Estimating time and paper savings from electronic signatures

Step 1: Capture document volumes

Start with an inventory: which documents are signed, how many per month and by whom? Typical examples are quotes, contracts, order confirmations, HR documents, approvals and minutes. Also note the number of signatories per document and whether they are internal or external.

Step 2: Direct costs per transaction

Direct costs include paper, printing and toner, envelopes, postage or courier, scanning and physical archiving. Each item looks small per document but adds up quickly with multiple pages, several signatories and return shipping.

Also consider storage space for files and the effort of retrieving documents during audits.

Step 3: Staff time and turnaround

Staff time is usually the biggest lever: printing, signing, enveloping, chasing, scanning, filing. Measure the minutes for a typical transaction and multiply by an internal hourly rate.

Turnaround time – from sending to a fully signed document – matters just as much. Post takes days; electronic signatures are often completed the same day. Faster completion means earlier project starts, faster invoicing and fewer lost deals.

Step 4: The calculation

A simple formula: monthly saving = number of transactions × (direct costs + staff minutes × hourly rate ÷ 60) − cost of the signing solution.

Worked example with assumptions: 200 transactions a month, €3 direct costs and 15 minutes of staff time at €40 per hour gives 200 × (€3 + €10) = €2,600 in process costs. If electronic signing significantly reduces cost and time per transaction, savings quickly exceed the cost of the solution. Always use your own values.

Sustainability, compliance and risk

Less paper, printing and transport support sustainability goals and can feed into ESG reporting. A complete audit trail simplifies internal and external audits because every step is documented. The risk of incomplete or lost documents also falls – mandatory fields stop documents coming back without required information.

Hidden costs of paper

Many costs never appear on an invoice. They include media breaks, when signed documents are scanned again and re-keyed into systems, and errors from missing signatures, wrong versions or illegible entries. Every follow-up lengthens the process and ties up time on both sides.

There are opportunity costs too: a quote waiting a week for signature may be lost to a faster competitor. In HR, new hires start later. During audits, searching for originals in binders can take hours.

So alongside direct costs, record the error rate – the share of documents returned incomplete or incorrect – and the average waiting time. These metrics show where electronic signatures deliver the most value.

Step 5: Validate with a trial

Choose two or three frequent document types and process them electronically for two weeks. Measure turnaround, follow-ups and effort, then compare with your baseline. DE-CODA SIGN can be tried free for 14 days for exactly this purpose.

Frequently asked questions