The classic engagement-letter cycle: send a PDF, wait, follow up three days later, wait again, and eventually get back a photo of a printed, signed, slightly crooked page. None of that is necessary anymore, but a lot of practices are still doing it because switching felt like more effort than it was worth — until the chasing itself became the bigger cost.
What e-signing should actually remove
- Printing and scanning, obviously
- The multi-day follow-up cycle — a reminder that goes out automatically beats one you have to remember to send
- Manually filing the signed copy afterwards — it should land against the client record on its own
- Uncertainty about status — "did they get it, did they open it, did they sign it" shouldn't require asking
Where this matters most for a BAS agent
Engagement letters and client authorities aren't just paperwork — they're the compliance record that shows you had proper authority to act. Making them easy to send and sign means they actually get done at the start of a relationship, rather than chased down retroactively when something needs it on file.
How Document Signing handles this
Bookkeeper Dashboard lets you upload a PDF, place the signature fields, and send it to a client by SMS and/or email — one send fills every field, and the request moves to signed automatically once they've completed it. Signed copies are stored automatically against the client record, so there's no separate filing step and no chasing a copy back later. You can send from the Document Signing page, the Authority tab, or directly from a client's Documents tab.