For mid-sized businesses
For mid-sized businesses too: e-signatures that scale with your departments
Unlimited signature requests, clear roles and permissions and a complete chain of evidence, without an enterprise price tag and without an IT project. One department starts for free, the rollout follows.
The problem
Contracts that wander between departments
Beyond a certain company size, the problem isn't the individual signature but the path to it: across desks, through internal mail and scanners.
Contracts stuck in the mail
The employment contract is ready to sign, but the candidate is waiting for the envelope. Every day of delay is a day in which another offer can get there first.
Every department does it differently
HR prints and scans, sales emails PDFs back and forth, purchasing files paper. Three processes, three filing systems, no shared chain of evidence.
Nobody sees the status
Has the framework agreement reached the supplier yet? Who still has to sign? Without a central overview, following up becomes a routine chore.
Built for established structures
Departments, locations, responsibilities: all covered
SmartDocs organizes signature requests the way your company is organized, instead of forcing everything into one shared inbox.
Separate organizations
For locations or subsidiaries, you create separate organizations, each with its own templates, requests and members. You switch between them in the top bar.
Roles and permissions
Owner, admin and member control who starts requests, edits templates and manages settings. On the Enterprise plan, you build custom roles from individual permissions, and the approver role is added: review and approve without signing yourself.
Under your own brand
Signers receive emails with your sender branding.
Connected to your systems
The REST API covers everything the interface can do: for DMS, ERP or HR software, included from the Pro plan.
Learn more
Use cases
One tool for every department
Each department picks the right signature level per request: SES for everyday business, AES for sensitive contracts, QES for the statutory written form.
HR and people
Employment contracts and supplementary agreements as a signing link in hours instead of weeks. Fixed-term contracts legally binding with QES (§ 14 (4) TzBfG, the German Part-Time and Fixed-Term Employment Act).
Sales
Get quotes and framework agreements approved during the meeting instead of waiting days for them to come back. For contracts with no form requirement, the simple signature is enough.
Purchasing
Supplier contracts and NDAs with a sequential signing order: internal approval first, then the supplier's signature. The request waits until it is approved.
Management
Resolutions, powers of attorney and sensitive contracts with AES or QES, signed in the browser, even on the go.
Which level for what? See the overview on the signature levels page.
Compliance
Answers your data protection officer wants to hear
At mid-sized businesses, new software rarely fails on its benefits. It fails on open compliance questions. SmartDocs answers them up front.
- Hosting exclusively in a German data center (Nuremberg), no transfer to third countries
- Data processing agreement (DPA), TOM documentation and deletion policy included
- Tamper-evident audit trail with cryptographic hash chain and completion certificate
- Qualified electronic signature (QES) for the statutory written form under § 126a BGB (German Civil Code)
Rollout
From pilot to rollout, without migration
SmartDocs doesn't have to be introduced across the whole company at once. The proven sequence:
Pilot in one department
One department starts on the Free plan, with no payment details and no installation. The first real signature requests go out the same day.
Templates and responsibilities
Recurring contracts become templates with versioning. Roles and permissions define who sends and who manages.
Roll out department by department
More teams join as members with the right role, independent locations as a separate organization. Signers outside the company still need no account and no app.
What this looks like in practice: A wholesale company with 120 employees and three locations starts the pilot in its HR department. After six weeks, HR sends employment contracts as a signing link, purchasing handles framework agreements with its own templates, and management approves resolutions on the go. The audit trail documents every step, without IT having to set up a project.
FAQ
Questions from mid-sized businesses
Start the pilot in one department
The Free plan stays free and requires no payment details. Roll it out once it has proven itself.
Would you like to discuss the rollout first? Book a call (30 min)