How VirtualSignature is helping local authorities speed up deed sealing

With its remote working technology, VirtualSignature has been helping local authorities including Bury, Chelmsford, Cambridge and Peterborough, Arun, Hammersmith and Fulham, Southwark and Greenwich facilitate eSignatures and legal document sealing, helping them to move towards digital, paper free working, saving time and money and improving CSR.

Councils are able to upload their seals to the platform and benefit from a licence which allows an unlimited number of users as well as pre-configure the sequencing of sign-offs and authorisations. Sharing transactions securely with other departments or councils is now possible and the ability to identify signatories and witness the signing of documents "virtually" has transformed the way they execute documents

Integration with Existing Document Management Systems

The VirtualSignature platform has been designed to integrate into an organisation's existing document/case management system, including Visualfiles, Proclaim, iManage and Microsoft Dynamics. The end user journey is a seamless experience, so that sending documents for eSignature has become an integral part of the existing process. In addition, through its partnership with Microsoft, VirtualSignature's applications are available through the Office 365 Word Add-in tool. You can be working in Word and rather than sign into the portal and upload documents before applying signature fields, you can instantly create eSignature ready documents by clicking the VirtualSignature icon on the tool bar and following a few simple steps. Single Sign On (SSO) is also available.

Case Study

Bury Metropolitan Borough Council is a local authority based in the North West of England which serves a population of around 182,00 and covers an area of 99km2. The Council were looking to automate their administrative processes in a drive to make efficiencies which was accelerated by the recent pandemic and the necessity to complete transactions remotely.

The process of executing Legal documents that needed multiple sign-offs before being stamped with the Authority's corporate seal was time consuming and inefficient, as the documents were being posted from signer to signer before final approval and cross referenced by hand onto ledgers before being physically archived.

Bury needed a compliant and secure system that could be easily integrated into their practices and which would represent not only a greener approach but one that could enable colleagues to collaborate whilst physically working apart.

VirtualSignature was selected as Bury MBC's cloud-based technology partner to implement its unique SmartSign application which provided a wide range of solutions allowing Councillors and their teams to automate documents, customise the order in which they are authorised and electronically signed, apply Bury corporate seals, issue full audit trails with document exchange and facilitate cloud archiving, all within the regulations of the Council's constitution.

With the ability to quickly integrate and deploy this technology, Bury MBC can upload multiple branded seals to the platform, and configure the system to accommodate up to 10 signers. Colleagues can complete transactions from any desktop PC, laptop, tablet or mobile device which means they can safely work from any location and avoid interruption to vital Council business.

Andy Carlile, Bury's Legal Practice Manager commented on the partnership:

"With over 1000 legal documents needing to be signed, sealed and executed annually SmartSign has proved invaluable to Bury MBC in securely speeding up processes whilst allowing the Authority to remain compliant.

The team at VirtualSignature worked closely with us to rapidly develop a system tailored to our requirements and which we have found works very efficiently and is easy to use"

Get in Touch

VirtualSignature-ID is a UK Government approved Identity Service Provider (IDSP) that offers professional services firms a suite of end-to-end eSignature, ID verification, AML and KYC solutions that can be incorporated into existing workflows and case, practice and document management systems. If you would like to find out more about how VirtualSignature.com can help with your digital onboarding or discuss a particular solution that will fit your organisation's requirements, then give our team a call on 0333 335 5176 or contact us and we'll be pleased to demonstrate how the platform works.

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