Your customer does not have to come to the office or print anything. You send them a link, they look at the quote on their phone and sign with a finger — and you get an email as soon as they have done it.
This works with a Quote, Cost estimate or Order confirmation once it has been issued. There is no link for invoices: they wait for a payment, not for a signature.
Creating the link
On the issued document, the editor shows the Signature link card below the Sending history. Create link opens a window with the link. If the document's PDF does not exist yet, Zirko produces it first.
Zirko shows this link only now. Pass it on before you close the window. Zirko cannot show it to you again later — if you need it again, you create a new one.
Anyone who has the link can see the document including prices. Send it only to the person who is to sign.
Passing the link on
- Copy link — for a message you write yourself. If the browser does not allow copying, select the link in the field and copy it by hand.
- Share … — opens your device's share menu, for a text message or a messaging app, for example. The button only appears where the device and browser offer it.
- Send by email … — opens Send by email with the link already in the message. If you cancel there, you come back to the link.
Insert signature link
In the Send by email dialog — from the editor as well as from the document list — Insert signature link sits below the message. It creates a link and puts a paragraph with the document, the validity and the link at the cursor, or at the end if there is none. After that the button reads Link inserted — valid until …; a second click inserts the same link once more. If a link was already open, a note below says that the previous one will then no longer be valid.
A dead link does not go out. Before sending, Zirko checks every signature link in the message. If it has expired or been invalidated — also because a new one has been created in the meantime —, if your customer has already signed, or if editing has mangled the link, the email does not go out, and the dialog tells you what to do: delete the link from the message and insert it again. A link does not belong in the subject — the subject is saved.
The inserted paragraph is in the language of your email. The page your customer opens is in the language of the document.
What your customer sees
They open the link without an account and without signing in:
- At the top, your business and Check and sign, with the document, date, subject and total amount.
- The document itself, which can also be opened as a PDF.
- Sign now: enter a name, sign with a finger or the mouse, Accept and send. What is stored as proof is stated beforehand.
The page is in the language of the document. If you issue a quote in another language, your customer also reads the page in that language.
If the link is no longer valid, they read “This link is no longer valid” — in the language of their browser, because a dead link gives nothing away about the document. A link accepts at most five attempts in ten minutes; after that the page asks them to wait ten minutes.
Once they have signed
You get an email with the document, its number, the time and your customer's name, plus a link to the document. It goes to the person who created the link — as long as they have an office role in the business and may see the document. If it does not arrive, the signature still counts.
On the document, the card shows Signed: who signed and when, the checksum of the document and the transaction reference. Download signed PDF gives you the document with the Acceptance log as its last page: name and signature, date and time, IP address and device, checksum and reference. The log is in the language of the document. Names in Latin, Greek, Cyrillic, Japanese, Korean, Arabic, Hebrew, Thai and Devanagari script appear on it exactly as your customer entered them. If a name contains a character that none of these scripts covers — Georgian or Bengali, for example, and often simplified Chinese — the log shows a note with the transaction reference instead of the name. The name is stored unchanged, and the card on the document shows it.
Your customer gets a copy. Right after signing, they see a download button — for a quote, Download the signed quote — for the same file including the log sheet, available for 15 minutes. After that the page tells them to get the copy from you; you download it from the card.
From then on:
- The signature is final. The document cannot be signed again, and there is no new link any more.
- It does not set an “accepted” status — the document list shows nothing. Follow-up does stop, though.
- If you withdraw the document later, the signature stays on the card.
Invalidating and creating a new link
If the link went to the wrong address, choose Invalidate link …. After that nobody can use it to view or sign the document; this cannot be undone.
Create new link … invalidates the previous one in the same step. Anyone who has the old one only reads that it is no longer valid — send them the new one.
A link is valid for 30 days from when it is created; the card shows Valid until with the time and time zone. It cannot be extended. Once it has expired, you create a new one; with Automation, Zirko lets you know beforehand.
| Card | What it means |
|---|---|
| No link | There is no link yet. |
| Open | Your customer can sign until “Valid until”. |
| Expired | The time is up, nothing was signed online. |
| Invalidated | You closed the link. |
| Signed | Your customer signed online. |
| No longer valid | The document has been withdrawn. |
| Status unknown | The status could not be loaded — Load again. |
Read-only
If your business has been switched to read-only (The trial), you cannot create a new link, and Insert signature link is missing. Invalidate link still works — you can always close a link that went out by mistake. You can still download the signed PDF, too.
Your customer can still see the document but cannot sign right now; the page asks them to contact you directly. Once your business is fully unlocked again, an open link is valid until it expires.
Without a network
Creating and invalidating need a network; without one the buttons are locked, and the card says why. The signed PDF also only comes with a network. If the connection drops while you are creating a link, the card shows afterwards whether one was created — Zirko cannot show the link itself again, so if in doubt, create a new one.
Your customer also needs a network to sign. If it drops while sending, the page tells them it does not know whether the signature arrived; they send it again.
Who may do this
The three office roles may create and invalidate the link, Office – Project management on the documents of their own projects. The field roles do not see the card. See Roles and access rights.
What Zirko does not do
- No qualified electronic signature. It is a drawn signature with a log. Where the law requires a contract to be signed on paper, it does not replace that.
- Zirko does not send the link on its own. You pass it on.
- Zirko does not know whether your customer opened the link. Only the signature counts.
- Zirko knows nothing about a yes on the phone or on paper. The card only shows what was signed via the link.