Public powers of attorney are the preferred, and sometimes legally required, instruments that allow individuals to carry out varied types of business transactions. They bring with them one great advantage: the certainty and validity they add to each deal.
This is because all acts performed by notaries have public faith (or public trust), giving the contracting party the guarantee that that individual effectively represents the interests of the company. At any time, those involved can seek further assurance and check the original document, whose publicity is also promoted by the registry.
To make these advantages possible, the drawing up of this type of document is usually involved in a series of formalities.
As these notaries carry out hundreds of daily appointments, it is not uncommon that the task of sending them the document becomes a bottleneck in the company's operations. And, to further complicate matters there are several difficulties arising from the internal flows of the company itself.
Discover netLex Solutions
netLex is already recognized in the international market for offering our customers a highly personalized service. This allows the full customization of workflows and documents according to the specific demands of your company.
However, with each new client, we observed that some flows were very similar, as they involved routines of almost every organization, as is the case of the management of powers of attorneys. To meet these demands in a more agile way, we have developed netLex Solutions.
The idea is to make the software ready for use, reducing the costs of personalization without losing the simplicity and security provided by the CLM platform.
In this part of the netLex Solutions’ series, you will learn about one of these applications, the management of public powers of attorney, and you will understand how it is possible to simplify this part of your company’s workflow.
Request, preparation and approval: similarities between public and private powers of attorney
When comparing the management of private and public powers of attorney, we can perceive that a few steps are identical. This is the case with the requesting and elaboration stages, as is with the approval by the manager and by the Legal Department. All those activities are performed within the company.
Requesting a power of attorney
With netLex, the request is made using pre-structured questionnaires, which contain all the information necessary to analyze the demand. This procedure has the advantage of being carried out entirely within the platform, preventing these communications from happening through multiple sources. Hence, the work of those who have to assess the pertinence of these demands is much simpler.
Elaboration of a power of attorney
The data filled by the applicant in the questionnaire is automatically included in the company's standard document. The stages of requesting and elaboration can happen almost simultaneously.
Therefore, there is no need to copy and paste a template or manually fill in the necessary information provided in e-mails sent from the most diverse areas of the company. This reduces the possibility of human error and, consequently, increases the chances that the power of attorney will pass quickly through the registry office.
Manager approval
The person in charge of the area receives all the data filled in by the applicant in a simplified panel and can be sure that the information indicated there has been correctly inserted in the final document. Thus, he can dedicate himself to verifying the regularity of that request according to the company's organizational chart and to identifying who is responsible for the signing of that specific document, for example.
Approval by the Legal Department
Once the power of attorney has been approved by the manager, the document is sent to the Legal department. There, the lawyers will include information such as the normative basis for that mandate, in addition to verifying the regularity of the powers assigned.
These activities can be carried out through the automated questionnaire and by simply checking the dashboard, which removes the need to “run through” the document to ensure that everything is correct. Again, this avoids human errors.
With the solution, lawyers can also predetermine the specific wording for each power using a no-code approach.
The differential of the public power of attorney: the review by the notary and additional step in the Legal department
Once the document is approved by the company's lawyers, it is necessary to register the power of attorney at the notary's office. As we have seen, this stage is a potential bottleneck for operations, as the instrument will go through a workflow that is usually complex and marked by formalities.
Non-compliance with any of the requirements set out in the various applicable rules may result in the rejection of the request, so that the company will need to start the whole procedure again. In addition to potential personnel costs and notary fees, this scenario can be highly detrimental if it occurs, for example, during negotiations for an important transaction.
Therefore, one of the steps in the management of public powers of attorney is the review by the notary, which can occur in two ways.
Including the registry in the review flow
If your local notary office has already digitized their services, they may be willing to receive the document for review via netLex. Thus, the unit can be included in the flow, receive authorization to access the file made on the platform, carry out the modifications that it deems necessary and send it to the next step of managing the power of attorney.
This cooperative link can be very advantageous for both parties as it adds efficiency, simplicity and security to the instrument review phase.
Temporarily removing the document from the platform
If the registry is not yet at this level of digitization, it is possible to extract the document directly from the platform, process it in the notary’s office and then place it back in the system. In this case, the user will receive detailed information on how to proceed to ensure that all requirements are met in the best possible way.
In either case, the workflow in netLex structures an additional review by the legal department immediately after receiving the document approved by the notary's office. Hence, lawyers have the opportunity to verify that all procedures were carried out correctly and that no important information was modified or accidentally deleted while the instrument was out of the company.
Signature and management of a power of attorney
When the power of attorney has already been approved by the notary and reviewed again by the Legal team, two more actions are necessary: the coordination of signatures and the inclusion of final information, such as the date and place of completion, and the notary fees.
The signing stage can be organized through the various native integrations that netLex has with the main providers of this service in the market. If the notary does not accept electronic signatures, it is also possible to extract the document from the system, collect the signatures and then place the instrument again in the digital environment.
Based on the signature date and the validity periods, the platform calculates the final term of the document, with the possibility of setting warnings about the approach of the renewal window. Data on registration expenses will also be compiled for accountability purposes.
There are three other types of data that can be extracted from powers of attorney for their efficient management. You can see all of them in the text: Data-driven: 3 types of data to effectively manage a Power of Attorney
Add the security of public powers of attorney to the simplicity of netLex
It is not because the management of the public power of attorney goes through a step external to the company that it needs to be more complex or time-consuming.
With netLex solutions, it is possible to promote maximum efficiency in internal procedures, from requests to revisions, in addition to creating efficient communication with the notary for the analysis and registration of the document. Thus, the company can enjoy the enormous legal security provided by the public deed, while investing in simple and 100% digitized workflows.
Do you want to know more about the management of public powers of attorney through netLex? Contact our experts now!
