Sending Contracts & Managing Recipients

Once a contract has its PDF and field placement, it's ready to send. ClientCove supports single-shot sends and template sends to many people — including people who don't have a portal account yet — with per-recipient visibility and expiry.

How Sending Works

When you send a contract, ClientCove:

1. Creates a separate copy for each signer (for templates) or marks the contract itself as sent (for one-shots)
2. Records the date sent
3. Emails each recipient with:
   • The contract title
   • Your optional message
   • A "View Contract" link unique to them
4. Tracks each recipient with status Pending
5. Sets the contract's status to Sent

Recipients can view, sign, decline, or let the contract expire from the link in their email.

Sending a One-Shot Contract

For contracts that aren't templates:

1. Find the draft on the Contracts list
2. Confirm the assigned signers and that field placement is complete
3. Click Send — the draft's main action
4. Recipients are notified and the contract moves to Sent

This path is best for contracts you'll only ever send once. Every assigned signer gets the email.

Send from Template

Templates are sent through the Send Contract Template modal — designed for sending the same agreement to many people, each of whom signs their own copy.

Opening the modal

1. Go to Contracts → Templates
2. Find the template
3. Click Send on the row
4. The Send Contract Template modal opens

The modal shows the template name in a header card, then collects:

• One or more recipient groups (each with a Client or Individual, Signers and/or email invites, and Visibility)
• An optional message
• An optional expiry deadline

Click Send Contract and every signer gets their own copy straight away. The template's row then shows how many copies are signed and how many are awaiting signature.

Adding Recipients

The first recipient group is shown by default. To add more:

• Click Add Another Recipient
• A new group appears with the same fields
• Click the X in any group after the first to remove it

For each recipient group:

Client

Pick a client from the dropdown, or Individual (no company) for someone who doesn't belong to a client company — see Individuals.

Signers

After picking a client, the Signers list fills with that client's people. Tick everyone who needs to sign. Each ticked person gets their own copy.

A loading indicator appears briefly while people load. If a client has no users yet, invite them by email instead.

Invite by email

Type people who aren't in the portal yet, one per line, as Jane Doe <jane@example.com> (or just the email address). See Inviting People by Email.

Each group needs at least one ticked signer or one invite.

Visibility (per group)

• Shared — building icon — people at this client company can view the resulting copies
• Private — lock icon — only the signers themselves (and staff) can view

Inviting People by Email

You can send a template to people who don't have a portal account yet. Enter one person per line in Invite by email, as Name <email> or just the email address.

For each address:

• Already has an account? ClientCove uses that account exactly as it is. An invite never changes an existing account's role or company.
• New to the portal? ClientCove creates an account with the most limited client role, already active so they can open and sign straight away. They join the client you chose for that group — unless it's your own agency's internal client, in which case they're not added to any company and simply see the contracts sent to them.

Every invitee receives the contract email with a one-time sign-in link, so they don't need to set a password to sign. See Recipient Notification Email.

Individuals (No Company)

Choose Individual (no company) in the Client dropdown for freelancers, contractors, or anyone who doesn't belong to a client company. Individuals don't have a company list to pick from, so invite them by email (an existing account with that email is used as-is).

Their signed copies are recorded as individual, with no client attached.

Per-Recipient Visibility

Sending the same template to two clients with different visibility settings creates copies that each respect their own setting:

• Acme Corp — Shared → people at Acme can view Acme's copies
• Globex — Private → only the Globex signers see their own copies

This works without any extra configuration on the template itself.

Optional Message

The Message to Recipients box overrides the contract's default message for this send. Plain text, included in the recipient's email above the "View Contract" link.

Leave it blank to use the template's default message.

The message can include variables such as {{signer_name}} or {{client_name}} — each recipient's email gets their own values.

Expiry Deadlines

Toggle Set expiry deadline to add an expiry date to the send:

1. Toggle the switch on
2. Enter a number of days (default 30, range 1–365)
3. ClientCove calculates the expiry date for each copy

After the expiry, recipients who haven't signed can no longer sign — their status becomes Expired. The signers list and audit trail remain.

Every recipient in one send gets the same deadline. To give different deadlines, send the template separately to each group.

Recipient Notification Email

The email sent to each recipient includes:

• Subject: "New Contract Ready for Your Signature:" followed by the contract title (reminders from Resend use "Contract Reminder:" and the title)
• From: Your portal's configured From address (Settings → Email)
• Body:
  • Recipient name greeting
  • The optional message (or the contract's default message)
  • A "View Contract" button linking to the recipient's contract
  • Footer with portal branding

The sign-in link

• Clients and invitees get a one-time sign-in link. It signs them in and lands them on the contract. It works once and is valid for 24 hours — after that they log in normally.
• Staff signers get a plain link to the contract instead, and sign in as usual.
• If magic-link sign-in is switched off on your portal, everyone gets the plain link and is asked to log in first.

If your portal uses an email designer template, the notification respects that styling automatically.

Resending

If a recipient hasn't signed and you want to nudge them:

1. Find the sent contract on the Contracts list
2. Open the row's ⋯ menu and choose Resend (staff)
3. ClientCove re-sends the notification email — with a fresh sign-in link — to the signers
4. The resend count goes up (visible in Manage Mode and the CSV export)
5. The audit trail logs the resend with timestamp, actor, and IP

Resends don't reset the expiry deadline — they just re-deliver the email. To extend the deadline, void the contract, then Duplicate it and send the copy — a voided contract can't be sent again.

When Someone Signs or Declines

When a signer signs or declines, the person who sent the contract is notified:

• By email
• In the portal (notifications)
• In Slack, if you have Slack connected

When a contract is signed in the portal, any content access it grants is unlocked straight away.

Tracking Each Recipient

For template sends, ClientCove tracks every recipient individually — when their copy was sent, when they first viewed it, when it expires, and its status:

Status	Meaning
Pending	Sent, not yet opened
Viewed	They've opened the contract page
Signed	They've signed their copy
Declined	They rejected it
Expired	The deadline passed before they signed

The Submissions view on the Contracts page, the template's signed/awaiting counts, and the client page's Contracts tab all read from this, so they always agree.