How to sign a document with multiple parties?
Although contracts with two signers are most common, there are sometimes situations where the document needs to be signed by many parties, e.g. a resolution of the shareholders of a company or a resolution of the general meeting of a homeowners' association, where there are usually many parties.
Signing a document between two parties
For a document with two signers, collecting signatures shouldn't be much of a problem, as the communication between the parties is likely to be personal and ongoing. If the document is signed by you first, you only have to wait for one signature and send the document back. In the opposite case, if the other party signs first, you have to send the contract to the other party first, wait for the signed document to be returned, sign it yourself and send it to the other party again. Even now, there are many steps that need to be completed before the handling of the document can be considered complete.
Now imagine that there are 4-5 signers, a dozen or more. In this case, collecting signatures is already more difficult and the document is often sent back and forth by email. Therefore, it makes sense to look for a more effective solution that organises the process better and reduces the administrative burden.
Signing a multi-party document without a signing platform
Let's take for example the resolution of the shareholders of a company with 5 shareholders. Without a signing platform and using Digidoc, the process would be, that one of the shareholders or an assistant prepares the document and sends it by email to the first shareholder to sign. The shareholder downloads the document and opens it on their computer in Digidoc where it's possible to sign the document using a ID-card, Mobile-ID or Smart-ID. After signing, the shareholder sends the signed document back to the document creator, who verifies the presence of the signature and forwards it by email to the next shareholder for signing. The same process is repeated until all shareholders have signed, and finally the document has to be distributed to all shareholders once again. In this way, it takes a lot of time to sign the document and keep track of the signatures.
Signing documents with multiple parties with Agrello
For a signing tool or platform to be useful, it should allow you to conveniently go through all stages of document approval or contracting: Preparation, Signing and Storage. Let's do the same example with five shareholders on the Agrello platform. One of the shareholders or an assistant prepares the document and uploads it to the Agrello environment, where the signature fields need to be set and the email addresses of the signers added. After pressing the "Send for signing" button, the document is distributed to all parties. Separate email correspondence is no longer necessary and each shareholder can sign at a convenient time on the Agrello platform using the appropriate signing tool - Agrello signature, Mobile-ID or Smart-ID.
The owner of the document receives a notification by email when each shareholder has received and accepted the document. The preparer also receives a notification of a signing event. Agrello recently introduced a new feature of reminders, which enables you to set custom reminders for yourself. For example, we can remind you on a certain date to check the document and in case it is not signed by everyone yet, you can remind the parties separately. You can keep track of all your documents and their status in a handy dashboard view. In addition to the document creator, each shareholder can also see whether others have already signed the document or not. It's much more convenient and faster for everyone to work together this way. In addition, you no longer have to worry about storing and distributing the document - it's safely stored in the Agrello environment and can be accessed and downloaded by all parties at any time if needed.
There is no limit to the number of signers on Agrello
We've based this example on a company with 5 shareholders, but there are no limits to the number of signers when using Agrello. It's possible to add 10, 20 or 30 signers according to your needs, and the whole process still works the same way - it’s fast and convenient. Recently, we also introduced the functionality of bulk-creation of documents, which allows you to use one document base and create custom contracts with many signatories from it. Therefore, if you need a signing platform to sign one document with many parties or to sign many documents with many parties, Agrello will help you get through it easily and conveniently.
