simple, authentic and legally binding ways to sign documents

Despite the fact that electronic signatures have been around for a while now and are ratified as a valid way to sign the majority of documents by the South African Electronic Communications and Transactions Act (2002), the uptake of e-signatures has been historically slow. That was, of course, until the COVID-19 pandemic turned everything on its head with social distancing. Suddenly e-signatures became a convenient way to sign-off on business without having to meet in person. 

Because our mission at Kyocera is always to make our clients’ lives easier and more streamlined through innovative technology solutions, we partnered with LAWtrust in mid-2018 already in order to provide customers with an easy way to sign off documents electronically. 

It is important that we make our clients aware of this technology and that the solution integrates with Kyocera’s Enterprise Content Management (ECM) system.

As this article which appeared on ITWeb points out, with the increase in digital transformation that has taken place as a result of the pandemic, most people have become used to signing off documents remotely and electronically with the result that e-signatures will likely become the preferred way of signing professional paperwork in the future. 

The article lists some of the benefits of e-signatures, which include:

• Accelerating business processes by allowing anyone to sign a document from anywhere in the world, thereby ensuring that deals can be concluded in real-time and aren’t held up by the need to meet in person or to courier paperwork.
• Improved control over processes by allowing better visibility and control over processes. E-signatures provide an audit trail which allows the document owner to review who has signed the document, as well as when and where they have signed it.
• Flexibility. A good electronic signature makes it easy to set up departments and role based groups (for example, accounts), so that any delegated individuals from that group can sign the document.
• Tamper-resistant. E-signatures protect the integrity of the entire document because even a simple change can render the signature invalid. In this respect, e-signatures are more secure than paper signed documents.

By incorporating this solution into our sales offerings, we can help our clients to stay up to date with digital developments, as well as to improve workflows, speed up processes relating to document management, and help to reduce costs. 

Sylvester Swaine - Solutions Consultant - KYOCERA Document Solutions South Africa