Managing Business Documents and Approvals From a Mobile Device

The people who own businesses and work in them have become increasingly reliant upon the process of document preparation outside of the office environment. So, for instance, a business executive might find that he needs to sign a contract document while traveling, a sales person might find himself needing to get the signature of the customer on an agreement document. Knowledge about how to manage business mobile processes can allow companies to systematize electronic documents, arrange signatures, and ensure business process functioning when employees are not at their workplace.

Why Mobile Document Management Matters

The processes in paper form usually relate to such operations as printing, scanning, email correspondence with the attachment, and waiting for the response at the office. All these aspects are prone to possible delays, loss of the documents, and misunderstandings about the version of the document that is more current. The digital process enables one to avoid all these actions, because the creation, approval, and signature of the document can be done digitally.

The mobile features will be useful for those organizations whose employees are distributed geographically. So, a field employee will be able to approve some agreement after the customer meeting, and the manager will be able to check the pending request before arriving at the office. However, mobility implies specification of responsibilities and versions of the document.

Preparing Documents for Mobile Business Workflows

Ensure that the document is complete, legible, and intended to go to the intended recipients before submitting the document for electronic signing. Those documents intended to be viewed in desktops may not fit well within a small screen where there are long paragraphs and many signatures.

Make Documents Easy to Review

Use appropriate file names and classify documents accordingly based on the purpose of the business. For example, the onboarding process documents might include the offer letter, forms containing information about the employee and the acknowledgment of the policies. The customer agreement documents might include the agreement, terms, and any other approvals.

Pre-send checklist can help eliminate possible mistakes:

• Make sure you use the right version of the document.
• Check whether the names and email addresses of the recipients are correct.
• Verify that signatures, dates and all other necessary details are present.
• Verify that the text is legible even on a mobile phone screen.
• Make sure that the intended recipients have access to the document.
• Get rid of obsolete files from the workflow.

This step is particularly important if the documents contain financial, employment, contractual or healthcare data. A couple of minutes spent checking the document can save you time and extra correspondence.

Managing Business Approvals While Away From the Office

Mobile document workflows enable managers to act upon any requests when they are not present at the workplace. Take the example of a purchasing manager receiving a document requiring to be reviewed before any actions related to the deal are taken by the supplier. If this manager is capable of accessing the document and taking the necessary steps even while away from the office, it will save time and effort otherwise spent on office visitation.

However, mobile access should not replace the proper authorization process. Employees should realize whether they are entitled to authorize the document, sign it on behalf of the company or just transfer it to the relevant employee. Approval processes ensure there will be fewer errors made while making decisions away from the office.

It is also important to have an accurate copy of the document and the authorization process for important deals in case of any disputes.

Applying Mobile Document Management Across Departments

The reasons why various departments need electronic documents differ. In this regard, an effective mobile workflow system must take into account these requirements, rather than impose the same process on all departments.

Human Resources

HR departments may employ electronic document workflows to manage the processes related to offer letters, onboarding documents, and policy acknowledgment. Mobile availability can prove useful in the case when new hires have remote work or are not able to go to the office and fill in their documents. HR specialists should ensure that employees get the right documents and that the personal information remains accessible to authorized persons only.

Sales and Real Estate

Salespeople and realtors frequently operate outside of the office environment. They might have to send agreements for signature after meetings, check the status of documents, or ensure that the customer has fulfilled all necessary obligations. File naming conventions and the allocation of recipients will prevent any misunderstanding in case there are multiple transactions going on simultaneously.

Finance and Legal Departments

Finance departments can coordinate vendor agreements, payment authorizations, or service contracts. Legal departments can review agreements and corresponding documents. These types of processes are enhanced with roles definition, access control, and an approach to tracking incomplete tasks. A mobile application can facilitate these processes, although it is not a substitute for the review that the company policy requires.

Organizing Documents and Tracking Completion

Document transmission is just one part of the process in the work environment. It might be necessary for the initiator of the document to make sure that the task has been completed by the recipient and that the document is now accessible. In the absence of a tracking procedure, an employee may wrongly think that the document is finalized after having submitted the request.

Identify the people who are supposed to follow up on the outstanding requests and the time intervals at which reminders should be sent. Analyze why a document might be incomplete, and whether the recipient needs further clarification or the wrong version was sent, or some necessary information is missing. Do not send duplicate requests before checking on the status of the current document.

Businesses also need to determine where they store the completed documents.

Security and Compliance for Mobile Business Documents

Since some business documents may have sensitive data, it is important to ensure that mobile access to these documents will be performed according to proper security standards. Workers should take care of their equipment, apply accepted ways of authorization, and refrain from downloading the documents containing sensitive data to their personal or any other unsecure location.

The listed security mechanisms in signNow include TLS 1.2/1.3 for data transmission, AES-256 encryption for data at rest, audit trail, and two-factor authentication. Although this may help to develop an extensive security strategy, businesses will still have to make sure that they check their own configuration and access rights and take into account their own regulations.

In the USA, the ESIGN Act and the Uniform Electronic Transactions Act (UETA) can be used to make electronic records and signatures legal. Healthcare organizations should think about compliance with the requirements of HIPAA, including a business associate agreement if required.

Building a Repeatable Mobile Workflow

An effective mobile document processing flow must be simple enough to understand and implement by all employees. The document owner must know what approved templates exist, what employees can submit each kind of agreement and how to deal with poorly prepared or missing information. This process will be helpful especially for those organizations having more than one department or several offices with employees working there.

Review this process from time to time since the company changes its staff or requirements to agreements. Newly hired employees will probably require the access, while departing employees must have their permissions revoked. Updated agreements will require new templates. Getting feedback from employees will allow identifying possible issues with this process.

The purpose of the mobile document management system is not just making necessary paperwork available via mobile device. It is about helping employees to work with required documents and perform required actions with them properly.

Frequently Asked Questions

What does managing business documents on mobile devices involve?

This includes obtaining, examining, preparing, or signing documents for the business using a mobile device, as part of an organized workflow process. This process will require well-defined roles, appropriate levels of access and a verification of completion. The activities that can be performed vary based on the particular platform and its mobile capabilities.

Can employees send business agreements for signature while traveling?

Mobile e-signature processes may facilitate document processing on a remote basis as long as the person has proper access and the platform allows for such an action to take place. Prior to transmitting the agreement, it is important for employees to check whether the document version, recipients and signing fields are correct.

How can businesses prevent errors in mobile document workflows?

Templates, naming conventions for files and documents, as well as pre-send verification of recipient details should be used. Checking the status of the document after receipt by the recipient will ensure that there is no duplication, incomplete forms, or lack of clarity regarding signed agreements.

Are electronic signatures legally valid for business documents in the United States?

It is possible for an electronic signature to be valid based on laws governing its usage such as the federal ESIGN Act and UETA. The conditions in which this is possible are determined by the circumstances and type of business activity being conducted.

How should companies protect business documents accessed on mobile devices?

Approved means of authentication should be used by organizations, access should be restricted to only authorized people, and established guidelines should be followed when dealing with the storage and dissemination of confidential data. Procedures should also be followed in case of loss of devices and any form of security breach.