Contracts & signing

Start from a template

Choose Contracts → New contract, and you are asked which way you want to start.

Write your agreement once with fill-in-the-blank fields like {{client_name}} and {{event_date}} — they fill themselves when you create a contract for someone. Templates live under Contracts → Templates.

If you have not written one yet, the same page has eight starting points: a services agreement, a photography licence, a change order, an ongoing retainer, an independent contractor agreement, a mutual non-disclosure agreement, a cancellation and rescheduling addendum, and a portfolio and likeness release. Adding one takes a copy you own and edit, and opens it in the editor so you read it before anyone else does.

Cygnetree templates are starting points, not legal advice. Cygnetree is not a law firm, and no lawyer has reviewed this wording. Have a lawyer review any agreement before you rely on it.

Bring your own contract

Already have an agreement you trust? Choose Use my own wording and paste it in — or read it from a plain-text file. Your client signs that wording, exactly as you wrote it, and merge fields still fill in. Tick Also keep this as a reusable template and it joins your library in the same step.

Cygnetree does not turn a PDF or a Word file into an editable contract. Pulling text out of a layout drops tables, columns, and signature blocks, and what your client signed would not be what you uploaded. If the agreement is already a PDF, upload it and have it signed as it is.

Upload a PDF and sign it as-is

When the agreement came from your lawyer, your trade body, or a client's procurement team, choose Upload a PDF. Your signers are shown that file itself — it appears right there on the signing page, above where they type their name — and it is never retyped, converted, or changed.

PDF only, up to 20 MB. Cygnetree checks the file before it becomes a contract: that it is really a PDF, that it is not password-protected, that it opens and has pages, and that its stored contents match the fingerprint recorded for it. Anything that fails is refused there and then with a plain reason, because a document your client cannot open is not something we will ask them to sign. A Word file is not accepted — it renders differently on their screen than on yours.

The signature is tied to that file's exact bytes rather than to any words pulled out of it, and each signer confirms they have read the document before signing. If the file is replaced afterwards, signing stops rather than continuing against something nobody saw. You cannot archive or delete a file that a contract is the agreement for.

To change an uploaded agreement, upload the corrected PDF as a replacement. Cygnetree will not edit a file it has never read. The replacement becomes its own contract, carries the original's signers in the same order and its invoice link, and everyone signs again — then you cancel the original.

Cygnetree does not read, convert, or review what you upload, and Cygnetree is not a law firm. Have a lawyer review any agreement before you rely on it.

Choose who signs and in what order

Open the draft and review Who signs, and when. The client selected when you created the contract is first. Add a partner, guardian, authorized representative, or another signer when the agreement needs more than one external signature.

Use the arrows to put them in the right order. Add any required initials, date, or text fields to the signer who must complete them. Each person still types their full legal name as their signature.

Each person has their own private link. Only the current signer can sign; everyone later in the sequence sees that another signer goes first. Signers become reusable people in your workspace so their activity stays attached to the right person.

Roles, order, and field definitions are locked once you send. If the sequence or agreement fields are wrong, cancel the agreement and prepare a corrected one rather than quietly changing a document already in circulation.

Send it, they sign on their phone

When you send a contract, the exact text is locked and fingerprinted so nobody can quietly change it later. The first person opens their link, reads, types their name, confirms the email the agreement was addressed to, and consents to electronic signing.

Required initials, date, and text fields must be completed in the same atomic step as the typed-name signature. When they finish, Cygnetree unlocks and emails the next signer. You countersign only after every external signer is done. Everyone can then retain a sealed PDF.

Recover a signing step

The contract page shows which signer is waiting, available, or finished. If the current person loses their email—or provider delivery fails—use Copy their link or Send current signer again. A later signer's link remains locked until it is actually their turn.

If the wrong person received an unfinished step, use Reassign. Cygnetree retains the signer position and assigned fields, attaches the step to the replacement person, rotates the credential immediately, and emails the replacement when it is already their turn. The old link no longer works.

An expired signing window blocks the current signer without discarding completed signatures. Choose a new expiration and send the current signer again. Cancelling a contract invalidates every unfinished signer link.

If a signer cannot agree, they can deliberately decline and optionally explain what needs to change. Declining stops every unfinished signing step, records the exact recipient and request evidence, and alerts the contract owner. Prepare a corrected agreement instead of reusing the cancelled sequence.

What the signed record contains

The sealed PDF lists every signer in order with their role, typed signature, initials/date/text values, timestamp, and consent-record version. It also includes separate SHA-256 fingerprints for the document and ordered signer-field definitions plus the append-only event history, and it states which of the two — the wording or the uploaded file's bytes — each fingerprint was taken over.

For an uploaded agreement the sealed PDF contains the whole original: a cover page, then every page of the file you uploaded, then the signatures and the trail. Whoever opens it years from now can read what was signed without needing your storage still to be connected.

Electronic-signature and contract requirements vary. Have qualified counsel review your templates, consent language, signing sequence, retention, and countersignature process before using them with real clients.

Cygnetree's native signing flow is the default. A PDF utility such as Stirling PDF can help convert, merge, or process documents, but it does not establish signer identity, consent, intent, evidence, or legal enforceability and is not the Cygnetree signature engine. Tenant-owned integrations with major signature providers remain a separate connector path; imported provider evidence must stay identified as provider evidence rather than being recreated as a Cygnetree signature.