Sign digitally: why HR documents no longer need paper or a printer
Every week, the same ritual. PTO approval — print, sign, scan, file. Travel order — print, sign, walk it over to accounting, archive. Overtime decision — print, sign, drop in a drawer. For a company with 30 employees, that's dozens of HR documents a month. Each one needs a printer, paper, a signature, a scan, and a physical archive.
All of that can be a single click. And it has been legal for years.
Yes, digitally signing HR documents is legal
Let's start with the question that worries most directors and accountants: digitally signing HR documents is fully legal.
Across the EU, electronic signatures on business documents — including internal HR records like PTO approvals, travel orders, and work-schedule decisions — are legally recognised under the eIDAS regulation (EU Regulation 910/2014). Similar regimes exist elsewhere: ESIGN/UETA in the United States, eIDAS-UK in the United Kingdom, and equivalent laws in most developed jurisdictions. Tax authorities and labour inspectors across these regions have been accepting electronically signed business records for years.
eIDAS defines three levels of electronic signature:
- Simple electronic signature — e.g. a typed name in an email. The lowest level.
- Advanced electronic signature — uniquely linked to the signer, allows identification, and detects any later changes to the document.
- Qualified electronic signature — requires a qualified certificate from a trusted provider. Legally equivalent to a handwritten signature.
For internal HR documents — approvals, orders, decisions — an advanced electronic signature is enough. You don't need a qualified certificate. You don't need special hardware. You need a system that guarantees authenticity (you can prove who signed) and integrity (the document can't be silently altered after the fact).
Important: employment contracts are a separate category and we recommend consulting a lawyer for those. This article covers internal HR records that get produced in day-to-day operations — not the legal acts that govern the employment relationship itself.
Which HR documents can you sign digitally?
Here is a concrete list of documents you can fully digitise today:
PTO approvals ✓
Employee submits a request. Manager approves. The approval is generated automatically — with a digital signature and timestamp. No printed sheet sitting on a desk for three days waiting for a signature.
For a deeper look at how this works end-to-end, see what to do when an employee claims you approved their PTO.
Travel orders ✓
Creation, approval, expense entry, settlement — all digital. Accounting receives a finished document ready to book. Employees don't wait three weeks for reimbursement.
Overtime decisions ✓
When a manager orders overtime, the decision is created in the system, signed digitally, and automatically logged in the work-time record. No paper form that can go missing before an audit.
PTO decisions ✓
In most jurisdictions you are required to issue a formal PTO decision for each employee. With a digital signature, the decision is generated and signed inside the system — with proof of when it was issued and who signed it.
What you should NOT sign digitally without a legal review
- Employment contracts — talk to a lawyer
- Terminations and formal warnings — typically require a specific delivery procedure
- Collective bargaining agreements — governed by separate rules
For everything else in everyday HR — green light.
How much is paper actually costing you?
Most directors have never sat down and added up how much time and money they spend "paper-shuffling" HR documents. Here is a concrete example for a 30-person company.
A typical HR document on paper requires:
- Print the document: 1 min
- Walk it over for a signature (or wait for someone to come back to their desk): 3 min (average, including waiting)
- Sign it: 1 min
- Scan it and email it: 2 min
- File the physical copy: 1 min
Total: ~8 minutes per document.
For a 30-person company, a typical month produces roughly:
| Document | Volume/month | |----------|-------------| | PTO approvals | ~5 | | Travel orders | ~4 | | Overtime decisions | ~3 | | Decisions and other records | ~2 | | Total | ~14 documents |
14 documents × 8 minutes = about 112 minutes a month, or almost 2 hours.
Annually: ~22 hours spent purely on the physical handling of HR documents.
Add the cost of paper, toner, and physical archiving (folders, shelves, floor space) and — most expensive of all — the time you spend hunting for a document when somebody asks for it. An auditor, an accountant, an employee who insists you never approved their PTO.
Then there is the invisible cost: risk. A document that goes missing when an inspector asks for it costs you a lot more than 8 minutes. Fines for an incomplete work-time record run into the thousands per inspection in many jurisdictions. A paper document that disappears in a drawer can't be reconstructed. A digital one can be found in a second.
Those 22 hours a year are hours a director or HR person could spend on work that actually creates value. Instead — they print, sign, and scan. To say nothing of the frustration of employees who wait days for a signature on a PTO request because the manager is travelling, on holiday, or simply — buried in other work.
How Kloki implements digital signing
In Kloki, digital signing isn't an extra option you have to enable. It's built into every flow.
QR seal with hash verification
Every document Kloki generates — a PTO decision, a travel order, an overtime ruling — carries a QR seal. That seal contains a cryptographic hash of the document, which lets anyone verify:
- Who signed it (the name of the user who approved or created the document)
- When it was signed (exact date and time)
- Whether the document was changed after signing (hash verification)
If anyone alters the document after signing, the hash no longer matches — and the change is immediately visible. That's a level of protection a paper signature simply cannot offer.
A digital archive instead of physical folders
Every signed document is automatically stored in a digital archive. No folders, no shelves, no rummaging through drawers. When an auditor asks for a PTO decision from two years ago — you find it in a second, not in an hour.
One system for every HR document
Unlike tools that cover only travel orders or only the work-time record, Kloki digitally signs all HR documents in one place. PTO, travel orders, decisions, rulings — all to the same standard of protection and verifiability.
That's the key difference. If you use one tool for travel orders, another for PTO, and a third for the work-time record — you have three different signing systems, three different archives, and three times the work. In Kloki it's all connected: approve a PTO request, and it shows up in the work-time record automatically. Sign a travel order, and the day on the road is logged as a working day. One signature — every record updated.
"But we have always done it on paper"
This is the most common objection. And it's understandable — habits are hard to change. But think about this: how many things did you "always" do on paper that you now do digitally? You email invoices. You sign supplier contracts electronically. You file tax returns online.
HR documents are the last paper stronghold in most companies. Not because they have to be on paper — but because nobody offered a simple enough way to change that. The reality is that all of HR can be digital — PTO, decisions, rulings, the work-time record. All in one place.
A company that digitises HR documents today doesn't just save time — it positions itself for a future where audits will increasingly look for digital records instead of paper ones.
You don't need a printer for HR documents anymore
Every week that goes by with a paper-based process is a week in which you:
- Spend time printing, signing, and scanning instead of working
- Risk losing or damaging a document
- Have no proof of when something was actually signed
- Pay for paper, toner, and archive space
Digitally signing HR documents isn't the future — it's the present. Legal across the EU, the US, the UK and beyond, and practical from day one.
Try Kloki for free — and stop printing documents nobody wants to read on paper.
