Rental management
E-signatures on rental agreements: are they valid and how to set them up
Published
Signing with a finger on a tablet is familiar from car sharing and deliveries. Rental owners still wonder whether such an agreement holds up in a dispute. Here is what to rely on.
The law
Most countries accept simple electronic signatures for ordinary contracts, especially when the parties agree on it in the contract itself. That is why the agreement should state that the customer's electronic signature equals a handwritten one. Rules differ by country — have a local lawyer review your agreement.
Evidence to keep
- The exact text the customer saw — so nobody can say 'I signed something else'.
- A fingerprint (hash) of the text: it changes with any edit, so tampering shows.
- Date and time of signing.
- IP address and device used to sign.
- How it was signed: on the rental's device with staff present, or by a link to the customer's email.
- The copy sent to the customer: they hold the same text.
Tablet or link
- Tablet — the customer is present, staff see who signs and are recorded as the witness. Best at the counter.
- Link — the agreement goes to the customer's email. Best for delivery, online bookings and long rentals; email access also confirms identity.
How it works in ProkatOS
- An administrator writes the agreement in the web app: Company → Agreement for electronic signing. Placeholders {client}, {equipment}, {started_at}, {total} are filled from the rental. Until you write your own, a built-in agreement with the equivalence clause is used.
- In the rental card click Sign on this device and hand the tablet to the customer — they read, tick the box and sign.
- Or click Send link to the customer's email — the letter goes immediately, and you can copy the link to a messenger.
- After signing the customer gets a copy by email, and the rental shows Open signed — the document with signature, time, IP, browser and SHA-256 fingerprint for printing or PDF.
- The desktop app has the same on the E-signature tab of the rental card.
More on the electronic rental agreements page. A sample text is in the rental agreement template.
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Read also
- QR labels on equipment: checkout and return by scanA ProkatOS guide: print QR labels for bikes and equipment, scan with a phone or barcode scanner and hand out equipment in seconds.
- Security deposits for rentals: how much to take and how to handle themHow big a deposit to take for a bike, scooter or SUP board, why not to hold ID documents, how to write deposit terms and when to withhold.
- A customer damaged or did not return equipment: what to doStep by step: what to do when equipment comes back damaged, the customer is late or disappears. Withholding the deposit, a written claim, the police and how to prepare.