Via.work is a small start-up with a team of 12 people. They create specialist contracts for their clients to use with their employees and contractors.
As this is the core of their business, they need a document generation and eSignature service that is capable of automation, can handle large volumes of documents and is easily customizable.
Via.work’s clients need to be able to add benefits, make reimbursements and provide customer service in their contracts. Many of their clients employ people in several different countries, all with specific compliance requirements. As such, the contracts their clients need are often complicated documents with multiple customizations.
Because they are small, Via looks for great companies to partner with, especially those with great APIs. Contract APIs are complex and often hard to work with, so finding a partner with a well-documented, easy-to-implement, and straightforward to use API is important to them. Since partnering with PandaDoc API, their development and integration process has become much easier.
Previously, Via was using HelloSign API for their document generation. But the templates were far too inflexible, and the API documentation wasn’t clear.
As Via creates contracts that need to be highly customized to each client, the inflexibility in HelloSign’s software meant that they had to input all the data manually. If they tried to automate, fields would move around the page, with the resulting documents too messy to use. It meant many hours of manual input of data and document creation.
For example, if they were drawing up a Master Services Agreement that needed to have 15 employees added to it, they would have to do the whole process 15 times. As Via scaled its business and added new clients with more complex needs, this manual process quickly became far too time-consuming to sustain.
Via’s software engineer Omar Sanchez said, “As the complexity of the process grew, so did the pain.” Via needed to automate, they needed to make sure the contracts they were creating were legally compliant, and they needed to be faster. So they decided to look for a new API.
Omar always starts any API evaluation by looking at the documentation. When he came across PandaDoc API, he found it clear and extensive, allowing him to check out all the API endpoints. From this, he could see that PandaDoc API met their requirements.
They were attracted to the simple, clean layout of PandaDoc’s templates and UI: an important requirement when creating elaborate templates with input from multiple parties. The other factor in their decision-making process was pricing. As Via created a large number of documents, they needed a solution with a competitive, clear pricing model that would allow them to increase volume as they scaled their business.
After integrating PandaDoc API into their internal software, they developed a logical workflow using folders to contain custom templates. Now they’ve set this up, they can create documents very quickly by assigning IDs to their custom folders inside their company database. All they have to do now is type the relevant ID number into their database, and the desired custom folder loads, allowing them to quickly and simply add custom elements to their documents.
Integrating PandaDoc API in this way has created a highly customizable, flexible, and easy to work with document generation process. It has saved their Ops teams valuable time when creating documents as they no longer have to do it manually. It also means operations engineers don’t need to save contacts manually in Via’s internal repository. Instead, they use the download endpoint during the contract creation process.
Whereas previously they had to manually enter large amounts of data to avoid messy and unintelligible documents being created, now they can automate this process and produce clean, well-formatted contracts in a fraction of the time. Automation has saved Via a lot of time. They have multiple clients hiring and onboarding new people every week, and all of these new starters — around 10–15 people per week per client — require new contracts.
So added up over all their client contract creation needs, PandaDoc API automation creates huge efficiencies in their workflow.
As PandaDoc API is so extensively documented, it took Via a month to integrate it, with 2–3 weeks of this time being spent on setting up their internal customization process. Another bonus: Via’s API developers are much happier now they have clear rules and unambiguous documentation to work with.
Discover what PandaDoc API can do for your business.
