Formstack Documents (Webmerge)

Want to use Formstack Documents (formerly Webmerge) to streamline your business and save time and money, but don’t know where to start or how to use it?

I remember the first time I tried using it. Even being quite tech-savvy myself, it was still frustrating and challenging and took many hours to really get the hang of it and truly take advantage of the powerful software.

So what can Formstack Documents do?

Here is one common example of how you can use it to become more efficient in your business.

Filling out a W-9 the old way

Let’s say you have a vendor who needs to fill out an IRS Form W-9, sign it, and return it to you so that you can begin work with them.

Filling out a PDF for signature usually looks like the following:

Step #1 – Filling out the PDF

If the PDF is NOT fortunate to be a “fillable” PDF, then the user will have to print it out (assuming they have easy access to a printer) and fill it out by hand. At best, if it is a “fillable” PDF, then they can type directly into the PDF.

Step #2 – Signing the document

Whether they fill it out by hand or type in the information, they still need to print it (again they’ll need access to a printer) so they can sign it.

Step #3 – Scanning the document

After signing, they’ll need to figure out how to scan the document. Fortunately, most people have smartphones these days, but most won’t know how to “scan” with it. They’ll just take pictures of the document (hopefully with good lighting and the entire document in the frame for all pages).

Step #4 – Sending the document

If they used their phone to take a picture of the document, hopefully, they won’t have any issues attaching multiple pictures with large file sizes to an email. Emails have trouble sending when total attachments hit the 25 MB size and most users won’t realize why the email is stuck in their outbox.

As you can see above, there are lots of opportunities for something to go wrong, take longer than expected, and becoming inconvenient and frustrating for the user.

Instead, you want efficiency, ease of use, and speed.

That’s where Formstack Documents come in.

Filling out a W-9 using Formstack Documents

Step #1 – Using an online form to fill out the PDF

One the biggest advantages of using an online form instead of typing directly into a fillable PDF is that you can better explain what information you need, restrict the type of data to input like making sure the user types in a number and not text, and making it easy to use even from a phone (mobile optimized).

CLICK HERE to check out the working Formstack Documents demo.

Step #2 – Signing electronically

After completing the form, the data is sent to Formstack Documents where it fills out the PDF based on your inputs and then sends it to an electronic signature service like Formstack Sign or DocuSign so that the user can sign using their mobile phone or computer.

CLICK HERE to check out the working Formstack Documents demo from Step 1 if you haven’t already.

And that’s it! The final signed document is then delivered to both the user and you and you’re done! Quick and easy!

This is just one example of the many different ways you can use Formstack Documents to streamline your business and save time and money.

And you don’t have to do it alone.

If you’d like some help, just give me a call/text at (310) 722-6190 or fill out the contact form at the bottom of the page.

Your friend,

Cary