Click image for full-size, non-blurry version.

Mon, 12 Mar 2012 21:39:00 -0400

Why Freelancers Should Sign Contracts Online

Sun, 26 Feb 2012 19:22:00 -0500

As former freelancers, we’ve always tried to find ways to optimize our workflows and simplify client interactions. We wasted a lot of time shuffling paper around the office, especially when it came to contracts. Here’s why we think you’ll love signing contracts online.

Saves Time

Paper contracts are a huge inconvenience. Faxing and mailing are no fun. Email is a little faster, but more often than not, you want something a little more formal than an email saying “I accept.” So you end up printing the contract, signing it, and scanning it back in. Or you fumble around trying to sign a PDF with Photoshop’s brush tool. No matter how you slice it, it’s not a pleasant experience.

More Security & Clarity

Truly devious clients—the kind who would forge a contractual term in Photoshop—are pretty rare. But even so, signing a contract online would protect you from this situation, should it arise. Much more common are the honest mistakes that make a good business relationship turn sour, such as confusion over contract versions and misplaced signature sheets. Even when everyone involved is honorable, you need a way to prove who agreed to what. And in the age of multiple document versions, and amateur Photoshop wizards, the old fashioned, handwritten signature doesn’t always cut it.

Our Solution

We ran a freelance shop for a while, and signing contracts was always a problem. The more we thought about all the ways signing a contract could go wrong, the more we realized we needed a better solution. And we were just plain sick of the hassle involved in all the old-fashioned signing methods.

So, we decided to do something about it. There weren’t a lot of great options out there.

We briefly considered various methods of signing a document cryptographically. But the only truly secure system would have depended on our clients getting a signed public key. Not gonna happen.

Then we looked for a way to store contracts and signatures in the cloud. That way, an independent, disinterested third party could attest to who agreed to what. And there’s no extra burden on the clients—they don’t need signed public keys.

The only problem was, we couldn’t find a cloud-based signature service we liked. So we built one. The result is It’s Agreed, and we’re really proud of it.

Over the coming weeks, we’ll write more about our product, and why we built it the way we did. Give it a try, and let us know what you think. We’d love to hear from you.

- André & Jarrett

Headquarters Blog

Click image for full-size, non-blurry version.

Why Freelancers Should Sign Contracts Online