Secure corporate governance software for advanced contract management, board management, entity management, eSignatures, and virtual data rooms (VDR). Saved and discoverable contracts with automatic reminders Securely shared meeting materials and electronically signed minutes Visualized organizational structure with ownership chart and signatory rights Automatically organized files and easily managed access rights in due…
$9.50
per month per user
DocuSign
Score 8.4 out of 10
N/A
DocuSign supports transactions with document sharing and electronic signature, as well as automated and guided data collection and entry, record updating across disparate systems and payment collection upon agreement, as well as analytics and reporting.
ContractZen is perfect for small and medium business where the use case is to manage contracts, get alerts, and track details about contract. ContractZen has other features such as meeting management, eSignatures etc. We focus primarily on contract management and are pleased with it. ContractZen has a lot of competition and many competitors have a full contract lifecycle, which is desirable in large companies. ContractZen does not have a full contract lifecycle process. Full contract lifecycle will have request for comments/proposals, NDA, quotes, implementation proposals etc. go through multiple people, multiple layers of approval etc. and different triggers in the contract would generate different tasks for staff to manage the contract till the contract expires. Large and complex companies have needs that ContractZen may not be suitable for
I am going to speak of a personal experience- on multiple occasions: I need my husband to sign documents during the day and I don't need him here- physically. He sometimes works in different parts of the state as well at his own company. There is no problem at all, as long as he has access to his cell phone, email, and cell phone service- he can sign the documents I need him to. It is AMAZING- I can't speak highly enough of Docusign.
The easy storage of contracts is important. Easier than a shared hard drive folder or a jointly administered Excel sheet, both of which we tried to use in the past.
The alerts of key contract dates is crucial. Knowing what needs to be terminated or at least considered has saved us money.
Simple signing of contracts electronically has saved us money in getting from an agreed to contract to a signed one in minutes.
Tracking, particularly when collecting signatures through connected applications, such as an ATS, is not always clean or easily traceable.
Formatting documents to handle electronic signature types (signatures, initials, etc.) is not always easy, and highly dependent on the partner's technology.
It is not convenient to have to use DocuSign as a stand alone product if the signatures are required for 3rd party applications. It definitely excels on its own, but the scope of that usage, at least for us, is slim.
I can't imagine doing business without DocuSign now. I would never want to go back to the way we used to do things. The "new way" is "the way" is "the right way." We can honestly be proud of a "one right way" process and not have to suffer through "5 ways for 5 days."
Generally user-friendly once you have command of the basics, but also has a lot of nuances that can make it difficult to train others on. DocuSign University is a helpful tool, but understandably a lot of content to get through to become a well-versed user. A lot of different functionalities but only a few I use on a weekly basis.
The best part about ContractZen is that I needed no support. I had a couple questions in the last 2 years which were answered accurately within hours. Everything has worked as expected.
I'd give them a 10, but there has been 1 or 2 small cases that seemed to fall to the wayside, but I was able to call them up and get them resolved. We were having a bad implementation night (after midnight) and we needed assistance from Docusign. They were able to get an engineer to help us in the early morning hours
Docusign is super easy to use, and apart from a few administration details, there was really nothing to train on. Post implementation, there were issues with configuration of auto-filled documents with the integrating 3rd party. That training required some time, because the DocuSign expert took the time to walk me through the 3rd party's configuration (how often does that happen?) so I could see how DocuSign should be best used to overcome weaknesses in the 3rd party platform. 10/10 expert care.
The capture of the new contracts is more important than the old contracts, somewhat counterintuitively. Once you start saving time using the electronic signing and retrieval, adding old material is easier. Old material additions fit our annual schedule as we've done them during periods of less administrative work.
Until you get the hang of it, I recommend doing several internal tests before sending a document to a client. As I mentioned earlier, you have to go through a bit of trial and error at first to verify that the workflow works as expected.
I would say that DocuSign's biggest competitor and a most similar product is Adobe Sign. They both offer almost identical features with Adobe offering a slightly better interface. Adobe Sign is also less costly than DocuSign while offering templates that can be useful for various activities. If you are looking for more branding options then Adobe offers a slight advantage but for corporate control, I would say DocuSign offers more security.
