Finance and lending e-signature examples, with the audit trail

Three documents, three different risks

A promissory note is a promise by one borrower to repay, so the envelope is short and the weight sits on identifying the maker. A personal guarantee puts two directors personally behind a company's debt, so it runs initials down each page and takes both signatures rather than one on behalf of the company. A payment plan settles an amount already owed into six instalments, so what matters is that the schedule itself is in the document the signer accepts, not attached to it. Those three shapes cover most of what a small lender, a supplier chasing an arrears balance or a landlord asking for a guarantee actually sends.

Verification, initials and what the certificate holds

Two of the three add an emailed one time code on top of the email link, which is the step most often skipped on finance paperwork and the one most often asked about afterwards. The personal guarantee carries an initials column so each director marks every page rather than only the execution page. Every envelope comes back with a certificate whose sections are the envelope, the signers and a numbered event log, with the verification method recorded against each recipient and each signature certified. The pages describe what is in those documents rather than summarising them, because that is the part a reader wants to see before sending their own.

What signing settles, and what it does not

Sending a document for signature records agreement. It does not make an unenforceable term enforceable, it does not give financial or legal advice, and it does not replace whatever your jurisdiction requires for a guarantee, which in many places includes a witness and independent advice. Two of the three pages are Australian and say so. Start from the document closest to yours, read the fields it placed, then change the amounts, the dates and the verification to match how much the paperwork is carrying.

Every page in this collection

• Sign a convertible note online

  A convertible note has to record the principal the investor actually committed and that both companies executed it in the right capacity. In this six page note for a robotics startup, the investor types the $150,000 investment amount on page 1 and signs a company block behind an emailed code, and the founder signs for the company after.

• Sign a credit card authorisation form online

  A credit card authorisation form has to prove the cardholder agreed to recurring charges up to a stated limit, without the form itself becoming a copy of the card. This one page authority for a coworking membership caps charges at $500 a month and asks the cardholder to type only the name on the card and its last four digits, behind an emailed code.

• Sign a debt settlement agreement online

  A debt settlement agreement has to fix three numbers and one date beyond argument: what was owed, what will be accepted, and when it must arrive. This two page compromise settles a $9,400 joinery account for $6,500 paid by 30 October 2026, with the debtor initialling the terms behind an emailed code before the creditor's director countersigns.

• Sign a direct debit authority online

  A direct debit authority has to prove two things: that the person who signed it can operate the account, and that the BSB and account number on file are the ones they gave. This one page request for a swim school's fortnightly $86 fee has the account holder type all four account details and sign in one session, behind a six digit code sent to her own email.

• Sign a family loan agreement online

  A family loan agreement exists to prove, years later, that the money was a loan and not a gift, and that everyone in the family agreed how it would be repaid. This three page agreement records a $40,000 interest free house deposit loan from two parents to their daughter, with a repayment table she initials and three signatures collected in any order.

• Sign a payment plan agreement online

  A payment plan is only useful if both sides agree what releases each payment, not just what each one is worth. This five page schedule for Tidewater Dental's $184,800 Suite 4 fit out ties six milestones to the evidence each claim needs, and both parties sign it on page 5: the client first, then Halcyon Interiors' accounts manager.

• Sign a personal guarantee online

  An unlimited guarantee is the shortest document with the largest consequence, so the two clauses that carry that consequence are the ones worth initialling. This three page deed over a trade account takes initials from both directors on the no cap clause and the independent advice clause, each behind their own six digit code.

• Sign a promissory note online

  A promissory note is a one sided promise, so only the maker signs it. This four page note, WB-2026-03 for $45,000 at seven per cent, is signed for Wren and Boyle Timber Co by its director Harriet Boyle behind a six digit code, then by the witness the note asks for, who types their own address. The holder, Cassia Holdings, receives the certified copy but signs nothing.

• Sign an equipment finance agreement online

  An equipment finance agreement has to show that the borrower company accepted every page of the terms, that the guarantor signed knowing the balloon was hers too, and that the financier signed last. This eight page chattel mortgage over an excavator runs in that order: the director, then the guarantor, both behind an access code, then the credit manager.

• Statement of account confirmation e-signature

  A balance confirmation is only worth something to an auditor if it comes straight from the customer, says plainly whether the balance agrees, and names anything in dispute. Here a grocer's accounts payable lead confirms the $24,106.85 August closing balance on a packaging supplier's statement, notes the one queried invoice, and signs, with the certificate as the audit evidence.