Automate Onboarding with HighLevel E-Signatures

Most agencies still send contracts manually — copy a template into Google Docs, swap in the client's name, email it, then check back every few days to see if they signed. When they finally do, someone has to remember to create the onboarding checklist, send the welcome email, and move the deal forward. Steps get missed. Clients fall through cracks.

Click on the image above to watch the full video.

This training was delivered live to the Seven Figure Agency community with James Hurst walking through the complete setup.

The Flow: Lead to Onboarded Client

The process maps to a simple pipeline:

1. New Lead → Appointment booked
2. Sale Won → Drag card to "Send Contract"
3. Contract Viewed → Automatic pipeline stage update
4. Contract Signed → Moves to signed stage, triggers onboarding
5. Invoice Paid → Welcome email, onboarding workflow kicks off

Each step is powered by HighLevel workflows — no manual intervention required after the initial sale.

Templates vs. Documents

This distinction trips people up. Think of it like blueprints and houses:

• Template = The blueprint. Your PPC agreement, your W9 form, your service contract. You build it once.
• Document = The actual house. James's W9. Mary's PPC agreement. A specific instance sent to a specific person.

Both live under Payments → Documents and Contracts, but on different tabs. The template tab has no recipient field — you're just building the structure. The document tab shows recipients, statuses (draft, waiting, completed, paid), and the actual files sent to real people.

When you name a template "PPC Agreement," every document created from it inherits that name. Keep template names clean — your clients will see them.

Building a Template

Navigate to Payments → Documents and Contracts → Templates → New.

Elements You'll Use

• Image — Drag in your agency logo
• Text — The body of your agreement
• Custom Values — The key to automation. Use the custom values icon to insert contact.full_name, contact.company, and other fields that auto-populate when sent
• Signature fields — Drag from the fillable fields section. Set one for the client and one for yourself. Toggle "show signer name" on or off in properties
• Date — Either use the date picker field or insert the right now custom value for month/day/year. The custom value auto-fills today's date so nobody has to fiddle with a date selector (tradeoff: can't backdate)

Fillable Fields vs. Plain Text Variables

There's a subtle but important difference:

• Plain text custom values (like contact.full_name inserted via the custom values icon) — Hardcoded into the document. The client sees their name but can't change it.
• Text fields (from the fillable fields section) — The client can edit these. You can pre-fill them with custom values, but the recipient can modify the content.
• Linked fields — Text fields that write back to the contact record in HighLevel. If a new lead fills in their phone number on the contract, it updates their contact record automatically.

Use plain text for information you control. Use fillable text fields when the client needs to provide or confirm information.

Content Library

A newer feature that enables modular contracts. Say you offer PPC, Facebook Ads, and Google Business Profile management as separate packages. Instead of maintaining three complete templates:

1. Build each service section as a separate block
2. Click Add to Content Library to save it
3. When building a new contract, drag modules in from the Content Library tab

This is ideal for agencies that mix and match services per client. Build once, reuse everywhere.

Adding Products and Payment Collection

This is where it gets powerful. Instead of sending a contract and a separate invoice, you combine them.

Setup

1. Go to Payments → Products and create your offerings (Growth at $3,000/mo, Accelerate at $5,000/mo, Premium at $7,000/mo — whatever your tiers are)
2. Set each as recurring or one-time, with optional setup fees
3. Back in your template, drag in a Product List element
4. Add your products as line items

Making Products Optional

Enable Optional Item on a product's checkbox. This lets the client check which package they want. If all your packages are optional, the contract becomes a self-service plan selector — the client picks their tier and signs in one step.

Payment Settings

In the template's payment settings (the dollar sign icon):

• Generate invoice at time of signing — Creates the invoice automatically
• Invoice frequency — Monthly, quarterly, etc.
• Enable direct payment — Lets them pay immediately after signing
• Enable auto payment — The card used for the first payment handles future recurring charges automatically

When the client signs, they're immediately redirected to the invoice. Sign and pay in one flow — no chasing.

The Automation Workflows

The snapshot includes numbered workflows that power the entire pipeline:

1. Send Contract (Pipeline Stage Change)

When you drag a deal to "Send Contract":

• Action: Send Document and Contract
• Select: The template, the sending user, and the channel (email, SMS, or both)
• Sending mode: "Direct" sends immediately. "Draft" stages it for final review before sending.

Pro tip: Customize the email subject line. The default template isn't great. Use something action-oriented like "Please Review and Sign" — borrowed from DocuSign because it works.

1A. Stale Opportunity — Not Viewed

A stale opportunity trigger fires if the contract sits in "Send Contract" for 3+ days without being viewed:

• Internal notification to your team
• Optional automatic follow-up email to the client

2. Contract Viewed

When the document status changes to "viewed":

• Automatically move the opportunity to the "Viewed" pipeline stage
• Optional internal notification ("They looked at it")
• Optional tag: contract-viewed

2A. Stale Opportunity — Viewed but Not Signed

Same concept — 3 days in "Viewed" without signing triggers a follow-up.

3. Contract Signed (Completed)

This is the big one. The trigger fires on completed status (not just "signed") because completed means all parties have signed. If your contract requires multiple signatures, the "signed" event fires for each person — "completed" fires once when everyone's done.

This workflow:

• Updates the opportunity to "Won"
• Creates a new opportunity in the onboarding pipeline (stage: "New Client")
• Sends internal notification ("They signed!")
• Tags the contact contract-signed
• Adds to onboarding workflow — This is the handoff

The onboarding workflow is separate and triggerless — it's called from the contract signed workflow using the "Add to Workflow" action. This modular approach means you can update onboarding without touching the contract workflow.

4. Onboard New Client

A triggerless workflow called by #3:

• Wait 3 minutes (gives the system time to process)
• Send welcome email
• Kick off whatever your onboarding sequence looks like

This is also where you'd fire webhooks to ClickUp to create the client's onboarding checklist, push a notification to Slack, or trigger any external system. If you prefer keeping everything inside HighLevel, the GHL Plugins Task Manager handles project boards and task dependencies natively.

Signing Order and Multi-Party Contracts

You can set a signing order — agency signs first, then the client. Or route it through multiple parties: lawyer reviews first, then agency owner, then client. Each party receives the document only after the previous party has signed.

The Signature Certificate

When a completed document is downloaded as PDF, it includes a signature certificate at the end with:

• IP addresses of all signers
• Geographic locations
• Dates and times
• Reference numbers

This is what gives the signature legal weight. Important: the certificate only appears in the downloaded PDF, not in the in-app view.

Quick Tip: Pre-Signing Your Side

Instead of adding yourself as a signer (which requires you to manually sign every contract), you can:

1. Upload an image of your signature
2. Use the right now custom value for the date
3. Only send the document to the client for their signature

The client sees a pre-signed contract that just needs their signature. Check with your lawyer on whether an image signature meets your jurisdiction's requirements.

Declining Contracts

Clients can decline with a reason — "pricing too high," "need different terms," etc. This gives you actionable feedback instead of radio silence. The decline triggers are available in workflows, so you could automatically notify your sales team and tag the contact for follow-up.

What You'll Need

Before setting this up:

1. Products configured under Payments → Products (if collecting payment)
2. Contract template built with custom values and signature fields
3. Pipeline stages matching the workflow triggers (Send Contract, Viewed, Signed)
4. Workflows from the snapshot (or build your own following the patterns above)
5. API domain configured — helps with email deliverability for contract notifications

See Also

• Proposals and Estimates with Shaun Clark — The original preview of this feature from HighLevel's co-founder
• HighLevel ClickUp Integration — Automate the onboarding checklist that fires after contract signing
• GHL Plugins Task Manager — Native HighLevel alternative for post-sale project management