Signing order: What it is and how to set it up

What is a signing order?

Signing order is the sequence in which recipients receive and sign a document. This can be either one at a time in a set order (sequential) or all at once (parallel). When a signing order is enabled, each signer receives the document when it's their turn; the next recipient isn't notified until the previous one completes their part.

When a signing order is turned off, every recipient gets the document at the same time and can sign in any order. The sections below cover when each approach makes sense and exactly how to set it up in PandaDoc.

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Sequential vs. parallel signing: what's the difference?

Sequential signing sends the document to one signer at a time, in a defined order. Signer 2 doesn't see the document until Signer 1 has completed their part. This is the right call whenever someone needs to review or approve a document before the next person acts on it.

Parallel signing sends the document to every signer at once, and they can sign in any order. This works when there's no dependency between signers and speed matters more than sequence.

The decision comes down to one question: does any signer need to review or approve before the next signer acts? If yes, use sequential. If not, use parallel.

PandaDoc also supports a hybrid approach: you can group specific recipients to sign at the same step while keeping others sequential. For example, two internal reviewers sign simultaneously at step one, then the document moves to the client at step two.

When to use sequential signing

Use sequential signing whenever the order signatures happen in matters, legally or operationally.

• Contracts requiring internal approval before a client signs. Legal or finance signs off internally first, so the client never sees a version that hasn't been approved.

• Multi-party agreements with hierarchical authority. An executive signs before the counterparty does. Common in vendor agreements, MSAs, and partnership contracts.

• Employment offers. HR prepares the offer, a manager countersigns internally, and only then does the candidate receive it. A candidate should never see an offer that hasn't been internally authorized.

• Real estate and certain legal documents. Some jurisdictions and document types require a specific signing sequence for legal validity.

• Regulated industries. Healthcare, finance, and government contracts often require a defined approval chain. Sequential signing enforces that automatically instead of relying on someone to track it manually.

See is an electronic signature legal for more on what makes a signing sequence hold up, and contract signatory for more on who needs to sign and why it matters.

When to use parallel signing

Use parallel signing when the signers are peers, and there's no dependency between their signatures.

• NDAs between two parties of equal standing. Both sides sign at the same time, neither one is waiting on the other's approval.

• Team acknowledgment forms. Several employees signing an internal policy document, with no hierarchy and no approval chain involved.

• Simple service agreements. A freelancer and a client sign simultaneously, with no internal review required on either side.

• High-volume, low-complexity documents. When the document is standard and speed is the priority, parallel signing skips the delay that sequential routing would add.

The practical test: would it be a problem if Signer 2 signed before Signer 1? If not, go parallel. If yes, go sequential. For background on the signing process itself, see electronic signatures; for more on shaving time off the process generally, see reduce signature delays.

How to set up signing order in PandaDoc

Step 1: Open or create a document

Start from a template or upload an existing document. It's worth setting signing order at the template level if you'll reuse the same sequence repeatedly. Every document created from that template inherits the setting automatically.

Step 2: Add recipients

Open the recipients panel (select Manage at the top of the document, or the Manage recipients tab on the right). Add each person who needs to sign or receive a copy. Recipients are either Signers or CC recipients, who receive a copy with no need to sign.

Step 3: Turn on signing order

In the recipients panel, switch on the Set signing order toggle. Recipients are now numbered, representing the order in which they'll receive the document.

Step 4: Set the sequence

Drag recipients into the order you want them to receive the document. If you want two or more recipients to sign at the same step, drag one recipient over another to group them — they'll be notified at the same time, while everyone else still follows the sequence. This is how you build a hybrid workflow: two internal approvers grouped at step one, then the client at step two once both have signed.

A detail worth knowing: placing a CC recipient before a signer means they're notified at the same time as that signer. Placing a CC recipient after a signer means they're notified only once that signer completes their part. Useful if you want someone copied on the outcome rather than the in-progress document.

Step 5: Assign signature and form fields

Each signer needs at least one field: signature, initials, date, or a form field, assigned to them. Select the recipient from the field toolbar before placing the field, or use Assign all if a single recipient should get every field in the document. A signer with no fields assigned won't be prompted to take any action, so it's worth checking the recipients panel before sending.

Step 6: Send the document

Click Send. The first recipient (or recipients, if grouped at step one) gets an email with a link to sign. Each following recipient is notified automatically the moment the previous step is complete; there's no manual forwarding involved. You can track progress for the whole sequence from the document dashboard.

A few things worth knowing once it's set up

You can still adjust the order after sending for recipients who haven't received the document yet. Once someone has already received and is partway through their step, their position is locked in, but you can reorder anyone further down the queue.

Reassigning a signer doesn't mean starting over. If someone listed as a signer becomes unavailable, you can change the signer for that step from the recipients panel. PandaDoc automatically transfers any fields already assigned to that role to the new signer.

Combine signing order with an approval workflow. If your plan includes PandaDoc's internal approval workflows, you can require designated approvers to sign off before a document goes out at all, a separate layer that sits in front of the signing order sequence, so nothing reaches an external signer until it's been internally cleared.

Set reminders so nobody has to chase manually. Configure automatic reminders so that a signer who hasn't completed their step receives a follow-up after a set number of days, rather than relying on them to remember.

Explore PandaDoc's signing order feature directly, or see setting up a signature workflow with multiple signers for broader guidance on multi-signer documents. PandaDoc's AI assistant can also help review a document for accuracy before it goes into a signing sequence, useful when a document is about to be routed to several people in a row and a mistake means re-sending the whole thing.

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Signing order by document type: a quick reference

Browse PandaDoc's contract templates — ready to send when signing order is toggled on. View templates.

Common signing order mistakes — and how to avoid them

Sending to the client before internal approval is complete. The most common error: no signing order configured, so the client receives the document before legal has actually reviewed it. Fix: configure signing order on any document that has an internal approval step, every time.

Adding unnecessary steps to simple documents. Using sequential signing on an NDA between two equal parties just adds delay for no reason. Fix: default to parallel for peer-to-peer documents.

Assigning fields to the wrong recipient. Each signer's fields have to be explicitly assigned in PandaDoc, get it wrong, and the wrong person gets prompted to fill in the wrong fields. Fix: check the recipients panel before sending to confirm every field is assigned correctly.

Not accounting for an out-of-office signer. Sequential signing stalls completely if a signer is unavailable. Fix: set up reminders so delays surface early, and know that you can reassign a signer's step without restarting the whole document.

For more on what causes delays in the signing process generally, see reduce signature delays.

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