Hi everyone!
I’m reaching out to gather insights from this fantastic group as I work to evaluate our current approach to contract signatory delegation.
We operate within a fairly complex legal structure—over 30 entities—most of which have their own named officers (typically around 4 per entity, and some which are duplicative). To date, I’ve managed this by building signatory groups in Ironclad that trigger based on the legal entity selected at intake, and then using a default signatory for each entity. This has worked okay thus far from a controls and automation standpoint, but I acknowledge that it isn't ideal for full automation.
However, I'm now hearing growing concerns from senior leadership and executives that the volume of contracts requiring their signature is becoming "unmanageable." As a result, there’s increasing pressure to expand delegation. (My metrics don't necessarily reflect this; however, I'm not the sole decision-maker, so I've been asked to look into delegation models.)
An added layer of complexity is that our process must also work seamlessly with our DocuSign integration. That means two systems—Ironclad and DocuSign—need to communicate and execute the same logic using the same triggers. This makes it even more important that our delegation structure is clearly defined and consistently applied.
To help us assess our options, I’d love to hear how others are handling this. Specifically:
- How many signatories do you typically have per entity?
- On average, how many agreements does each signatory sign per month or year?
- What does your delegation structure look like?
- What types of contracts are eligible for delegation?
- Are there dollar thresholds or risk categories that trigger delegation?
- Who is authorized to sign under what circumstances?
My goal is to gather some benchmarking data to support a delegation model that maintains strong controls and governance, while also ensuring the process is manageable for executives and scalable across systems.
Any insights, metrics, or lessons learned would be incredibly helpful. Thank you in advance for your time and willingness to share!
