{"id":1055,"date":"2010-03-01T07:00:23","date_gmt":"2010-03-01T15:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.formtek.com\/blog\/?p=1055"},"modified":"2010-03-01T07:00:23","modified_gmt":"2010-03-01T15:00:23","slug":"ecm-avoiding-paper-in-processes-that-require-signatures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/formtek.com\/blog\/ecm-avoiding-paper-in-processes-that-require-signatures\/","title":{"rendered":"ECM: Avoiding Paper in Processes that Require Signatures"},"content":{"rendered":"

Digital signatures are used to guarantee that an electronic document is authentic.\u00a0 The signature of the document ensures that the person who says they created the document actually did, and it also ensures that no other person has altered the document since it was signed.\u00a0 Digital signatures are authenticated by using different types of encryption.\u00a0 When digitally signed, the contents of an electronic document are encrypted and scrambled to make the document totally unreadable.\u00a0 Only holders of the key will be able to decode the information so that it can be read.\u00a0 The digital signature uniquely associates the signer with the document.<\/p>\n

While many business processes are going electronic, approval steps that require paper signatures become bottlenecks to the process. Many of the key advantages around efficiency when using electronic documents are diminished when it is necessary to print, sign and maintain a hardcopy of the document.\u00a0 The use of digital signatures can help companies avoid the need to reintroduce paper into an electronic workflow.<\/p>\n

And the savings that companies can realize by adopting digital signatures can be significant.\u00a0 Arx<\/a>, a company specializing in digital signatures, estimates that by the time that you consider the costs involved with processing paper signatures, and consider the need to print, route, scan, archive, and ultimately destroy paper documents, that a typical 100-person company will spend about $81,000 per year (or $6 per signature) on paper signatures.<\/p>\n

The use of digital signatures can be particularly appealing to professions and processes where the need for signed approvals are important, like legal, medical\/health, and engineering.\u00a0 The need for formal signatures often depends upon<\/a> how heavily regulated, either externally or internally, an organization is.<\/p>\n

Note though that certain states and industries are still evaluating the effectiveness of digital signatures.\u00a0 Those states include Utah, California, Washington, and Illinois, and the industries include real estate, property, vital records, and finance.\u00a0 It is probably just a matter of time though before acceptance of digital signatures will become universal.
\nTo summarize, benefits of digital signatures include:<\/p>\n