E-signatures

E signature for quotes

A verbal yes is not a purchase order. What you want back from an accepted quote is a page carrying a signature, a name, the buying entity and, in a lot of businesses, a reference number their finance team will recognise.

Send a document for signingThe three things worth capturing on an acceptance, and how to reissue a quote whose price has changed
The acceptance line of a quotation in the envelope editor, with a signature field and a date field placed under it
The acceptance block on a quote. Signature and date are the minimum, and the reference number sits above in its own field.

Capture the entity, not just the person

Sales documents go wrong when the person who signed turns out to have been acting for a subsidiary, a franchise or themselves. Turn on the Company and Title lines of the signature block and the signer fills both in as they go. They are pre-labelled, they sit on their own rules under the signature, and a long company name shrinks to fit rather than running past its box.

Ask for their reference while you have their attention

A text field labelled Purchase order number, placed next to the acceptance line, costs the buyer four seconds and saves your finance team a fortnight of chasing. Mark it optional if the number does not exist yet, since a required field they cannot fill in stops them accepting the quote entirely, which is the worst possible outcome for a box about paperwork.

There is no approver role

It is worth being clear about this rather than implying an approval workflow that does not exist. Everybody you add to an envelope is a signer, with a signature field of their own. If a quote needs a manager to countersign above a threshold, model it as a second signer with a higher order number and their own signature block, so the document itself carries the evidence of the approval rather than a workflow state somewhere.

When the price changes

A sent envelope cannot be edited, which is exactly what you want on a priced document. The correct move is Withdraw with a reason, which kills the outstanding link and emails everyone still waiting a note explaining why, then a fresh envelope with the corrected schedule. Writing something plain in the reason box, such as replaced by a revised quotation, is what stops the buyer thinking the deal collapsed.

Following up without pestering

The status page separates a quote that was never opened from one that was read and left. Viewed only appears once the buyer has actually reached the pages, so it is a real signal rather than an email tracking pixel. For the first kind, Resend puts a fresh link in front of them and retires the old one. For the second kind, the answer is a phone call, and the record tells you which day to make it.

How it works, in three steps

  1. Step 1

    Upload the quote or proposal PDF

    The acceptance page is usually the last one. That is where the block and any reference fields belong.

  2. Step 2

    Block with Company and Title, plus a reference field

    Turn on the Company and Title lines so the buying entity is on the page, and add an optional text field for their order number.

  3. Step 3

    Send, watch, and reissue rather than edit

    If anything about the price changes, withdraw with a reason and send the corrected version as a new envelope.

Limits worth knowing

Questions people ask

Can I make somebody approve without signing?

No. Every recipient signs, so an internal approval has to be modelled as a second signature at a later order position. That has the advantage of leaving the approval on the document.

What if the buyer wants to change a line before accepting?

They should decline with a reason, which stops the envelope and emails you their words. Then send the revised quote as a new envelope.

Can I attach terms and conditions?

Put them in the same PDF. One envelope is one file, so the terms and the quote need to be a single document before you upload it.

Do I get told the moment they accept?

The certified copy is emailed to everyone the instant the last signature is processed, and a notification appears in the app saying the envelope is ready to download.

Make your own signing flow

The button opens the generator with this use case already described. Change the wording to match yours, generate, then edit anything you like.

Send a document for signing

Related pages

More finished work of this kind is on the e-signature examples hub.