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Signing a document

The e-signature page a client or subcontractor lands on.

Signing a document

What it is

The signing page is where a client, a subcontractor or anyone else you send a PDF to for signature reads it and signs it. They see the document page by page, type their name, draw a signature, agree to sign electronically and press one button. When the last person has signed, Base stamps every signature and a certificate page onto the PDF and files the signed copy in your documents as a new version of the original. One document, signed in turn, not a copy each.

Before you start

  • The document must be a PDF in the job's or the business's documents. Word files cannot be sent for signature.
  • You send it from inside Base. On any PDF in Documents, Send offers two ways: email it as an attachment (nobody signs) or Choose signers for e-signature. On a job, Client → Relationship has Send for signature with the client contacts who have an email address ready to tick. The assistant can do the same when you ask it to send something for signature.
  • Each signer gets their own link by email. The link is the credential, and every signer outside your business must also confirm a six-digit code emailed to the same address before the signing pad unlocks, so a forwarded link cannot sign. Someone on your own team who is logged in to Base as the signer skips the code.
  • A request stays open for 30 days unless you set a different expiry when you send it.
  • If the PDF has signature fields in it (signature, name, date, position, company), Base works out which belong to which signer and writes their details into those boxes. A PDF with no fields gets a signature certificate page added at the end instead.

How to

  1. The request title, the document name, "for signature by" their name, and your message if you wrote one.
  2. The document, drawn page by page so it reads on a phone. If someone before them has already signed, they see that signature on the document.
  3. A box headed Verify it's you, explaining that a code will be emailed to their address.
  4. A closed request shows a plain notice instead: expired ("Contact the sender to reissue the request"), cancelled, or already completed or declined. A wrong link says "Link not found".

Sign the document (the signer)

  1. Press Email me the code. Base emails a six-digit code to the signer's own address. It lasts fifteen minutes; one can be sent per minute.
  2. Type the code and press Verify. Five wrong tries or an expired code means asking for a new one with Didn't get it? Send a new code.
  3. The box Sign this document opens. It says what the document asks of them: "Your details go straight onto the signing lines on page 3: your signature, your name, today's date", or, with no fields, that their name and signature are recorded on a certificate page.
  4. They check their Full legal name (prefilled from the request), fill Position / title and Company if the document has those boxes, and draw their signature on the pad. Drawing is required when the document has a signature box for them, optional otherwise. clear wipes the pad. The date is today's and is filled in when they sign.
  5. They tick "I agree that my electronic signature is the legal equivalent of my handwritten signature, and that I have read and agree to the attached document." and press Sign document.
  6. The page confirms Signed. If others still have to sign, it names who is still to sign and says the signed copy is issued once everyone has. If they were the last, it offers Open the signed document.

Decline to sign (the signer)

  1. Press I can't sign this.
  2. Type a reason (required, so you know what to fix) and press Decline.
  3. The page says "You declined to sign. The sender has been notified." The request closes as declined for everyone.

See where a request stands (you)

  1. Open the document in Documents or the job's Client → Relationship tab. Each request shows every signer and whether they have viewed, signed or declined.
  2. When everyone has signed, the signed PDF appears in the same place as a new version of the original document, with the same name and type, tagged Signed, marked final.

What happens on its own

  • Opening the link marks that signer as viewed and records it on the request's audit trail.
  • Each signature is written straight onto the shared document, so the next signer sees it. Sent codes, confirmed codes, signatures and declines are all logged with the time.
  • When the last signer signs, Base stamps the certificate page, files the signed copy as a new version of the source document (same name and type, tagged Signed), and marks the request completed. If the signed document was a quote version, that quote is also recorded as accepted by e-signature, and the job's quote trail shows it.
  • Your inbox in Base is told by default when an outside party signs and others are still to sign, when the request completes, and when someone declines (a client's decline of a quote or variation is reported as that instead).
  • Reminders and expiry notices for open requests are available under Automations but are off until you turn them on.
  • Base never signs on anyone's behalf and never adds a signer you did not name.

Things that surprise people

  • The signing page does not email the signed copy. The last signer gets a link on the page; everyone else sees "the signed copy is issued once everyone has signed". Send the signed version from Documents if people need it in their inbox.
  • A signer with no signature box in the PDF can sign without drawing: their typed name on the certificate page is the signature.
  • The code is emailed to the address you entered for the signer. A typo in the email means nobody can sign that request; cancel it and send again.
  • One decline closes the whole request. Fix the document and send a new request.
  • If signing cannot be recorded for a technical reason the page refuses to sign at all rather than signing without a record, and tells the signer to try later.