Documenso

Signing infrastructure you own

DocuSign, Adobe Sign and HelloSign charge per envelope. Send 500 contracts a month and you pay for every one. Your signature data (who signed what, when, from which IP address, with what audit trail) lives on a vendor's servers subject to their data retention policies and accessible to their support staff. Documenso is the open source alternative: a modern, feature-complete e-signature platform that you deploy on your own infrastructure. Sending volume does not affect cost. Your signing data belongs to you. The audit trail is yours. Node deploys and manages Documenso as a production-grade service, handling the infrastructure, maintenance and integrations so your team gets enterprise e-signature capability without enterprise SaaS pricing.

What Documenso is

Documenso is an open source electronic signature platform that provides the complete workflow for creating, sending, signing and managing legally binding documents. It is built specifically to be self-hosted by organisations that want signature capability without the per-transaction cost model or data residency concerns of commercial alternatives.

The platform handles the full signing lifecycle: document upload and preparation, signer configuration with multiple recipients in defined order or parallel, email delivery to signers, browser-based signing with multiple signature field types, real-time status tracking, completion notifications, signed document delivery and audit certificate generation.

Documenso produces electronically signed documents that meet the requirements of eIDAS for EU qualified and advanced electronic signatures, and the UK Electronic Communications Act equivalent. Documents signed through Documenso are legally binding in the same way as documents signed through any commercial e-signature platform.

Document preparation and sending

Preparing a document for signature in Documenso is a straightforward process that your team learns in minutes.

Document upload: upload PDFs directly through the Documenso interface. Any PDF, whether a contract generated from your CRM, a proposal from your document management system or an employment agreement from HR, becomes a signable document in Documenso.

Field placement: drag signature, initials, date, text and checkbox fields onto the document at the positions where signers need to provide input. Fields are assigned to specific signers. Place a signature field for the client, a date field that auto-populates on signing, and an initials field at the foot of each page. The entire field configuration is set once per document template.

Multi-signer workflows: configure documents with multiple signers in a defined sequence or in parallel. A contract might require your client to sign first, then your director to counter-sign, with Documenso managing the sequence automatically and notifying each signer when it is their turn.

Document templates: create reusable document templates for agreements you send regularly. For employment contracts, supplier agreements, client engagement letters and NDAs, configure the template once with fixed field positions and send the next instance in seconds. Variable fields within templates allow personalisation without re-uploading and re-configuring the document each time.

Signing groups: for documents that require sign-off from one of several people in a team (any one of three directors must counter-sign, for example), signing groups allow this without requiring all signers to receive and potentially action the request.

The signing experience

Documenso is designed to make signing as straightforward as possible for recipients, particularly those who sign documents infrequently and may not be familiar with e-signature platforms.

Browser-based signing: recipients click a link in the email notification, review the document in their browser, and sign without creating an account, installing software or navigating a complex interface. The experience is simple enough that signers who have never used an e-signature platform complete it without support.

Multiple signature methods: signers can draw their signature with a mouse or touchscreen, type their name and select a font style, or upload an image of their existing signature. The method is their choice; the legal validity is equivalent regardless.

Mobile signing: the Documenso signing interface is fully optimised for mobile devices. Signers on a phone or tablet get a clean, responsive experience, with pinch-to-zoom on the document, touch-to-sign on the signature fields, and straightforward navigation through multi-page documents.

Signing order enforcement: when a document requires sequential signing, Documenso enforces the order. A signer in position two does not receive the signing request until position one has completed. Neither signer can be pressured into signing before the process is ready. The sequence is auditable.

Decline and comment: recipients can decline to sign with a mandatory comment explaining the reason. Declined documents notify the sender immediately with the signer's explanation, enabling a rapid response, whether that is amending the document and re-sending or escalating to an account manager.

Audit trail and legal compliance

The legal validity of an electronically signed document rests on the quality of the evidence that the right person signed at the right time with informed consent. Documenso produces this evidence automatically.

Comprehensive audit certificate: every completed document includes an audit certificate that records the document hash before and after signing, the IP address and timestamp of each signing action, the email address of each signer, the sequence of events from send to completion, and any field values entered during signing. This certificate is attached to the final signed PDF.

Tamper-evident sealing: completed documents are cryptographically sealed. Any modification to the signed document after completion is detectable. The integrity of the document as signed is provable.

Email verification: Documenso verifies that signers accessed the document through the email link sent to their address, creating an evidential chain between the signer's email address and the signing action. For documents requiring stronger identity verification, we can integrate with KYC verification to require identity document checks before signing.

eIDAS compliance: Documenso's signature process satisfies the requirements for eIDAS Simple Electronic Signatures and Advanced Electronic Signatures. For regulated industries or specific contract types requiring Qualified Electronic Signatures, we advise on the appropriate signature tier and integration approach.

Status tracking and notifications

Knowing where a document is in the signing process should not require manual follow-up emails. Documenso handles this automatically.

Real-time status dashboard: every document you send shows its current status: awaiting signer one, in signing, completed, declined, or expired. A glance at the dashboard tells you which contracts are still outstanding and which are done.

Automatic reminders: configure reminder emails to send automatically when a signing request has been outstanding for a defined period. A reminder after 48 hours and a final notice after five days can be set once per template and applied consistently to every send without manual tracking.

Completion notifications: when a document is fully signed, all parties receive a completion email with the final signed PDF and audit certificate attached. There is no manual step required to deliver the completed document.

Expiry: signing requests that have not been completed by a defined expiry date are automatically cancelled. This prevents documents from remaining permanently open for signature when circumstances have changed.

API and integrations

Documenso provides a REST API that allows any external system to trigger document sends programmatically.

CRM integration: connect Documenso to EspoCRM so that a contract generated from a won opportunity is automatically sent for signature without the salesperson leaving the CRM. Signing completion events update the opportunity record and trigger onboarding workflows.

Webhook events: configure webhooks that fire when documents reach key states: sent, viewed, signed by each signer, completed, declined, or expired. Your business systems receive real-time notifications about signing events and can trigger downstream processes automatically.

Template API: generate and send documents from templates programmatically, pre-populating variable fields from data in your business systems. Automate the generation and dispatch of standard agreements at scale without manual document preparation.

Keycloak integration for internal users

For your internal team, the people preparing and sending documents, Documenso integrates with Keycloak for single sign-on. Internal users access Documenso with their corporate credentials. External signers, who are your clients, suppliers or counterparties, access the signing interface directly via the email link without requiring any authentication account.