The signer changed. The document shouldn't have to.

You send a contract to a contact at the other company, and they reply: "I don't sign these — that's our CFO." Or your own approver is on leave and has asked a colleague to cover signing while they're out. Or you simply addressed the request to the wrong person. In every case the document is fine; the recipient is wrong. The question is how to get it to the right signer without starting over and without leaving a confusing trail.

There are two related but distinct moves for this — reassigning (the sender redirects the request) and delegating (the original recipient hands it off) — and a third, blunter option (void and re-send) for when neither fits. Knowing which one applies keeps the signing flow clean and, more importantly, keeps the audit trail honest about who actually signed.

Reassigning: the sender fixes the recipient

Reassigning is something you, the sender, do when you realize the request is pointing at the wrong person before — or even after — it's been opened. Instead of voiding the whole thing, you change who the pending signature is routed to: the document, its fields, and its place in the routing order stay exactly as built; only the assigned recipient changes.

Use reassign when:

  • You addressed it to the wrong individual — right company, wrong name or email.
  • The recipient told you they're not the signer — "send it to procurement," "that's a director-level sign-off."
  • A role changed — the person who held the title when you built the template has moved on.

Reassigning is cleaner than voiding because it preserves everything else and logs the change as a single event: the sender redirected this signature from A to B at this time. Anyone signed earlier in a sequential flow stays signed; only the pending step moves.

Delegating: the recipient hands it off

Delegation is the mirror image: the recipient — not the sender — decides someone else should sign in their place. The classic case is an out-of-office handoff. Your approver is away, has authority to designate a substitute, and forwards the request to a colleague who can sign on the team's behalf.

The crucial property of a good delegation is that it's recorded as a delegation, not disguised as the original signer. The audit trail should show that the request went to person A, that A delegated it to B with a timestamp, and that B is the one who actually signed. What you never want is B quietly signing in A's slot so the record reads as though A signed — that's exactly the kind of "who really signed this?" ambiguity that undermines a document's defensibility. A signature is only as good as the proof of who made it; delegation done right keeps that proof intact by naming the substitution explicitly.

Two guardrails worth keeping in mind:

  • Authority travels with the person, not the link. Forwarding a signing link to a colleague isn't the same as a recorded delegation — and it can let someone sign who was never meant to. Use the delegate function so the handoff is logged and the new signer is a named recipient, not an anonymous click on a forwarded email.
  • Some documents shouldn't be delegable at all. Where the specific individual's assent is the point — a personal guarantee, certain regulated-industry attestations — delegation defeats the purpose. For those, don't allow it; require the named person or no one.

When to void and re-send instead

Reassign and delegate both assume the document is right. If the document itself is wrong — wrong counterparty entirely, wrong terms, a field in the wrong place — don't redirect it; void and correct it. Voiding cleanly invalidates the outstanding request and lets you send a corrected version, rather than steering a flawed document toward a different signer. The test is simple: wrong person, right document → reassign or delegate; wrong document → void and re-send.

Make it react to the real signer

However the signer changes, your downstream automation should key off completion, not the original recipient you addressed. If a webhook files the executed document or updates a record, read the actual signer from the completed envelope rather than assuming it's whoever you first sent it to — because after a reassign or delegate, it may not be. And let reminders follow the current assignee, so a delegated request keeps nudging the person who now holds it, not the one who handed it off.

The takeaway

When the wrong person has the document, you usually don't need to start over. Reassign when you (the sender) pointed it at the wrong recipient; delegate when the recipient legitimately hands it to a substitute — and make sure delegation is recorded as a delegation, naming who actually signed rather than letting a stand-in sign in someone else's slot. Reserve void and re-send for when the document itself, not just the signer, is wrong. Handled this way, a mid-flow signer change is a logged, defensible event — not a hole in the record.

This article is general guidance, not legal advice. Whether a particular signature can be delegated, and by whom, depends on the document and the signer's authority — consult qualified counsel where it matters.