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How IRIS Utilised GlobalSign’s Digital Signing Service to Issue 1 Million Customer Signatures in a Year

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How IRIS Utilised GlobalSign’s Digital Signing Service to Issue 1 Million Customer Signatures in a Year

The fact that GlobalSign does all the heavy-lifting for us is important. We’ve got a small development team. GlobalSign is a trusted provider with a strong global presence and history in this market.

Michael Turner, Associate Product Manager, IRIS

What we like about GlobalSign is its reputation and track record as a commercial Certificate Authority (CA). We have a strong level of trust with GlobalSign.

— Mike Patterson, Manager, Information Security Operations Information Security Services, University of Waterloo

waterloo university
CUSTOMER PROFILE
INDUSTRY Software
USER BASE 100,000+ accountancy firms and SMEs use IRIS bookkeeping, HR, and payroll solutions
GLOBALSIGN SOLUTION Digital Signing Service (DSS)

At a Glance

PROBLEM

IRIS needed a way to provide GDPR-compliant digital signatures to their growing accountancy software userbase.

SOLUTION

GlobalSign’s digital signing service was simple to integrate with IRIS’ existing platform, providing high-assurance, trustworthy digital signatures without interrupting the customer workflow.

Challenge

Named by the Telegraph as “one of the UK’s most prolific business software providers,” IRIS develops unique digital solutions designed to help organize and manage critical tasks like accounting, HR, and payroll.

Their cloud-based software solution for accountants, called OpenSpace, replaces the traditional process of printing, mailing, and signing paper documents. With IRIS, the customer uses the software to generate their clients’ tax returns and other financial documents. Clients are notified via email when they have a document awaiting approval. From there they are directed to a secure portal where they can approve the document, after which the accountant would be notified that the process has been completed.

To keep end user information secure, following the terms set forth in the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), IRIS needed the involvement of a publicly trusted certificate authority that could administer compliant digital signatures, right from within the OpenSpace platform.

Solution Requirements

  • Security compliance
    A digital signature issued by a publicly trusted certificate authority offers considerably more protection than a standard electronic signature, especially important in the case that financial or other personal data is involved.
  • Seamless and secure end-user experience
    IRIS wanted to uphold the efficient user-experience the company had established with OpenSpace, without encumbering customers with additional steps in the signing and approval process.
  • Scalability
    Based on their growth trajectory over the last several years, IRIS was looking for a solution that would not only be able to scale to accommodate an increasing customer-base but would be able to reliably maintain a high level of performance during busy seasons.
  • Cost-effective integration with IRIS’ OpenSpace platform
    Cost was a central consideration as IRIS looked for a digital signing solution that could easily be integrated with their existing proprietary software.

Solution

The existing relationship we had with GlobalSign, being a customer of their HSM solution since 2013, along with their competitive pricing is what led to our decision to utilize their digital signing service for our accountancy customers.

Michael Turner, Associate Product Manager, IRIS

Having been a customer of GlobalSign’s hardware security module (HSM) solution for years, the decision to move to the digital signing service (DSS) was an easy one. After researching other options on the market, IRIS ultimately decided that GlobalSign’s solution would seamlessly integrate within the OpenSpace platform while ensuring user data was fully protected in accordance with GDPR guidelines.

GlobalSign’s digital signing service is cloud-based which made it simple to integrate into the OpenSpace platform with a single REST API. The public key infrastructure (PKI)-based signatures offer the highest level of security, assuring that signers are who they say they are.

IRIS developers worked directly with GlobalSign’s team of technical experts to implement and deploy the digital signing service over the course of one month to all of the software company’s accountancy users.

What’s Achieved?

  • Improved platform performance during busy times of the year, including tax season
  • 3,000 active accountancy practices using the product, with half a million end users
  • Approximately 150,000 signatures per month for upwards of 1 million signatures over the course of the year
  • Possibility to expand the solution into other customer groups, including HR and payroll

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