Basic Questions & Best Practices
What are eSignatures?
IMS gives Sponsors the ability to securely send subscription and offering documents to investors through our eSignature feature. When investing in a new deal, eSignature documents allow investors and countersigners to sign documents online, from anywhere, or any device. With eSignatures, you do not need to print the document, fill it out, scan it and email it back. You can do that whole process on your computer, tablet, or phone, without any paper.
How does it work?
Sponsors will begin by creating an eSignature Template for their offering documents. Next, the template can be customized by dragging and dropping signature fields that need to be captured in the document. Finally, apply the completed eSignature template to an offering which will prompt investors to eSign the document when they complete an investment through the Investor Dashboard or through Invite to Invest.
Do I have to create an eSignature template for each type of CRM profile?
No, you only need to create one template per offering document. When creating an eSignature Template, admins can drag and drop fields that will only display to a signer associated with that specific field. For example, dragging an Individual signature field box onto a document means that signature will only be displayed and collected by investors using their Individual profile when signing the document. If an Entity, Self-Directed IRA, Trust or Joint Account field is placed onto a document, that field will only be displayed and collected when an investor is using that particular profile type when signing the document. 
Will the document be customized for each signer?
Yes, eSignature Templates can include Textbox fields from the Sender which integrates with your IMS account and CRM. The Sender textbox field will automatically populate specific information onto the document with information pulled directly out of IMS when the document is delivered to the signer. This allows the document to be customized for each signer and prevents the signer from filling in these fields themselves. See the eSignature - Sender Textboxes with IMS Variables for more details.
Do I need to use this if I want to raise capital through IMS?
When raising capital through IMS, eSignatures create a seamless investor experience by prompting the investor to sign offering documents at the time of the capital commitment. This automated process provides the investor a 'self-service approach' to the offering experience, freeing hours of time for Sponsors who no longer have to collect signatures on offering documents.
Best Practices
- Please be aware when creating an eSignature Template, the system can time out due to inactivity. If you plan to work on the document for an extended amount of time, we recommend saving your work often (every 30 minutes or so) by clicking 'Continue' in the top right-hand corner. If the template is not saved before the system times out due to inactivity, you will lose the work that was entered into the template.
- IMS recommends waiting until the subscription documents are finalized by your firm before you begin coding your document. Once you upload a document into a template, the document text cannot be edited nor can pages of the document be deleted or replaced.
- Once documents have been sent to one or more investors, you will not be able to go into the eSignature template and make any new changes to the template. From the Cap Table, the document(s) will need to be voided or the investment(s) will need to be deleted to be able to edit the template again.