How to reduce signature delays: Built-in tricks that get contracts signed 30% faster

Every delay in your document creation process — whether it’s drafting a contract, getting internal approvals, or chasing a final signature — creates friction in your sales cycle.

And the longer a contract sits unsigned, the more likely your deal is to stall, or worse, disappear altogether.

If it feels like you’re constantly chasing down bottlenecks, you’re not alone.

Signature delays are one of the most common (and costly) issues revenue teams face. In fact, according to HubSpot’s 2024 State of Sales report, the average B2B sales cycle now lasts 83 days, with delays during the contract and approval stages being a frequent roadblock to closing.

These “last-mile” hangups often surface at the worst time, like end-of-quarter, putting revenue targets at risk.

Gartner adds that 77% of B2B buyers found their most recent purchase experience to be “very complex or difficult,” with internal decision-making and contract steps named as major causes of friction (Gartner, B2B Buying Journey, 2023).

The good news? Most of those slowdowns are preventable.

By streamlining the document process from start to finish, you can speed up time-to-sign and keep deals from slipping through the cracks.

In this post, we’ll break down where signature delays typically happen, why they happen, and which PandaDoc features you can use to solve them.

Whether you’re in sales, RevOps, or customer success, these built-in tools can help you shorten your sales cycle and close more business — without burning out your team.

1. Speed up document creation with repeatable, error-free processes

Let’s start at the top: document creation.

If your team is still building contracts manually, you’re already behind.

Slow creation times lead to slower deals, especially when reps have to start from scratch, dig through outdated folders, or manually enter deal details every time a contract is needed. It adds unnecessary friction and opens the door for costly errors.

Top-performing teams tackle this early by standardizing their most-used contracts into a set of templates.

They also set a recurring review schedule — typically every six months — to ensure that every template stays accurate and up to date.

You can make this even easier by creating customizable frameworks that give your team a trusted starting point for MSAs, NDAs, proposals, and more.

To take it a step further, you can connect your CRM (like Salesforce or HubSpot) to your document tools.

This way, fields like contact details, company names, and pricing auto-fill in seconds, eliminating manual entry and reducing errors.

“Instead of our reps spending time manually creating contracts, they just pull up a standardized template and send it out in minutes. Everything is synced with HubSpot, so we don’t have to worry about entering customer info or pricing manually.”

— Christopher Ginty, Director of Revenue Operations at RemoFirst

Additionally, pre-approved content blocks — like standard clauses, fee schedules, disclaimers, and visuals — help reps build contracts fast without sacrificing compliance or consistency.

Quick win: Start by setting up templates for your top three contract types and connect them to your CRM. Teams that follow this playbook have reported up to a 65% reduction in time spent creating documents.

2. Remove internal bottlenecks from approvals and negotiations

Even with the perfect contract in hand, deals often slow down during the approval and negotiation phase.

It’s one of the most frustrating places to lose momentum, especially when internal processes, not the customer, are the culprit.

Top-performing teams anticipate this by setting clear internal approval rules upfront.

They map out who needs to approve which contracts based on deal size, risk, or region, and use automated routing to keep things moving without constant back-and-forth.

You can automate approval workflows to eliminate manual guesswork.

Once a document is submitted, it automatically routes to the right stakeholders for review — no Slack reminders or endless email chains needed.

Want to get even more targeted? Some teams set up conditional approvals that apply extra oversight only when needed — like requiring VP sign-off for deals over $50K, but letting smaller deals fly through faster.

As for negotiations, top-performing teams ditch email threads entirely.

Instead, they centralize feedback and changes using contract negotiation tools that keep everything inside the document itself.

This avoids version confusion, reduces turnaround times, and creates a single source of truth both legal and sales can trust.

“We’ve been able to really streamline proposal amendments without lots of emails going back and forth by using proposal software with contract negotiation functionality. Plus, we fast-tracked reviews of our terms and conditions. ”

— Craig Birch, Head of Sales at Williams Commerce

Quick win: Build an approval workflow that automatically routes contracts to the right internal reviewers based on deal size or region. You’ll speed up approvals without sacrificing oversight.

3. Make signing simple and eliminate buyer hesitation

Now comes the final stretch: getting the customer to actually sign.

This should be the easy part — but even here, small obstacles can cause big delays.

If the signer is confused by the layout, doesn’t know when it’s due, or struggles to access the document, they’re more likely to procrastinate (or ghost altogether).

Top-performing teams focus on creating a seamless signing experience.

That means showing each signer only what’s relevant to them, setting clear deadlines, and offering multiple ways to access the document.

You can use conditional fields to hide unnecessary sections based on the recipient’s role — keeping documents clean, intuitive, and fast to complete.

Deadlines also matter. Adding document expirations and automated reminders creates built-in urgency without adding manual tasks to your team’s plate.

Reminders gently nudge the signer until the document gets done.

And if your customers don’t live in their inbox? No problem.

You can deliver documents via SMS directly to their phones, making it easy to sign on the go — especially for mobile-first buyers.

“Just having the email and SMS feature is great. Our sales reps don’t need to copy and paste the link, and then go email it or text it. They can do all that at once.”

— April Fleming, Revenue Operations Analyst at Wizehire

Finally, if a signature is stalled, document analytics and audit trails show exactly where the holdup is.

Reps can see who opened the document, when, and how long they viewed it, allowing for smarter, more confident follow-up.

Quick win: Add expiration dates to all outbound documents and turn on automated reminders to create gentle urgency. Combine that with SMS delivery for a faster, smoother signing experience.

Recommended: Learn how Wizehire were able to slash contract creation time from 1 hour to 5 minutes

Final thoughts: Don’t let document delays derail your deals

Signature delays don’t happen because your team is slow — they happen because your processes are.

And when you’re juggling multiple systems, teams, and approval flows, even small inefficiencies add up fast.

The solution isn’t working harder. It’s working smarter with the right tools and systems already available to you.

From faster document creation with standardized templates and CRM integrations, to smoother internal approvals and frictionless signing experiences, there are proven ways to speed things up — and they’re easier to implement than you might think.

What’s Next?

Ready to find out what’s slowing down your signature process?
Take a closer look at your current document workflow. Identify where creation, approvals, or signing are dragging deals out.

Then log in to PandaDoc to start streamlining your process, connect with your account manager for tailored advice, or upgrade your plan to unlock even more time-saving features.