Introduction
In Ledgy, you can easily request and collect digital signatures from your stakeholders. This article outlines the steps for inviting stakeholders to sign documents and addresses common questions about this process.
Creating a signature request
Create a single Signature Request via Documents > Signatures
Go to Documents > Signatures
Click on New Signature in the upper-right corner to initiate a new request
In the Create New Signature Invitation pop-up, choose the document that requires signatures from the list. If the document is not listed, click the Upload button next to the dropdown to upload the document.
Note: The document list also includes document templates. Selecting a template will generate the document and store it in the Data Room once the signature request is created. Any signatories set at the template level will be overridden by the signatories selected within the signature request.
Under Who should sign?, select the stakeholders who need to sign the document.
Note: Only natural stakeholders (not legal entities) can be invited to sign a document. If a legal entity needs to sign, you can invite a contact person from the entity listed as a stakeholder to sign on its behalf.
Under Signature Settings, select the signature provider and legal quality of your signature. Signature provider options include Ledgy, Skribble or DocuSign (if connected).
Note: If Skribble is selected as the signature provider, Ledgy will advise you to add the missing information to your stakeholders. For example, for the standard electronic signature (SES), you only need to specify the name and email of a stakeholder and for the advanced electronic signatures (AES) their mobile phone number and nationality have to be added as well.
For more details on the legal quality of signatures, refer to our help article on the Legal Basis for the Validity of Digital Signatures in Europe.
Once all information is entered, click Save Draft to create the signature request.
The document size should not exceed 1 MB.
Create a single or multiple Signature Requests from a document template via Documents > Templates
Go to Documents > Templates
Click the Create from template button in the top-right corner
In the pop-up, choose the appropriate date to use data from and select the template to generate the document.
Under For stakeholders, select the stakeholders you wish to send the signature request to. You can send signature requests in bulk to multiple stakeholders by selecting them here.
Note: Signatories specified at the template level will be automatically invited to sign. To check the default signatories set at the template level, go to Documents > Templates and view the assigned signatories for the specific template under the Default signatories column
Tick Create Signature Invitation Drafts to create the signature request drafts which will be stored in Documents > Signatures
Optionally, tick Share with Stakeholders Immediately if you want the document to be shared as soon as it’s generated.
Once all required details are filled out, click Create to complete the process.
When creating signature requests through this method, customisation of the signature settings is not available. The default settings configured under Documents > Signatures > Signature Settings will automatically apply to the signature drafts created.
Invite stakeholders to sign the document
Go to Documents > Signatures
Find the signature draft(s) that you created.
If Ready to start appears under its Status and no adjustments to stakeholder data are required, proceed to step 3.
Note: Stakeholder fields can only be edited before the signature request is sent.
If the Status indicates Missing information, follow these steps to update your stakeholder data:
Click the Edit button next to the Missing information status.
In the pop-up, you’ll see the specific information missing from the stakeholder's profile. To edit this data, click Edit stakeholders, which will open the Stakeholders page in a new tab where you can make the necessary updates. For more details on updating individual or multiple stakeholders, please refer to this article.
Once the data is updated, return to the signature request tab and click Save draft. The status of the signature request should now display Ready to start.
To request signatures for a specific document, click on the Invite button next to the status within the document row and then click Confirm in the pop-up that follows.
If you wish to initiate the signing process for multiple documents, multi-select the documents by ticking them on the left and then clicking on Invite in the bottom right corner.
A pop-up will appear giving you a summary of the invites to be sent out. Click Confirm invites to send out the signature invitations.
Note: Once the signing process has begun, you can delete the signature request from your dashboard but the signature invitation cannot be cancelled. If not all parties have signed, deleting the signature invitation will grey out the request on the stakeholder's dashboard with the status Deleted by Company and the document will be inaccessible.
If all parties have signed, you can delete the signature from the signatures page and from the documents, however, the stakeholder will still see this document in their dashboard showing the status as All signed.
FAQ
How do I know who signed the document?
The status bar will indicate which of the signatories have signed and which are still pending. Place the cursor over the icon to view the names of the stakeholders that have been either invited or signed the document already.
What happens if I delete a document in the Data Room after requesting signatures?
If the signing was not completed:
The signature request will be removed from Documents > Signatures in the company view however assigned signers will still see a record of this within their personal dashboard under Signatures with the status Deleted by company but the document will be inaccessible.
If the signing was completed:
The signature request will be removed from Documents > Signatures in the company view however the assigned signers will still see a record of this within their personal dashboards under Signatures with the status All signed.