Adding a signature to a form, and what is recorded when a client signs.
A form can ask your client to sign before they send. The signature covers everything they send on that form, their answers and their documents, and Cartenda keeps a record of how it was given.
A signature is not a field in the Add field menu. A form asks for it once, at the end, or not at all.
Clients are not asked to sign until What they sign says what they are signing. The preview shows the signature step as your client will see it.
The wording is yours to write. This is general guidance, not legal advice: check with your compliance officer what your statement should say, and whether an electronic signature suits the document in question.
Before sending, your client:
On a form sent to a named client, the code goes to the address or number on the request. On a form opened through a link anyone can use, there is no address on file, so your client enters an email address and the code is sent there. See Open links.
When your client reads the form in Spanish, the disclosure is shown in Spanish. What they sign is shown in Spanish only once someone at your firm has marked its translation Reviewed. Until then they sign your own words. Once it is shown in Spanish, See the original wording under it shows them what you wrote. See Building a form.
When you send a signing form to a client from their client group's page, and a spouse or partner in the same client group can be reached, the send shows Also has to sign. Tick them, and once the first person sends, each person ticked gets their own link and their own code. They sign the same answers and documents and cannot change them. See Clients and client groups.
On a form that names roles, who signs is set on the form instead, under Who answers what at the top of the form: each person with Signs ticked signs, the client included. Untick Signs for the client when the form is someone else's to sign, such as a CPA's; somebody always has to, so at least one Signs stays ticked. A request with nobody in a signing role has the client sign it after all, so a form that asks for a signature always gets one. The Signature card says who signs. Nobody signs until every person has sent their part. Whoever sends the last part signs as they send it, and everyone else who signs is sent their own link and code. That link shows them everything that was sent, and who answered each section, before it asks for their signature, in the language the request was sent in. Anybody who has not signed is reminded three days after they were asked and again on the seventh, and you can remind them sooner from People on the request's page. Somebody who holds two roles that sign, such as the client who is also a trustee, signs once for each in the same visit, with one code: they tick Sign as for each role, and the record lists each signature with the role it was given as. See Several people on one request.
Open the submission from Requests. The signature appears above what it vouches for, headed Signed by and the name they typed, with:
Select Download the signed record to keep a copy of that record or pass it on. The record lists each question and answer as your client read them. If they read the form in Spanish, it prints the Spanish wording they agreed to, with your own wording under each line. A client's signatures are also listed on their page under Clients, on the Signatures tab.
The signature card also warns you when something needs a second look:
The record shows where the code went and who chose that address. A code sent to an address you already held says more about who signed than one sent to an address the signer typed.
A signature vouches for what your client sends you. To give your client one of your own documents and have them confirm they received it, use an Acknowledgment field instead. To have a client sign a document you prepared, such as a filled custodian form, send it from Firm documents. See Sharing firm documents and PDF templates.
Still stuck? Write to hello@cartenda.com and a person will answer.