Signing off a deal

Digital sign-off is the electronic signature workflow that takes a deal (agreement/PSA) from negotiation to confirmed: the supplier signs first, then a member-side signatory countersigns, and the deal becomes confirmed. It applies on sites whose sign-off method is electronic.

A sign-off is an envelope. The envelope moves through open → (supplier signed, deal status groupSign) → closed (member signed, deal confirmed). Three other exits: rejected (deal returns to negotiator status), manual (the supplier opts to sign a printed copy), and expired (nobody finished in time, on sites that set an expiry).

Within the envelope each party is a signer with its own status: pending → notified → viewed → signed, or rejected / expired.

Requires: you must be a named signer on the envelope, belong to the supplier company on the deal, or hold a staff role (member, figures, figuresEntry, rebates). The signing page requires login; there is no anonymous or token-only access.

How a sign-off starts

There is no "start sign-off" button. An envelope is created by emailing the deal to the supplier (or to the negotiator) when the message includes the sign-off link placeholder. Re-sending to the supplier reuses the open envelope but wipes any previous supplier signature, so a changed deal must be re-signed.

The supplier's email links straight to the signing page (/signoff/sign?id=…). Existing sign-offs are also reachable from the deal's header menu ("View signoff") and from the sign-off browser.

Adopting your signature

Before you can sign anything you adopt a signature once, from the Adopt your signature button:

• Draw — sign on the pad with a mouse, trackpad or finger. There is a second, smaller pad for your initials. If you leave the initials pad blank, your typed initials are rendered for you.
• Type — type your full name and initials and they are rendered in a script face. A live preview shows exactly what will appear on the agreement.

Adopting confirms that the signature and initials are the electronic representation of your signature for all purposes, including legally binding contracts.

You can change an adopted signature at any point before you complete, using Change signature.

What the signatory does

The signing page shows the agreement PDF (frozen at the revision the envelope was created against) alongside a Signing progress panel and the sign-off form.

1. Adopt your signature (above).
2. Tick the cover page, each section of the agreement, and each attached document. Your initials are applied automatically as you tick — you no longer type them per section.
3. Tick the authority-to-sign declaration and enter your name and position within company.
4. Choose Confirm & sign agreement — or Reject agreement with a reason, or (suppliers only, and only while the envelope is open) the Sign manually tab to sign a printed copy instead.

Confirm & sign stays disabled until you have adopted a signature, ticked every section and attached document, confirmed your authority, and given both a name and a position. The panel above the button lists what is still missing.

Member signatories cannot sign until the supplier has signed — ordering is enforced from the signer order on the envelope, not inferred.

What each outcome does

Outcome	Records	Deal status	Emails
Supplier signs	Signature and initials images, name, position, contact, section-by-section confirmations, date, IP address and browser stored against the supplier signer; signed event	groupSign (+ signed-by-supplier fields on the deal)	Negotiator: "your signature is now required"
Member countersigns	Group signature stored; envelope closed; the completed PDF is generated, hashed and filed (below); signed, completed and stored events	confirmed (+ signed-by-group)	Supplier signer (CC negotiator): confirmation
Reject	Rejection reason and signer identity stored; a comment is added to the sign-off's comment stream; rejected event	negotiator	Negotiator: rejection notice with reason
Sign manually (supplier)	Envelope marked manual; manual event	unchanged	Negotiator notified; supplier is redirected to download the PDF
Expires	Outstanding signers marked expired; expired event	unchanged	Group-side signer: the sign-off lapsed and needs re-sending

Sign-off emails BCC the site's configured sign-off BCC address, and every transition is audit-logged and re-indexed.

The completed agreement

When the last signature lands, the platform builds the finished document in two passes: the agreement exactly as signed, then the same agreement with a Certificate of Completion appended. Each pass is hashed (SHA-256), and the certificate quotes the first hash — so any later alteration to the agreement breaks the chain visibly.

The certificate carries the envelope reference, the signatories, and the full audit trail (sent, viewed, reminded, signed, completed). The agreement body also prints a section confirmations table showing each section the supplier confirmed with their initials against it.

The finished PDF is filed in the document library against the deal as Signed Agreement - {supplier} {year}. That stored file, not a re-render, is the record of what was signed.

Finding a sign-off

The Signoff Browser (/signoff/browser) lists every envelope on the site. Filter by Active, Completed, Rejected, Manual, Expired or All, and search across deal name, supplier name and internal reference.

Each row shows the stage (awaiting supplier, awaiting group, completed, rejected, expired, manual), a status badge per signer, when the envelope started, its last activity, and its expiry date, with links through to the signing page and the deal.

Superusers can delete an envelope, but only one that neither party has signed. Anything carrying a signature is not deletable.

Chasing and expiry

On sites where it is configured, the platform chases outstanding signatures automatically:

• Only the next actionable signer is reminded — the supplier is chased while the group is not yet waiting on anything.
• At most 3 reminders per signer, no more often than the site's reminder interval.
• Envelopes past their expiry date are closed off, their outstanding signers marked expired, and the group-side signer is emailed to say the agreement lapsed without all signatures.

Both are off unless the site sets signoffReminderDays and signoffExpiryDays and the signoffReminders automation task is registered. See Site settings and Automated tasks.

If it fails

• Confirm & sign stays greyed out — you have not adopted a signature, or a section or attached document is still unticked, or name/position is blank. The red Incomplete panel lists what is outstanding.
• Member cannot sign yet — the supplier has not signed; the form is gated to supplier-first.
• The typed signature preview looks like ordinary text — the script face is loaded from an external font service; on a locked-down network it falls back to a default face. The signature is still valid.
• The PDF shows an older version of the deal — by design: the envelope binds to the deal revision at creation time. Re-send to the supplier to create a fresh signature round on the current content.
• The signature image is rejected — images must be PNG or JPEG data URIs under roughly 750KB. Re-draw with fewer strokes, or use the Type tab.

Related pages

• Emailing a deal to the supplier
• Emailing a deal to the negotiator
• Editing deal core details — deal statuses