Is your Boston Business truly paperless yet? Do you hate to actually have to use your printer? Is your fax machine collecting dust in your office? Please say you are not still using it. We know there are still some reasons where signatures and etc. are necessary. What if you could email the documents that you would have faxed? Wouldn’t that be fantastic?
Well according to a TechCrunch article there’s a company that is going to make this possible for you.
One startup trying to eliminate that friction is HelloFax. Don’t let the name fool you. HelloFax is more than just about digitizing faxes. The Y Combinator company launched in February as a way to send and receive faxes via email, as well as sign documents electronically. It now stores 20,000 electronic signatures on behalf of its users, and handles tens of thousands of documents a month. Starting today, users can request electronic signatures through the service as well, which should help create more viral growth (if someone requests your signature, you have to use Hellofax to sign the document). But these are just the first of many steps.
“We are tackling the paper problem,” says CEO Joseph Walla. “If you want to go paperless you need all of this hardware and software to make it happen.” He is going after faxing first and making it easy to sign documents in the browser (HelloFax converts back and forth from 30 different file types, and delivers it as a fax if that is required on the other end). Think of it as a cross between eFax and EchoSign or DocuSign. But even if you get rid of your fax machine, sometimes you still have to print, sign, and scan documents. What if you could get rid of those as well?
Already, one-third of all signed documents going through HelloFax go through email. The company charges for sending faxes (the first 20 are free) and requesting signatures. TechCrunch readers who sign up here through Friday can get a 50 percent discount on the subscription plans) which normally range from $5 to $70 a month). The company is targeting lawyers, accountants, realtors, and other small businesses, as well as internal departments in larger corporations where nothing gets done unless a half-dozen people literally “sign off” on something. Y Combinator is using the service for all of its legal documents, and partner “Paul Buchheit has stopped using a printer, scanner and fax machine all together,” reports Walla.
This could be the answer to the prayers asking for a better way. When you get thirty pages of documents and twelve of them require signatures, that holds everything up. Maybe not much longer, we’ll see. With technology, everything is possible. Who isn’t looking for increased productivity? This could really have an impact on attorney’s, mortgage companies, HR and many other contract heavy businesses.
If you would like to read more from this TechCrunch article, just click here.
