Quotes, authorisations and work orders: who signs what, and how

Yes — every one of those documents can be concluded with an electronic signature, and a signed quote is just a private document delivered electronically. The proof is stronger than an email or a PDF scanned back, because the timestamp anchors a point in time and the ceremony log shows the flow.

A quote carrying the client’s countersigned name and a timestamp records the exact text and the moment of signing. In Portugal, article 3(2) of Decreto-Lei n.º 12/2021 gives a qualified signature a presumption of authenticity; an advanced signature is assessed under article 3(10) general law, and the audit trail (the lead, the revisions, the signing, the pack) supports that assessment.

For authorisations and work orders, the proof the business actually relies on is the audit trail: who (the signer), what (the exact version), when (the RFC 3161 time). A scan loses two of the three; the advanced signature normally retains all three.

Put the quote (or order) in an envelope, add the client and any company approver, and let parallel routing fire both at once. The client signs on a phone with an OTP code — no account, no app — and the pack lands with a PAdES signature; when an RFC 3161 authority answers, it is B-T, and the evidence pack records the level reached.

The envelope model is what makes commercial quotes tractable: the quote, the terms sheet, and any annexes each deb signed as one document, with one audit trail. Post-signature cancellation, counter-proposals, and last-minute tweaks are a human process, not an e-signature problem.

No gratuitous extras bolted on: the client-signed quote is already legal evidence of the commercial contract; notarisation is not needed for that.

Fix the name, email and session details before the signing, not after — the ceremony is evidence of what was signed, not of what you meant to sign.

This is an advanced (AdES) tier: where a deal needs a qualified signature or an institution’s bespoke paperwork, use the provider that does that. Documents signed here are ordinary private documents with strong evidence; where a party demands QES, treat it as a different transaction.