The definitions below are the language we at SimpleSign use to distinguish the different concepts from each other.

Is a business relationship between two parties, usually written on paper (or digitally). An agreement does not have to be in written format but can be a business relationship where you digitally subscribe to a service or a verbal agreement.

Is a visual compilation of an agreement. In SimpleSign, you create an agreement card by adding a new agreement monitoring. An agreement card can contain several documents, contact details for counterparties, internal comments, reminders and other functions that facilitate the management of the agreement.

Is usually the signed PDF. Document can also be a file that should not be signed, as it does not require any business relationship.

Describes what type of document or agreement it is. Ex. Employment agreement, Customer agreement, Supplier agreement, GDPR, Board minutes, Annual reports.

Describes what type of contract it is. In SimpleSign, document type and Contract type are the same function, but it is called Contract type when it is related to Contract Control, because in this function it is only about Contracts and not documents. Examples of contract types: Employment contract, Customer contract and Supplier contract.

You can sort the contract cards into categories. The categories function as a further sorting of Contract types. Typically, the categories are used to sort the contract types into subcategories. For example, have a supplier agreement and categorize the supplier agreements in different regions such as: Stockholm, Gothenburg, Malmö or different types of supplier agreements: IT & operations, Rents, etc.

You can build up your contract cards with different functions. We refer to each function as an app. Examples of some apps are: Income, Expenses, Contacts and Period and renewal.

We refer to metadata to parts of an contract's content, which are usually extra significant. The metadata is therefore usually highlighted and made available for searching and filtering. The metadata is also available in the API, which means that other systems can read the metadata from e.g. an contract card in SimpleSign. When you refer to metadata, you usually refer to both the attribute and the value. Examples of metadata could be: Name, salary, age, contract type, contract name and status.

A field is an element (text field, radio button, drop-down list, checkbox, etc.) into which someone can enter information. A field can be, for example: Name. Email, and Price.

An attribute is usually the name of a value. For example, Name is an attribute while John Doe is a value in the attribute. When you read an Contract card via the API, you check for the various attributes and then you retrieve the values you want to read and match the value to the corresponding attribute in the other system.

Is a function in SimpleSign where the user gets a visual image of all attributes and values in a document or contract card.