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.
$15
per month
Workiva
Score 8.6 out of 10
N/A
Workiva is a cloud platform supporting ESG protecting, designed to provide collaboration, data integration, and an audit trail. The platform helps mitigate risk, and improves productivity.
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.
Wdesk is best suited for companies with demanding SEC filings and documents, with multiple revisions due to auditor/counsel review, and where financial reporting is extremely manual. Wdesk really helps take out the potential errors out of extremely manual processes, and helps automate regular financial reporting by allowing companies to link financial information and build customized flows of their information into financial statements and other documents (such as presentations or other internal reporting).
The biggest strength of the program for our team is that multiple users can work in the document at the same time. Multiple users can be in the program updating financial statements, footnotes, MD&A - all without stepping on each other's toes.
Rolling forward the documents from one period to the next is pretty simple. Links to source documents are maintained and new ones can be added without much hassle.
Edits and changes can be made right up until the last minute before filing. There is no waiting period or pencils-down period unless we enforce one ourselves - the Financial Reporting team is in control of the timing of our filings.
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.
Overall it's a good-to-go product because of its features. It's easy to set up, meets requirements, has quality support, etc. So far, it has been working quite well for me, and I wish to continue using it for as long as it meets my requirements.
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
Workiva's technical support is impeccable and undoubtedly one of the best. The times we needed them, they were super quick and willing to help. It works 24 hours a day, and there will always be someone to help with doubts or technical problems regarding the tool.
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.
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.
We moved from a third party filer to doing it in house. Have seen demos of products like Active Disclosure, which has come a long way from the beta version I saw and but we are not too far gone with Wdesk for us to evaluate other products. When we first signed up with Webfilings, (former name of Workiva), there were no viable products in the market. I had seen an Oracle product and a beta version of Active Disclosure. It was not hard to see the ease and intuitive-screens, to guide one through the filing process. The excel-like spreadsheets were an added bonus.
We spend less than we used to with a traditional printer.
We have been able to do turn-on-a-dime equity offerings with last minute changes and still file on time.
Inviting external legal into the platform has helped with communication but we actually suspect they spend MORE time (and billing) on our documents than they used to just simply because it's so easy to get at them anytime they want.
