Contract execution and e-sign

Contract execution is the last step of a tender: taking the package you awarded and getting it signed. Teralo has its own signing built in, so the contract does not leave the record it came from and the executed PDF ends up back on the package rather than in an inbox.

An approved recommendation is what opens this tab. There is no second approval between the recommendation and signing, and that is deliberate rather than an omission: the recommendation your management approved was the authority to contract with that firm, so asking for the same decision twice would only teach people to click through it. This is the one commercial step in Teralo with no workflow behind it, and the reason is that the workflow already happened. See Procurement.

The envelope

Everything here hangs off an envelope: one document, routed to one or more people for signature, with a status of its own. An envelope is a draft while you build it, sent once it goes out, in progress while signatures come in, and then completed, declined, voided or expired.

Preparing an envelope is done in the web app. Signing is not: a signer only ever needs a link.

The document

You get the document into the envelope in one of two ways.

Assemble from the package builds it out of the package's own documents, in the order you choose, into one PDF. This is the better option where it fits, because Teralo records what went into the bundle: each component keeps its own checksum and the page range it occupies in the merge, and that manifest is printed on the certificate at the end. A counterparty can then check one schedule against their copy of that schedule, rather than being asked to trust a single hash over a two-hundred-page bundle.

Upload PDF takes a document you have prepared elsewhere. Uploading replaces any assembled bundle and clears its manifest, because a description of pages that are no longer there is worse than no description.

Recipients

Add everyone the document has to reach. A recipient is either a signer, who has fields to complete, or an observer, who receives a copy and signs nothing.

Routing decides the order. Sequential, the default, sends to one signer at a time and only activates the next when the one before has signed, which is what you want when the counterparty signs before your directors do. Parallel notifies everyone at once.

Each recipient can be given a challenge to clear before the document is shown to them: none, a one-time code sent by SMS, or an access code you set and pass on yourself. A cleared challenge lasts four hours and then has to be cleared again, so a signing link that gets forwarded does not stay open on somebody else's screen.

Nobody needs a Teralo account to sign, including your own directors. That is a deliberate choice rather than a limitation: routing every signer through the same public link means every signature on the document was captured the same way, and the audit trail is uniform rather than having two classes of evidence in it.

Fields

Place the fields each signer has to complete: a signature, initials, a typed name, a date or free text. Fields are positioned on the page, and one field can be set to repeat across a range of pages, which is how "initial every page" stops being a two-hour job on a long contract.

A signer adopts their signature and initials once, and Teralo applies them to every field of theirs in the document.

Teralo will not let you send until the envelope has a document and every signer has at least one field. A signer with nothing to sign is almost always a mistake at the point of sending and always a mistake ten minutes later.

Sending, chasing and deadlines

Send it, and each signer gets a link. Their link is good for thirty days, and under sequential routing the clock starts when their turn does rather than when the envelope went out.

Reminders are on by default: the first goes three days after a signer becomes the one you are waiting on, then every three days, up to three in total. You can turn them off per envelope. You cannot make them more frequent, which is on purpose, because a system that can be configured into daily nagging eventually is.

You can also set a deadline on the whole envelope, which is separate from the individual links and worth setting on a sequential route. Three signers each getting a fresh thirty days is ninety days with nothing saying the offer has lapsed. Once the deadline passes, the envelope expires.

You can resend an invitation to whoever you are waiting on at any time.

Declining, and voiding

A signer can decline, with a reason, and that ends the envelope: nothing further can be signed on it.

Voiding is the only remedy for a mis-sent envelope, a wrong recipient or a document that turned out to be the wrong version. It is available while the envelope can still change anything, and it closes the envelope off so you can start a clean one. Declined envelopes are voided the same way, because a declined envelope frees nothing on its own.

When the last signature lands

Several things happen at once.

The fields are flattened into the PDF, so the signed document is a document rather than a form with values in it. Teralo takes a SHA-256 checksum of it and appends an audit certificate page, which carries the signing history and satisfies the Australian Electronic Transactions Act.

The package's Contract executed milestone is stamped, and the package locks: it can no longer be closed, and no tenderer can lodge anything against it. You cannot un-sign a contract, so terminating work that is now under contract is a variation rather than a procurement act.

And Copy to Contract Register appears. That carries the package across into Contracts with the counterparty organisation, the awarded amount as an opening schedule of values line, the commercial terms from the recommendation, and the executed PDF already attached.

The audit trail

Every meaningful event on an envelope is recorded with the time, the IP address and the browser: created, sent, viewed, code sent, challenge cleared, consent to sign electronically, signed, declined, completed, voided and downloaded.

The rows are hash-chained. Each one covers its own content plus the one before it, so editing or removing any row breaks every hash after it, and the last hash in the chain is printed on the certificate page. Anyone holding the executed PDF can therefore tell whether the trail behind it has been rewritten since.

The audit trail is readable at every stage, executed included, because that is exactly when somebody asks who signed what and when.

SettingsHost only

There is no separate settings page. Everything configurable belongs to the envelope you are building: the routing order, each recipient's challenge, the reminder switch and the envelope deadline. All of it is set before you send.

What comes before an envelope, the recommendation approval that unlocks it, is configured in Project, then Tools, then Procurement.

PermissionsHost only

Contract execution rides on procurement's permissions rather than having its own. Viewing the package lets you read the envelope and its audit trail; the procurement edit permission is what lets you build one, send it, resend an invitation or void it.

Signing needs no permission and no account. The link is the authority, which is why the challenge options above exist for the documents where the link alone is not enough. See How permissions work.