I loath paperwork.
But if you own a business, it’s unavoidable. You’ll have sign W-9s so your customers don’t withhold 28% of your receivables for tax purposes.
Likewise, you’ll have to send out W-9s to your vendors.
And that’s just the beginning.There’s I-9s, W-4s, sales tax exemption forms…you know the virtual avalanche of paper pushing requirements foisted on us by our beloved government.
Let’s not forget there’s also those legal agreements that are required to protect our business, NDAs (non-disclosure agreements), copyright releases, and ever present sales contract. Press hard and sign on the bottom line.
While I dread wading through all this legalese what I dislike most is the coordinating the in, out, signature and storage of all this stuff.
In fact, it was such a hassle I’ll admit I was pretty lax about sending a lot of these things out. I resisted it because it as a pain in the rear.I’d have to find the right contract, print it up, sign it, fax it and then wait for the signed copy to come back.
It just wasn’t worth my time, so I let it slide. That’s a dangerous business practice. Something which can leave you exposed during an audit or a dispute sometime later down the road.
It begs the question…
Just how confident are you that all your paperwork is in order?
So that’s why I was so happy to discover this cool service call EchoSign.
It’s this cool service which sets you up with a number of boilerplate agreements every business owner will need (NDA, W-9, I9, W-4, etc).
It also lets you upload your own forms, which you can have pre-filled. That’s where you could upload your own contracts like sales agreements or copyright releases.
The PDFs are even editable online so you can update the ‘fill in the blanks’ portions before sending them out. It’s really pretty cool. Anytime you need to get an agreement going , you just login and have it emailed out.
When the other party signs the agreement, either electronically or with pen on paper, they can send it back via email or fax.
EchoSign captures it and lets you know. It also lets you store and organize everything from their site.
It’s really pretty nifty and if you only need to do 5 contracts a month, it’s free.
If you need to do more, it’s only $19.95 a month which is still pretty cheap.
All in all, I’m a fan and will plan use them for all my future contract management.
Related posts:
0 Responses to “Contract Management Made Easy”