The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) has thrown small businesses a lifeline via the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP). By covering two months of payroll and overhead expenses, the stimulus loan seeks to keep more vulnerable businesses afloat in the midst of the current health crisis. As an SBA-certified lender, you are likely receiving an overwhelming number of PPP loan applications, especially following the stimulus program’s recent ‘round two’ announcement. The sheer volume of applications is likely to result in a common problem: delays in loan processing.

Integrating eSignature tools like Signeasy into your systems can help fast-track the document workflows for a smoother PPP loan application experience. Here’s how eSigning can help get the job done.

Will businesses get the PPP loan on time?

For many small businesses, the PPP loan is an urgent need: even a week’s delay could threaten to close their doors or lay off or furlough  employees. Additionally, since these loans are a hot commodity, lenders like yourself need to help small businesses process their applications soon – before the funds run out.

What usually stretches lending timelines is the extensive paperwork that needs to be completed by lenders and borrowers. When done manually, filling and signing of all these documents can be overwhelming (and sometimes confusing), especially since both parties are remotely situated.

Digitizing the remote loan processing workflow is the best way to eliminate friction, as well as save time and paper.

How electronic signatures speed up the PPP loan application process

To improve every eligible borrower’s chances of securing a PPP loan, you will need to process their application as quickly as possible.  

Electronic signature software, such as Signeasy, can speed things up by digitizing all of the required loan application forms, while standardizing and automating the PPP document workflow. Signeasy provides easy-to-use tools for adding fields such as text, dates, initials, checkmarks and add signatures, assigning these fields to specific signers, and sending for signature if needed.

Signeasy can reduce the processing time and execution of loan approvals from days to minutes, powered by the following features:

• Sign ‘in the flow of work’: You may quickly complete, sign, and share the SBA loan application forms within the existing business applications, as Signeasy integrates seamlessly into your current document workflows.

• Error-free processing: Signeasy’s ‘document fields’ feature helps remote signers fill out forms accurately by offering prompts that point out where to sign. This reduces errors and does away with admin time spent on physically checking the completeness and accuracy of the loan forms.
• Paper-free storage and access: All completed forms can be stored in the cloud. When the need arises, they can be easily accessed by authorized team members (from anywhere in the world) to continue on with the next stage of the loan process.
• Stay updated with status tracking: Always stay up-to-date about what stage the form completion is at, with automatic status tracking and notifications.
• Multiparty workflows: Our eSignature software offers multiple routing options to enable remotely-located parties to sign in a specified order or all at once, depending on the form’s requirement.
• Security: Signeasy offers Face ID and Touch ID authentication for signing into Signeasy and for the final step of authentication when signing a document. These are tracked in the document audit trail as well.

What’s more, eSignature tools are just as legally binding as putting pen to paper. It offers valid proof of intent in a court of law, under the ESIGN Act and UETA (Signeasy complies with both). Even the SBA website has made special mention of eSignatures, encouraging lenders to use them to process loan applications.

Choose Signeasy API for faster Paycheck Protection loan applications processing

Thanks to its REST-based APIs, Signeasy can easily integrate into your existing suite of productivity or business software, including  Square, Kabbage, Quickbooks. Without disrupting your workflow, Signeasy allows you to directly send and sign loan contracts from within your favorite apps or software. Best of all, it is quick to deploy, competitively priced, and has virtually no learning curve.

Click here to try out our Signeasy eSignature API for SBA Paycheck Protection Applications.