Most people meet an electronic signature the same way: a link arrives by email, they click it on a phone, they draw something with a finger, and a document comes back marked signed. It works, but almost nobody can say what happened in between. That gap matters, because the parts you cannot see are the parts that make the document worth anything later.
Here is the whole thing, in order.
It is not the drawing
Start by discarding the most common assumption. The squiggle you trace on the screen is not the signature. It is a picture, and a picture proves nothing on its own — anyone can copy it, and a copy looks identical to the original.
The signature is the record built around that moment: who you are, what you agreed to, the exact file you agreed to, and when. The drawing is just the part a human eye recognises.
This is why a scanned handwritten signature and an electronic signature are different things, even when the final PDF looks the same. One is an image. The other is an image plus evidence.
The four things a signature has to establish
Strip away the technology and every signature, on paper or not, is trying to answer four questions.
Who signed. Not “someone with access to this inbox”, but a person you can name and, if it comes to it, reach. This is where identity checks come in: an email link is one level, a one-time code sent to a phone is another, an identity document is another again.
That they meant to. Consent has to be deliberate and visible. A signer should have to do something specific, on a screen that tells them plainly what they are agreeing to, and they should be able to stop.
What exactly they signed. The single hardest one, and the one paper handles badly. If the document can change after signing, the signature is worthless. Electronic signing solves this properly: once sealed, any modification to the file breaks the seal, and a verifier can tell.
When, and in what order. A contract signed by three people is really three events. The record has to keep them separate and in sequence.
Everything below is machinery in service of those four answers.
What happens, step by step
The sender prepares an envelope. They upload the PDF, say who has to sign it, and place fields on the page — a signature here, a date there, a box for a client number. Nothing about the original file changes; the fields are an overlay describing where things go.
Each signer gets their own link. Not a shared link. One per person, tied to that person’s email or phone number, which is the first thread of the identity record.
The signer opens the document. In a browser, on whatever device they have. No account, no app to install. They see the actual pages, not a summary, and they scroll through the real document.
The signer is challenged. Depending on how the sender configured it, this might be nothing more than having received the link, or it might be a code sent by SMS that they have to type back. Each step up is a stronger answer to “who signed”.
The signer signs. They fill the fields and confirm. At that moment the system records the time, the IP address, the device, and the exact version of the document on screen.
The document is sealed. When the last signer is done, the file is cryptographically sealed. Think of it as a tamper-evident envelope: you can still open and read the document, but you cannot alter a single character without it showing.
Everyone gets the finished file. The same sealed PDF, with a certificate page attached listing every signer, every action, and every timestamp.
What you actually get back
Two things, and it is worth knowing the difference.
The sealed PDF is the document itself, now locked. Open it in any reader. Some readers will show you a badge telling you the seal is intact.
The certificate page is the evidence. It travels inside the same file and lists what happened: each signer’s identity as established, the method used to verify them, the time of each signature, and a fingerprint of the document. This is the page you hand to a lawyer. It is the part that turns “we have a signed PDF” into “we can show how this was signed.”
Where the law sits
Guinean law recognises electronic writing and signature as evidence where the signer can be identified and the document’s integrity is guaranteed. Read that sentence carefully, because it is a description of exactly the machinery above. Identification is the identity check. Integrity is the seal. A tool that does both is doing the thing the law describes; a scanned image does neither.
This is general information, not legal advice. For a specific document in a specific dispute, ask a lawyer.
What it does not do
An electronic signature does not make a bad contract good. It does not verify that the person had authority to bind their company. It does not read the document for you.
It answers four questions, well and permanently. Everything else is still your job.
If you want to see it end to end, the e-signature product page walks through the sender’s side, and pricing shows what it costs in Guinean francs.