In 2000, the USA signed the ESIGN Act making electronic signatures legal throughout the United States. The UK has adopted and implemented certain provisions of the EU’s Electronic Commerce Directive in the Electronic Communications Act 2000, which makes digital legally admissible in the UK. The Consumer Credit Act of 1974 was amended in 2004 to further facilitate the electronic signing of credit agreements. The United Nations has also set an outline for its members on which to base similar legislation. In Canada, regulations fall under the Canadian Evidence Act and the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act. Many countries have already created legislation to ensure that Electronic Signatures have the same legal authority as “ink” based signatures.

Key points of legal electronic signatures include:

1. Knowing who the parties are when they sign;
2. Having those parties agree to use electronic signatures and show they are technically capable of signing electronically;
3. Ensuring that each party who signs receives a copy of the electronically signed agreements (including the ability to re-verify those signatures electronically); and
4. Ensuring that a forged or tampered electronic agreement can be detected.

The level of security in an electronic form is much higher than paper just by the nature of the media. For a paper agreement you only have a pen and a piece of paper; with an electronic agreement you can securely send files to a signatory’s email account, the person’s registered Electronic Signature is password protected, and access to the agreement to be signed is limited to the intended parties.

Keeping your Signature Safe
The only way your Electronic Signature could be stolen would be if you were to give the thief access to your email account and the password to your Agreement Express signature authentication. NEVER give your Agreement Express password to anyone – it is a legal signature.

All communications on the site and all documents emailed through Agreement Express are encrypted with full 128-bit SSL security.

Your account and all your documents on Agreement Express are password protected and no other person can access your data unless you grant them permission.

All passwords and account data are encrypted with RSA keys. Agreement Express’ servers are housed in secure facilities with power and internet backup.

Agreement Express supports the following browsers:

Internet Explorer 11
Firefox (versions 30 and up)
Chrome (versions 40 and up)
Safari on Mac (versions 5 and up)

Additional Settings

Browsers must have JavaScript enabled.
To use the Flex environment, you will also need the Flash Plug-in (version 11 or higher).

Mobile Browsers
On iOS versions 6.0+

Safari 5 or later On other devices

Firefox 30 or later
Chrome 40 or later Internet Explorer 11 or later

Browsers must have JavaScript enabled.

Once you have received and opened an agreement, click on any of the places where you have been requested to sign and fill in the registration panel.

When creating or changing your password you will be prompted with the requirements and you will be able to use that password for as long as you like since passwords don’t expire.

If you cannot remember your password, you may reset it by clicking “Forgot Password” under the password field when signing.

You will not be able to retrieve your old password and will have to create a new one. You will be asked the security question you chose when you registered in order to complete the password reset.

Then answer the question.
Click “OK“
If the answer is correct, you will be emailed a link to set a new password.

If you have also forgotten the answer to your Security Question, when prompted with your security question, click “Forgot Answer”.

Since your Agreement Express username is your email address, once you choose your password and security question, you are set to use Agreement Express with any company who uses that email address to send you online agreements.

Opening an agreement should be as easy as following the link provided in your email. If you receive an email with an unusable link, please contact the person who sent you the email.

If when you click on the attachment link in the e-mail the internet browser displays a blank grey/ black page, you might not have the Adobe Flash player installed; click here to download Flash player. Once installed please close the browser and then click on the link that was sent to you to launch the agreement again.

When a signer launches an agreement from a mobile device, Agreement Express automatically detects the device type and opens naively in the client’s browser.

Documents will openly automatically in the default browser on the user’s device. The orientation will be portrait or landscape depending on how the device is oriented and provided the device supports orientation detection and it is not locked.

The navigation around the document is as per normal tablet behavior with scrolling, pinching and zooming occurring as one would expect with a mobile device.

Like the main Flash-enabled interface, signers will have an arrow to guide them through the process. When signing a package they will be prompted to switch to the next document requiring their signature when they’re done the document they’re viewing. After they’ve finished signing they will be prompted to click on Save and Send like normal.

Left Navigation Menu

All documents in the agreement are visible by clicking on the icon in the top left corner. The active document is highlighted and each page of that document is displayed below to make navigation easier. Pages that have signatures on them are indicated with the pen icon next to the page number.

If the document is a part of a package, other documents are listed below. They can also be collapsed or expanded by clicking on the header icon. Click anywhere on the document to hide this menu.

Right Actions Menu

Clicking on the icon on the right will expose the Actions menu. From here a user has many options:

Save Agreement: This saves any information entered on the agreement within Agreement Express (not locally on the device). Signed signature blocks are not saved until the signer clicks on Save and Send.

Add: This will allow you to add an attachment from the device’s photo library, directly from the camera, or add another template if permitted.

Delete: This will delete the Active document (or attachment) if permitted.

Instructions: This will display the signing instructions as associated with the document or template. Details: This will display the viewing, signing and other relevant history of the document.

Follow the arrow; it will guide you through your agreement. If you aren’t already registered, when you click on a signature block, you will be prompted to register, else simply enter your password where prompted, and click ACCEPT.

An arrow will guide you along pointing to any fields that need to be filled in or spots to sign. The system will also let you know if there are additional documents in the agreement that you need to review.

You might receive an error message if “another user has signed in the meantime.” Please close and re-open the agreement. Another signer has signed since you opened the agreement so the system is stopping you from signing an older version of the agreement.

Once you have signed where needed, click SAVE & SEND and you’re done. You may also choose to print and/or save the agreement.

In order to comply with Electronic Signature laws, once an agreement has been signed, Agreement Express locks the agreement so that it cannot be modified.

You need to wait for the other signers to complete their part. Once the agreement has been signed by everyone you will be emailed an “Agreement Completed” notification with a link to the fully signed agreement (which you can view and save a copy whenever you need to).

The agreements you have signed are always available from either the link you used to sign the agreement or from the email you receive once the agreement is completed.