A machine on site, no signature anywhere
A new customer phones for a dumper and a roller for a two-week job. The hire desk takes the booking and emails the hire contract. The email goes to a general inbox at the customer's office. The machines are delivered, the driver gets a signature on a delivery note from a labourer, and work starts. The contract is never signed.
Months later, when there is a dispute about damage or a machine that wasn't returned on time, you look for the signed contract that refers to your terms and there isn't one.
Why contracts go unsigned
Plant hire is a phone-and-go business. Machines are wanted tomorrow, and nobody wants to delay a delivery for paperwork. So the paperwork follows the machine and often never catches up.
- Contracts are emailed after booking to an address nobody at the customer reads.
- Delivery notes are signed on site by whoever is present, and don't refer to the terms.
- Regular customers have old account agreements that may not cover every hire.
- Nobody checks which hires are running without a signed contract.
- Paper contracts that are signed come back slowly and get filed without being linked to the hire.
What your terms must say, and how they are incorporated into each hire, are matters for your own legal adviser. The system makes sure the documents your adviser approves are actually signed.
What unsigned contracts cost
When a dispute arises, the absence of a signed contract weakens your position on damage, loss, late returns and payment terms. Credit control has less to rely on when chasing. And the office spends time chasing signatures for hires that have already finished.
It also affects the everyday things your terms are meant to settle before they become disputes: who is responsible for the machine while it is on site, what happens if it is stolen, what the customer must check each day, and how off-hire works. A customer who never saw or signed those terms is less likely to follow them.
Contract signing built into booking and delivery
- When a hire is booked, the hire confirmation, with your terms attached or linked, is sent for e-signature to the customer's named contact, by email and text.
- The customer signs on their phone in a minute, and the signed document is stored against the hire contract in your hire system.
- If the contract isn't signed by delivery, the driver's app asks for a signature on site from the customer's representative, showing the hire details and a link to the terms.
- Account customers who sign a framework agreement are recorded, so each hire can refer to it according to your process.
- Hires running without a signed contract are listed daily for the hire desk.
- Signed contracts are retrievable by hire, machine or customer in seconds.
| Point | Signature route |
|---|---|
| At booking | E-signature link by email and text |
| At delivery, if still unsigned | Driver's phone on site |
| Account customers | Framework agreement on file |
| After delivery, still missing | Daily list for the hire desk |
The office afterwards
Most hires are signed before the machine leaves the yard. The rest are signed at delivery. The daily list of unsigned hires is short, and when a dispute comes up the signed contract is attached to the hire, not in a filing cabinet or lost.
Signs your contracts aren't being signed
- Contracts are emailed and rarely returned signed.
- Delivery notes are signed by whoever is on site.
- You can't quickly produce the signed contract for a hire.
- Nobody tracks which hires are unsigned.
- Disputes are harder than they should be because of missing paperwork.