Getting the right signed acceptance form to billing

Acceptance certificates: one floor accepted, the rest of the installation in progress

A company is fitting an installation on two floors. The client signed a partial acceptance certificate for the first floor, and work on the second floor continues. After the signed document arrived, the site manager saved an unsigned draft certificate for the whole installation in the same folder. So the newest file is a draft for all the work. Choosing by save date would send the wrong document to billing and an invoice for work the client has not yet accepted.

The automation links the returned document to the project and shows its actual scope. The billing employee opens the certificate and checks the payment terms agreed for the project. The signature helps establish which document came back from the client, and it does not answer what to invoice and when. The site manager still clarifies an unclear scope and comments, and stops forwarding every file by hand.

First use the signing workflow you already have

If certificates come back to one mailbox with one template and a project number, an email rule and a tidy folder are enough. With electronic signatures, the platform handles part of the handover. Docusign describes Agreement Actions, which, once a workflow is complete, save the documents in a connected store or start the next workflow. The status completed means all recipients have finished their actions (status definition). The scope of the accepted work still has to be read from the certificate.

What acceptance certificate automation costs and when it pays back

An illegible project number or a missing page with the scope of work goes to the person who can clarify the case. When a correction arrives, the employee sees it next to the earlier certificate. If it is unclear whether the new document replaces the previous one, the site manager records the decision with the file, and the next person sees which version was chosen and why.

Where to start

The first scope covers one type of certificate and one way of receiving it. On known documents, the site manager and the billing employee check that they get the right file with the correct scope and that a draft goes no further. The site manager's wider work when closing a project is covered in the article on closing a services project. We build the workflow as part of our AI automations, and for the free process review a description of the last certificate someone had to search for is enough: where it came back, who needed it and how you recognised the right version.