Sign a supplier agreement online

Who signs what

Beatriz Salgado, for Torrens Packaging Ltd, the Supplier

Initials on pages 1 to 5 · Signature block: Name, Title, Company, Date · Verified by emailed one-time code

Priyanka Deshmukh, for Verity Grocers Ltd, the Buyer

Signature block: Name, Title, Company, Date · Verified by emailed one-time code

The signing journey

1. Step 1

   Seven fields, five of them initials

   The supplier gets an initials spot at the foot of pages 1 to 5 and a block on page 6. The buyer gets a block beside it. The supplier goes first, being the party most of these commitments bind.

2. Step 2

   Both sides verify with a code

   Both recipients carry the emailed one-time code, so each link opens a verification card rather than the agreement. A code is six digits, lasts ten minutes and is redeemable once.

3. Step 3

   One drawing, six marks

   Beatriz drew once and the portal filled all five initials spots and the page 6 block from it, scrolling her page to page. She typed her title and company; the Date line stamped itself.

4. Step 4

   The buyer countersigns an initialled agreement

   Priyanka was invited when the supplier's block landed, and her own code stood between the link and a copy already carrying five sets of initials.

5. Step 5

   One certified agreement, two code entries

   The listener stamped, certified and emailed the completed agreement to both signers and the sender, with two signer entries each reading Email link + emailed one-time code.

Every field, and who fills it

Seven fields, five of them initials, one per page of the terms that actually get quoted back. Specifications and tolerances, the price review cap, the service level targets, the continuity obligations and the liability cap each take a mark at the foot of their own page. The last page then holds a block from each company with Name, Title, Company and Date. On a three year supply deal the useful question is rarely who signed; it is which version of the price review mechanism they signed, and five initials answer that page by page. The editor offers a field label and a Required switch and nothing more, so nothing on the file was filled in beforehand.

How to adapt this envelope

Where the buyer should mark the same pages, five more initials spots are assigned to the second recipient, which costs that signer one drawing as well. Where a category manager approves before procurement does, a third recipient sits between the two and the order becomes supplier, category, procurement. And a renewal at the end of the term is always a fresh envelope naming the new dates, because nothing on a sent envelope can be edited once it has gone out.

Why the certified copy matters over a three year term

A supply agreement outlives the people who signed it. The certified PDF holds the rate card, the rebate thresholds, the service level targets and the recall obligations in one file whose hash both sides can check, and the certificate names who signed, from which address, and at what moment. Three years later that is more useful than anybody's memory of a negotiation.

What makes this signing flow work

Questions people ask

Other signing examples