Contracts Overview

The Contracts section is ClientCove's built-in agreement system. Upload a PDF, drop signature, initial, date, text, checkbox and auto-filled variable fields onto it visually, send it to one or more people — including people who don't have a portal account yet — collect signatures with one-time code verification, and keep a tamper-evident audit trail of who signed what, when, and from where.

The Contracts dashboard, tracking sent, signed, and voided agreements.

What Contracts Are

A contract in ClientCove is made up of:

• A PDF — the actual document to sign
• A set of fields — visually placed on the PDF (signature, initial, name, date, text, checkbox, variable)
• A client (or an individual with no company) and one or more signers
• A status (Draft / Sent / Signed / Void)
• An audit trail of every change and signing event

Contracts can be one-shot (used once for one specific signer) or saved as templates — reusable documents such as NDAs that you send to as many people as you need. Each person who signs a template gets their own signed copy.

Quick Glossary

Term	What it means
Contract	A signable document — title, PDF, placed fields, status
Template	A reusable contract, listed on the Templates tab — send it to many people, each of whom signs their own copy
Signed copy (submission)	One signer's copy of a template, with their signed PDF and signing certificate. Each copy records which client it belongs to
Signer / Recipient	A person assigned to sign — an existing portal user, or someone you invite by email
Field	A visually placed area on the PDF the signer completes: signature, initial, name, date, text, or checkbox — or a variable the portal fills in, such as the client's name
One-time code	A short code sent to the signer's own email or phone on file to verify their identity before signing
Audit Trail	The record of every change and signing event — who, when, and from which IP address
Seal	A fingerprint of the signed PDF and its record, taken at signing, so any later change can be detected
Visibility	Per contract — Shared with client (people at the client company can view) or Private (only the signers and staff)

The Contracts Page

Open Contracts from the main left sidebar. The page works on phones and beside a pinned side panel — less important columns fold into a short summary under each title instead of scrolling sideways.

Top toolbar

• Page title + breadcrumb
• Status tabs — All, Draft, Sent, Signed, each with a count
• Templates tab (staff) — your reusable templates
• Submissions (staff) — every signed copy made from a template
• Archived — switch to archived contracts
• Create Contract button — opens the Create New Contract modal
• Export CSV (staff, Manage Mode) — downloads straight to your computer

Filters

• Categories
• Client filter
• Sent and Signed date ranges
• Sort — Newest first, Oldest first, Title A–Z, Recently signed

Active filters show as removable chips above the list, so a narrowed list always says why.

Main list

Each row shows the title, client, status, and dates, with one main action — Send, Sign, Download PDF, or Open — and everything else in a ⋯ menu. Templates show how many copies are signed and how many are still awaiting signature.

Archive, restore, delete, and category changes update the list in place, without reloading the page.

Search

A search bar above the list searches contract titles and contract IDs.

See Managing Contracts & Permissions for the full tour of the list.

Contracts, Templates & Signed Copies

Kind	Created when	What it holds
Contract	You create one (from scratch, by duplicating, or with New contract from template)	The PDF, placed fields, signers, and — once signed — the signed PDF and certificate
Template	You save a contract as a template	The PDF, placed fields, and default message, ready to send to many people
Signed copy	Someone you sent a template to signs it	That signer's signed PDF, signing certificate, and the client the copy belongs to

For a one-shot contract, the contract itself stores the signed PDF and audit data — no separate copy is created.

For a template send, each signer gets their own copy, so one person's signature never affects another's. The client page's Contracts tab lists that client's templates and signed copies.

Contract Statuses

Status	Color cue	Meaning
Draft	Gray	Not yet sent — visible to staff only
Sent	Blue	Sent to signers, awaiting signature
Signed	Green	All required signers have signed
Void	Red	Cancelled or expired before completion

A contract's status is the same on every screen — the list, the contract page, the client page, and the side panel all agree.

For template sends, each recipient also has their own status:

• Pending — sent, not yet viewed
• Viewed — signer has opened the contract page
• Signed — signer completed verification and signing
• Declined — signer rejected the contract
• Expired — past the expiry deadline without signing

The Lifecycle

Most contracts move through these stages:

1. Create — build the contract: title, PDF, message, signers, fields
2. (Optional) Save as template — for agreements you send again and again
3. Send — recipients get an email with a link to the contract. People you invite by email get a one-time sign-in link
4. View — recipient opens the link, status flips to "Viewed"
5. Code request — signer clicks Sign, ClientCove sends a one-time code to their own email or phone on file
6. Code verify — signer enters the code; verification is logged with timestamp + IP
7. Sign — signer completes every required field and applies their signature
8. Rebuild & seal — ClientCove rebuilds the signed PDF on the server from your original PDF, seals it, and stores it privately
9. Notify — the sender is notified by email and in the portal, and in Slack if connected. Any content the contract grants is unlocked
10. (Optional) Archive — archive the contract once filed

Rejected contracts log the rejection reason, who rejected, and when — and the sender is notified the same way. Expired contracts can no longer be signed.

E-Signature System

ClientCove ships with a built-in E-Signature system — no Adobe Sign or DocuSign account required.

Key features:

• Browser signing, server-built PDF — signers draw their signature in the browser; the signed PDF is rebuilt on the server from your original, so the wording a signer sees can't be changed in their browser before they sign
• One-time code verification — sent only to the signer's own email or phone on file, rate-limited, and locked for an hour after five wrong codes
• Sealed signings — each signing is sealed, so a later change to the signed file or its record can be detected
• Private signed PDFs — signed files download only through the portal, for people allowed to see them
• IP address logging — recorded with each signature event
• Full audit trail — every change to a contract, plus every code request and failed attempt
• No external dependencies — runs entirely on your portal

A contract is signed only by signing it — there is no "mark as signed" shortcut.

The system is configured globally in Settings → Contracts and per-contract in the contract editor.