Electronic acceptance: A more efficient way of doing business
COVID-19 has been a catalyst for change in our personal and professional lives, and for the most part, it’s met with resistance. But for some, the pandemic has been a wake-up call to update internal processes with more efficient ways of doing business.
Electronically accepting documents is one example. As more businesses agree that working-from-home arrangements are here to stay for the foreseeable future, electronic acceptance is becoming an integral part of everyday business.
The benefits of electronic acceptance
- Productivity: Reduce delays by accepting electronic documents and signatures. Businesses can securely and safely close more deals, complete business transactions and welcome new clients or employees even faster during the age of social distancing.
- Savings: The traditional process of printing, compiling and delivering paper contracts isn’t kind to the wallet or the environment. Not to mention, a mountain of paperwork is an end-of-financial-year nightmare. Like 2020 hasn’t already been hard enough…
- Validity: The Australian Electronic Transactions Act states “a transaction is not invalid because it took place by means of one or more electronic communications.” An electronic signature is legally binding in most situations when it meets three pieces of criteria: identity, reliability and consent.
COVID-19 and electronic signatures: what’s changed?
COVID-19 has resulted in plenty of legislative updates, but the general enforceability of electronic signatures hasn’t changed. Here are the latest COVID-19 updates:
- Witnessing of documents: From 22 April, documents that require witnessing, like affidavits and statutory declarations, can now be signed via a continuous audio-visual link rather than face-to-face for the next six months. Learn more about the impact of the Electronic Transactions Amendment Regulation 2020 in our previous blog post or this infographic.
- Corporations Act: On 5 May, the Corporations (Coronavirus Economic Response) Determination 2020 allows documents under the Corporations Act to be electronically signed. This regulation is also in place for six months.
Take your credit applications online with ApplyEasy
For many Australians, it’s hard to maintain the ‘business as usual’ mentality when there is nothing usual about a global pandemic. But at CreditorWatch, we’re ahead of the curve.
With ApplyEasy, we help businesses of all sizes grow faster (and safely) with a simple and secure digital platform.
ApplyEasy transforms your traditional paper credit application process into an online form that’s easy to fill out and eliminates the risk of human errors. ApplyEasy has revolutionised the way over 1,000 Australian businesses onboard new customers.
How does ApplyEasy work?
Send potential customers a link to your ApplyEasy online credit application form. Customise it with your business’ branding, application questions, contact details and terms and conditions.
The applicants agree to the terms and conditions by electronically accepting their name, email address and position directly into ApplyEasy. It also verifies that the individual is an authorised representative of the entity, creating a legally binding agreement.
The IP address of the respondent and the credit application is stored securely as per ApplyEasy’s Privacy Policy.
ApplyEasy integrates with CreditorWatch so you can utilise our unique credit data to validate and credit check your new customer. To further improve this process, integrate ApplyEasy with your CRM/ERP via API. It’s a safe and more time-efficient way of doing business in any economy.
Our ApplyEasy customer success stories
Our customers’ results speak for themselves.
- The team at SodaStream has gone from processing 20 accounts a month to 100 with the same internal resources.
- Kirby, a global manufacturing business, has saved up to $770,000 in trade credit insurance.
- Brickworks has freed up three days a month in time spent on administration and reduced the frequency of data entry errors.
Watch how Metcash has drastically reduced the time it takes to approve credit applications from over a week to 24 hours.
Please contact us if you would like to take your business processes online during COVID-19 with a free demonstration of ApplyEasy.
