E-signatures for recruitment agencies

Yes, you can get client terms of business, candidate and contractor agreements, timesheets and offer letters signed online. Each person gets a private link in an email and signs on a phone or a laptop. No app, no account, no password. When the last person signs, the file is sealed, and you keep it with an evidence certificate.

This page covers documents agencies choose to get signed. It is not legal advice, and it says nothing about what your contracts must contain.

Where the fee gets lost

When a client disputes a fee, three plain questions come up first. Did they agree your terms? Which version? When?

An email thread answers them badly. The answer usually goes missing like this:

• Terms in an email footer. “By reading this you accept our terms.” The client can say they never read it.
• Terms sent, never acknowledged. The PDF went out with the first CV. Nothing came back.
• Two versions. You changed your fee in the spring. The client is quoting the old one, and both files are called Terms.pdf.
• A yes on the phone. The hiring manager agreed on a call. Six weeks later they have left the business.

Client terms of business

Send your terms of business as a PDF. The client opens the link, reads the terms and signs. You can set a signing order, so the client signs first and your director countersigns last. Or turn the order off and send to both at once.

• Each person has their own link and their own fields, so nobody signs in the wrong place.
• Each person is recorded separately on the trail: when they opened it, when they signed, from what IP address and approximate location, and on what device.
• Up to 20 people can sign one document, so two of the client’s directors can both sign.

Put the version and date inside the document, not only in the file name.

The record shows who opened the link and signed. It does not show that the person had authority to bind their company. Checking who can sign for the client is still your job.

Candidate and contractor agreements

You send from your computer. They sign on whatever phone they have, with a finger or by adopting a typed name.

Upload a PDF, or a photo of a paper document. If your agreement is a Word file, save it as a PDF first. Our guide to signing a PDF online covers the steps.

Pixasign records that a named person signed a particular document at a particular time. It does not say what a contractor agreement should contain, and it says nothing about IR35, the Agency Workers Regulations or right-to-work checks. Those are for your adviser or solicitor.

Timesheets and offer letters

A timesheet is a document the hiring manager signs to confirm the hours. Send it as a PDF, they tap the link and sign, and you hold a sealed copy that shows who approved it and when.

An offer letter works the same way. The candidate signs to accept, and you have a dated record that they accepted this version of it.

Count the cost before you move timesheets over. A document is one PDF sent for signature, so every timesheet is one document. Fifty contractors on weekly timesheets is about 200 documents a month. If your ATS already collects timesheet approvals, keep using it for those.

What you are left holding afterwards

When the last person signs, the whole file is sealed. The seal is one DigiCert timestamp over the whole file, applied once, after the last signature. The seal time comes from DigiCert, not from us or from you. The time of each earlier step is recorded by our server.

Change a byte the seal covers and it breaks; anything added later shows as a change at pixasign.co.uk/check.

With the sealed PDF comes an evidence certificate:

• who signed, and the email address each link went to
• when each person opened it and signed, to the second
• IP address, approximate location and device
• digital fingerprints of the file before and after sealing

The events are hash-chained, so each one locks in the one before it. The sealed PDF is the evidence. Our guide to electronic signature evidence explains what each part is for.

You can download every signed file whenever you like, with the seal and its timestamp inside the PDF. To try the check, pixasign.co.uk/check links to a sample sealed PDF. Our security page describes sealing and storage.

What a signature does not cover

A signature shows the client agreed to the document in front of them. If your terms are vague, the signature is worth less. Pixasign does not write your terms and it does not chase a fee.

We do not say the law requires you to get terms signed. Regulation 17 of the Conduct of Employment Agencies and Employment Businesses Regulations 2003 required employment businesses to obtain a hirer’s agreement to terms. It was omitted on 8 May 2016 by SI 2016/510. Other parts of the same Regulations, such as regulations 14 and 16 on agreeing terms with work-seekers, are still in force. What they need from you is a question for your adviser, and we do not say any of them requires a signature. Asking for a signature is a choice you make for the record it gives you. We make no claim that using Pixasign meets any regulation or deadline.

On e-signatures generally, section 7 of the Electronic Communications Act 2000 makes an electronic signature admissible in evidence on a question of whether a communication is authentic or intact. The guide to electronic signatures for UK small businesses covers the basics, and our guide on whether an electronic signature is legally binding in the UK goes through the rest.

Anything that needs a witness is out. That means deeds and similar documents. Pixasign does not do witnessing. Which of your documents need extra formalities is a question for whoever drafts them, not for us.

If your ATS already has e-signing

Your ATS or CRM may already include signing. If it does what you need, keep it. Either way, ask three questions.

1. Where does the time come from? The tool’s own clock, or an independent timestamp authority? Pixasign’s seal time comes from DigiCert.
2. Can someone outside your firm check the file? Without an account and without your login? Pixasign: free, at pixasign.co.uk/check.
3. What do you keep if you leave? Pixasign: the sealed PDF, with the seal and its timestamp inside it.

What it costs

Pixasign is free for 1 user and 3 documents a month, no card, no time limit.

Paid plans have unlimited users. Starter is £19 a month inc VAT for 50 documents a month. Team is £59 a month inc VAT for 200. Business is £99 a month inc VAT for 500. An account starts with room for 200 active people, and we raise that free on request.

There is no per-user fee, no overage and no set-up fee. Every consultant can have their own login instead of sharing one. Clients and candidates never pay and never need an account. Our guide to per-user and flat-fee pricing shows the sums.

Billing is monthly with no minimum term. At the limit, new sends wait for the 1st or a bigger plan. Nothing is charged on top.

Documents and their evidence are stored in Nuremberg, Germany, with backups in Reykjavík, Iceland. Both are in the EEA. Card payments are handled by Stripe.

Questions

Is a client’s e-signature on our terms of business binding?

The Law Commission’s 2019 conclusion is that an electronic signature is capable of being used to execute a document where the person signing intends to authenticate it. Extra requirements on a particular document are a question for your solicitor. What a sealed document adds is the record: who signed, which version, and when.

Does the law say we must get our terms signed?

We do not say it does. Regulation 17 of the Conduct Regulations 2003, which required employment businesses to obtain a hirer’s agreement to terms, was omitted on 8 May 2016. The rules on agreeing terms with work-seekers are still in force; what they need from you is a question for your adviser. Whether to ask for a signature is your decision, and what your contracts must contain is a question for your adviser too.

The client says they never saw our terms.

You open the sealed PDF and the evidence certificate. It shows the exact file they signed, the email address the link went to, when they opened it and signed, and their IP address, approximate location and device. The seal time comes from DigiCert. Earlier times are recorded by our server.

Can a contractor sign on their phone?

Yes. They get an email, tap the link and sign in any modern browser. No app, no account, no password. The link stays live for fourteen days.

What do we need to get started?

A company name, your name, a work email and a password. Account holders then set up two-factor sign-in with an authenticator app, from the first sign-in. Your clients and candidates need none of this.

What happens to our signed terms if we stop paying?

Cancel any time from Account. The plan runs to the end of the month you paid for, then the account goes back to Free. Nothing is deleted, so you can still open, download and check everything already signed. Free sends up to 3 documents a month.