How to Use PDFs for Common Business Documents that Need Signatures.

With any type or size of business, you’re going to have many different types of documents that need signatures. Electronic or digital signatures are common nowadays. Signatures have a range of purposes — they’re used to show agreement, validate, authenticate, protect, verify, comply, bind, and be accountable.

Obtaining e-signatures in PDF documents is efficient, safe, and secure. Request signatures in PDFs or sign PDF documents yourself with any one of our Adobe Acrobat services. Read on to find out more.

What you’ll learn.

• Common types of business documents that require signatures
• Reasons to use digital signatures
• The legality of digital signatures
• Three different types of digital signatures
• Advantages of using Adobe Acrobat for electronic signatures

Common business documents that need signatures.

There is a wide array of common business and commercial documents that require signatures, including —

Contracts and agreements.

As legally binding documents between two or more parties, contracts need to be signed off by the people involved. Contracts can cover a wide range of matters, from business agreements to personal arrangements. Some of the various types of contracts businesses may need in place include —

• Sales contracts
• Employment contracts
• Service agreements
• Non-disclosure agreements (NDAs)
• Partnership agreements
• Franchise contracts
• Real estate contracts
• Lease agreements
• Vendor agreements
• Licensing agreements
• Financial contracts
• Supply contracts
• And more.

Forms.

Forms that are used to collect data will often require a dated signature to verify the information given is true and accurate. Some of the different types of forms that need signatures include —

• Consent forms
• Application forms
• Purchase orders
• Work orders
• Enrolment forms
• Intake forms
• Registration forms
• Membership forms
• Subscription forms
• Health and safety forms
• And more.

Other documents.

Other types of business documents that often require signatures include —

• Business proposals
• Reports
• Operating manuals
• Procedure manuals
• Document reviews
• Change requests
• Maintenance logs
• And more.

Reasons to use digital signatures.

Digital or electronic signatures offer you some advantages over signatures with pen and paper. Some key reasons why you might use electronic signatures include —

• Convenience.
  Digital signatures can be obtained from anywhere on any device. There’s no need to mail documents or have people physically present with you. This makes your document signing processes more convenient for everyone involved.

• Efficiency.
  Electronic signatures speed up the signing process. Documents can be signed, shared, and stored digitally in an instant by email and online. This reduces your time and effort in printing, mailing, and scanning paper documents.

• Enhanced security.
  The electronic signatures you obtain via Adobe Acrobat products come with advanced security features. These include encryption, authentication, and audit trails. Such features help ensure the authenticity and integrity of the signed documents.

• Cost savings.
  With digital signatures, you can save money on paper, printing, postage, labour, and documentation storage costs.

• Reduced environmental impact.
  Keeping your business documents electronic and using digital signatures reduces the need for paper, paper, printing, and physical transportation. This contributes to environmental sustainability and a reduced carbon footprint.

The legality of digital signatures.

A question often asked is are digital signatures legal? The answer, in most cases, is yes. PDF signatures and digital signatures are legally valid and recognized in various business and commercial documents. However, there are exceptions. For example, documents that must be served to a person personally, wills, and power of attorney documents. There are also different types of digital signatures to consider.

Always check the laws regarding electronic transactions for your country, state or territory and apply the requirements to your documents. Electronic signature laws and regulations in Australia fall under variations of the Electronic Transactions and Communications Act.

The three types of digital signatures.

When you’re adding digital signature processes to your business documentation, be aware that there are three different types. The choice of which type of PDF digital signature to use will depend on your specific use case and the level of trust and legal compliance required. Simple digital signatures are suitable for many everyday applications. Advanced and qualified electronic signatures are essential when strong legal validity is required.

The three types of electronic signatures are —

• Simple digital signatures.
  Also known as simple e-signatures (SES), these are basic digital signatures. The person signs the document using their mouse, keyboard, or fingertip. With lower security settings, anyone who opens the document can sign it.

• Advanced electronic signatures.
  Advanced electronic signatures (AES) include a secure validation process through a digital certificate. This is usually linked to the personal information of the signatory such as their device or an identification number.

• Qualified electronic signatures.
  Qualified electronic signatures (QES) use a multi-factor identification process to authenticate the identities of signatories. They provide the highest level of trust in legally binding documents.

Advantages of Adobe Acrobat for electronic signatures.

With Adobe Acrobat, PDF e-signatures are possible with any of our products and services. Some of the advantages of using Adobe Acrobat for digital signatures are —

Multiple services.

We have multiple Adobe Acrobat solutions to suit businesses of all sizes and types. They can all be used for requesting signatures on PDFs and signing PDF documents themselves.

• Adobe Acrobat Reader.
  Adobe Acrobat Reader is free and available in desktop and Acrobat Reader Mobile versions.

• Adobe Acrobat Online.
  Adobe Acrobat Online is our web-based service for working on PDF files. Sign PDFs online or get PDF signatures online.

• Adobe Acrobat and Adobe Acrobat Pro.
  Adobe Acrobat and Acrobat Pro have security settings and features to protect your PDFs, send PDFs for signature, track responses, send reminders, and more.

• Adobe Sign.
  Adobe Sign is our solution to integrate with your other applications to get e-signatures efficiently.

Set digital signature security.

Set your preferences for digital signature creation, appearance, verification, identities, certificates, and timestamping. Just click on the Menu and scroll down to Preferences.

Get signatures fast.

From the Tools, select Request e-signatures or Fill and Sign. Then just add email addresses to distribute your document directly to recipients for signature.

Create, edit and manage PDF content.

PDFs aren’t static documents. Along with incorporating offline and online PDF signatures, there’s a lot you can do to create, edit and manage the contents of your PDF files. For example —

• Convert to and from PDF files and preserve your document formatting.
• Edit PDF files and add text, highlights, notes, and more.
• Compress a PDF file to reduce the file size for sharing or archiving.
• Merge PDFs to combine multiple files.
• Extract PDF pages to create a separate PDF file with one or more pages.
• And more.

Related content.

Explore some of our other articles to learn more about how to use PDFs with business documents.

• Streamline Sign-off and Approval Processes with Digital Signatures and PDFs
• Cloud PDF Storage and File Sharing — Access Documents Anywhere, Anytime
• Create and Manage Digital Contracts and Forms with Interactive PDFs