Your employment contracts.Signed electronically.

An employment contract can be signed electronically, and Pactolane lets you have it signed online with a simple electronic signature (SES), the basic level among the three distinguished by the eIDAS regulation. Under French law, an electronic document has the same evidential value as a paper document, provided that the person from whom it originates can be duly identified and that it is drawn up and stored under conditions that guarantee its integrity (Article 1366 of the French Civil Code), and an electronic signature consists of the use of a reliable identification process guaranteeing its link with the document it is attached to (Article 1367). The reliability of this process is presumed only for a qualified electronic signature (Decree No. 2017-1416 of September 28, 2017): with an SES, it is up to the party relying on it, in practice often the employer, to establish that reliability if it is challenged, and the audit trail and proof certificate generated by Pactolane provide evidence for that demonstration. Regulation (EU) No 910/2014, known as eIDAS, adds in its Article 25 that an electronic signature cannot be denied legal effect or excluded as evidence solely because it is electronic or because it is not qualified.

Pactolane provides simple electronic signature (SES), native and unlimited from the Team plan, which is suitable for many everyday HR documents. The signature level is chosen according to the document and the risk of dispute: Pactolane's SES relies on a one-time code sent by email, an audit trail (timestamp, IP address, browser, document fingerprint) and a proof certificate. If a particular document or situation calls for an advanced or qualified signature, check this case by case with your legal advisor.

The employee doesn't need a Pactolane account to sign their contract. They receive an email, confirm their email address with a one-time code sent to it, which expires and allows a limited number of attempts, consent to the electronic signature, then sign the designated fields (signature, initials, date). A confirmation email goes to the employee and to the person who sent the contract. If the contract has several signatories, for example the employee and the employer's representative, you set the sequence in which they sign. Learn more about electronic signature.

With Pactolane, a fixed-term contract or an amendment is generated from your HR template, goes through its approval workflow and is sent for electronic signature with no printing or mailing. Timing matters: a fixed-term contract (CDD) must be drawn up in writing and include a precise definition of its reason (Article L. 1242-12 of the French Labor Code), and it must be given to the employee no later than two working days after hiring (Article L. 1242-13). A part-time employment contract must also be in writing (Article L. 3123-6). An amendment requires the agreement of both parties, since a contract can only be modified by the mutual consent of the parties or for reasons authorized by law (Article 1193 of the French Civil Code).

On the Growth and Scale plans, you record in Pactolane the end of the probationary period and the end of a fixed-term contract as deadlines attached to the contract, with reminders in the app and by email as many days ahead as you choose, for example 30, 7 and 1 day before. Deadlines are entered by your teams, who stay in control of what is tracked. On the legal side, a probationary period and the possibility of renewing it are never presumed: they must be expressly stated in the offer letter or the employment contract (Article L. 1221-23 of the French Labor Code), and the initial maximum length of the probationary period for a permanent contract is two months for blue-collar and clerical workers, three months for supervisors and technicians, and four months for executives (Article L. 1221-19), with a single renewal possible if an extended industry-wide agreement provides for it (Article L. 1221-21).

In Pactolane, access to an employment contract is set at two levels: each user's role in the organization (seven roles, from administrator to viewer) and, on each contract, an owner, editor or viewer level; access granted can be withdrawn at any time, the owner keeps permanent access, and each person's last login date remains visible. The audit trail records views, edits and exports, and it is kept for at least 90 days. Contracts are encrypted at rest with AES-256-GCM and hosted in France and Belgium on Google Cloud, and personal data, such as social security numbers or IBANs, is removed before any AI processing. See our security page and contract repository, as well as our explainer on HR agreements and confidentiality.

For an HR team, Pactolane's Team plan (€149 per month excl. VAT, 7-day free trial) covers contract creation from templates, approval workflows and unlimited simple electronic signature, with 3 users, 20 templates and 50 contracts per month. The Growth plan (€499 per month excl. VAT, 14-day free trial) adds deadline tracking, contract families, PactAI, unlimited templates, 10 users and 200 contracts per month. The Scale plan (from €2,500 per month excl. VAT) opens up the REST API, webhooks, the MCP server and SSO. All plans include unlimited read-only users. Full details are on our pricing page.

Getting started with Pactolane takes four stages: your workspace, your team, importing your contracts, then your playbooks. Your Word templates are imported into the template editor, where you add the variables, and your already signed contracts join the contract repository as PDF or Word files, with AI extraction of their information, included on all plans. The same platform also serves other teams, such as IT or procurement. Learn how it works and how to switch to Pactolane.