Your document shows as Completed, but the signature isn’t there? Start by finding out what the recipient actually did. In most cases, you can fix this yourself in a few minutes.
Why this happens
A document reaches Completed when every required recipient clicks Finish. Clicking Finish doesn’t guarantee a signature. If the signature field wasn’t set as required, the recipient can finish without filling it in. The document still moves to Completed, but no signature gets captured.
This is the most common cause. It’s expected behavior, not a bug.
Note: A signature certificate only appears on documents with a signed signature or initials field.
Check the document status
Look at the status on the document list or the document page:
Viewed: The recipient opened the document but didn’t finish.
Completed: The recipient clicked Finish. Check the audit trail and signature certificate to see whether they signed.
Check the signature certificate
A completed document with a captured signature includes a signature certificate on its last page. The certificate lists the signers, timestamps, and IP addresses.
To download the PDF with the certificate:
Open the completed document, go to File > Download > PDF Document (.pdf).
Scroll to the last page. If you see the certificate and the recipient’s signature, the signature was captured. If there’s no certificate, no signature was recorded.
Note: A signature certificate isn’t generated for documents you manually change to Completed.
Check whether the signature field was required
Open the template you used to create the document.
Find the signature field.
Make sure the field is marked as required.
Fix it: edit and resend
Because the document is already completed, you’ll need to edit it and send it again.
Warning: If you edit a sent document, all fields filled out by recipients will be erased to protect the signer from having signed an altered document. Your document will be pushed into the Draft status and you will have to resend it. We can't retrieve a completed document that was edited.
Open the document.
In the top-right corner, select Edit document, then confirm.
Mark the signature field as required.
Make any other changes you need.
Send the document again.
The recipient gets a new notification email with the latest version.
Warning: Don’t manually change the status to Completed to work around this. The document finalizes without a signature, no signature certificate is generated, and you can’t collect the signature through the normal signing flow. To learn when manual status changes make sense, see Manually change document status.
Still not resolved?
If the signature field was required, the recipient says they signed, and the signature still doesn’t appear, contact PandaDoc Support and share the document URL. Our team can investigate further.