Document signing workflows: who signs, in what order, and who just needs a copy

The roles in a signing workflow

Each person on a Salsox document has a role:

• Signer: fills fields and signs. Most recipients are signers.
• Approver: reviews and approves the document before it continues, without placing a signature. Useful for a manager, a partner or a finance lead who must agree before a client sees it. (Business plan.)
• Viewer: can open and read the document but has nothing to do.
• Copy: receives the completed, signed document, for example your accountant or a co-owner.

Parallel or sequential

By default everyone signs at the same time: each recipient gets their link as soon as you send, and the document completes when the last person signs. That is the fastest option and suits most two-party agreements.

Some documents must be signed in a fixed order. A contract your director signs only after the client has, an offer approved by HR before the candidate sees it, a lease signed by every tenant before the landlord countersigns. With sequential signing on the Business plan, you set the order, and each person is invited only when the one before them has finished. Everyone can see where the document is from its page.

Expiry and reminders

Every document can expire, 30 days by default, after which unsigned links stop working, and anyone who has not signed is reminded automatically every three days. In a sequential workflow the reminders follow the order: only the person whose turn it is gets nudged. See document tracking for how status and reminders work.

Declines and corrections

Any signer or approver can decline, giving a reason. The document stops, you are told, and the reason is shown on its page and kept in the audit trail. If a recipient's email was wrong, you correct it on the document; their link is reissued and the workflow continues from where it was.

Workflows with payment

On the Business plan a workflow can include a payment: choose which signer pays, and they pay as part of signing. In a sequential workflow the payer can be anyone in the order; for a deposit, it is usually the client, last. See Sign & Pay.

Setting one up

Upload the document, add each recipient with their role, choose parallel or sequential and set the order, place each signer's fields, and send. For a recurring workflow, such as an offer letter approved by a manager then signed by the candidate, keep the order the same each time; the guide to document approval workflows walks through common patterns.

What it does not do

Salsox workflows are a fixed list of people in a fixed order. There is no conditional routing (sending to different people depending on answers), no parallel branches inside a sequence, no automated steps after signing, and no integration with other systems to start a workflow automatically. Platforms with workflow builders and an API handle those cases.