[Account Owner] Get Started with eSignatures: Enabling/Disabling and Creating Templates (Dropbox Sign)

In This Article:

AdvicePay offers built-in eSignature functionality through a partnership with Dropbox Sign to allow you to get financial planning agreements and other documents signed as part of your payment requests or independently. Easily upload your templates and become more efficient instantly!

📍 Watch this video demo on how to use eSignature

How to Enable

To enable: Go to Firm Settings > eSignature and click Enable eSignature

Select that you want to turn on eSignatures on your account using Dropbox Sign:

Please note that our Dropbox Sign integration does not connect or link to any existing Dropbox Sign accounts you may have set up outside AdvicePay. It is a standalone "account" only available in AdvicePay!

Managing eSignature Permissions + Enable Signer PINs

By default all advisors with billing permissions on your account can send out their own eSignature templates to clients. To disable this so that advisors can only use templates that you add for firm-wide use, as well as prevent advisors from removing Roles you've set up when they send a document:

1. Under  Firm Settings > eSignature toggle Upload Templates to off (greyed out)
2. Click Save

Additionally, you can enable a signer PIN to make the signing process more secure:

1. Under  Firm Settings > eSignature toggle Enable signer PIN to on
2. Click  Save

When turned on, signees will receive a separate email with a PIN included that will allow them to proceed with signing a document. 

This PIN email will only be sent after the signee clicks on the initial link to sign.

To maintain security, BCC recipients established on your account will not be BCC'd on the PIN email. Instead, you can verify it was sent successfully by visiting the Email Log and looking for the subject line Your signature request PIN from [Your Firm Name]. (PINs will be hidden.)

Client can't find their PIN email?

No worries! By going to Documents and selecting Send Reminder on their document, your client will immediately receive a new email inviting them to sign.

After clicking to sign, a new PIN email will be sent from our system at info@app.advicepay.com. We recommend that your client add this address to their Contacts or "safe sender" list. 😀

Enabling a signer PIN will only apply to future documents sent. Any existing documents already sent out for signature at the time of modifying this setting will not require signers to enter a PIN.

Create Signers

By default all advisors on the account are permitted to manually enter any email address for signer.

To disable this setting so that advisors can only select AdvicePay users as signers, toggle Allow advisors to manually create signers to off.

If disabled, when sending documents advisors must select existing AdvicePay users as a signer recipient. If desired, the email address itself can still be edited to override their standard account email for that particular document. 

Note: If a signer's email is edited when sending a document, that document signature request will be delivered to the updated email. However, it does not change the email on the account for the underlying user. Additionally, the document can still be accessed via the signer's AdvicePay account if they log in.

How to Prepare Documents for Signing

1. Under Documents or Templates, click the  Add New Template button. If this is your first template, a brief tutorial will appear to guide you on the key steps of the process.

2. Fill in the Template Name, Description, and (optional) + Add New Role to add additional signees if it's possible that more than one person will need to sign the document. This is great for adding your client's partner and/or yourself as a signee on the document! When sending out the document, extra roles can be removed whenever needed.

Best Practice Tip!  Roles cannot be added or removed from a template itself, but roles can be removed on a per-document basis when sending! For this reason we highly recommend setting up your template so that it contains all the possible roles that might need to enter something onto the document during the signing process: Client, Spouse/Partner, Advisor, Compliance, Administrative, etc. 

When sending out a document, based on the template, you can then easily exclude any role that you don't need! 

To set a default signing order for all documents created from this template, toggle the  Enable signing order button to on and drag the fields up or down to rearrange the order in which signatures are obtained. 

If desired, this signing order can later be adjusted on a per-document level when sending as long as the Allow edits to signing order before sending document toggle is also set to on. If you want to close the template to any adjustments and require the template-level signing order to be used, you will toggle that button off.

3. Drag and drop your document file into the  Files box, or click within the box to browse + select a file from your computer folders. 

To add multiple documents for merging into one template, click  + Add Another File. This is useful for sending a complete packet of documents to new clients.

Accepted File Types: PDF, DOCX  |  Size limit: 10 MB

4. Designate whether this template is only for use by you, or whether it can be used by all advisors on your account who have billing permissions! Under  Permissions select Only You or Firm Wide:

If you select  Firm Wide, all firm advisors with billing permissions will automatically see the template as an option when sending documents/payment requests to clients.

Tip: Only you and firm Admins can edit or delete a template that is open to Firm Wide use. Managing and Standard advisors will not be able to make adjustments to it, even if they have permissions to use it for their clients!

5. Click  Add Template

6. After you're taken into the template editing screen,  click and drop or drag and place your desired fields into the document:

Tip: At minimum there must be one (1) non-date field -- such as signature, checkbox, initials, textbox, etc. -- assigned to each signee in order to complete the template.

7. Click  Continue. Your final template will now appear under Templates.


Template Setup Tips

Whether you simply need to assign specific fields to different signees or want to take advantage of more advanced options like AdvicePay's auto-populated fields, there are variety of features available to you to make a stellar template.

Multiple Signees

If your template has more than one signee role (established in the first step of setup!), drag and place another Signature field into the document. Assign the field to a different signee by using the field's drop down selector as shown below. 

All fields -- initials, checkbox, sign date, etc. -- can be assigned to specific signees.

Templates cannot be edited to add more signee roles. To add more signees, you will want to upload a new template from scratch. 


Auto-Filled Fields

If your template requires you to enter in the same information in multiple field boxes, you can now use the Auto-fill fields to make this process easier!

When multiple of the same Auto-fill fields are used in a document  and the Assigned To: is the same person, that person only has to type the information in once during the signature process and it will automatically fill in the same subsequent fields with the same information. 

(This is super helpful, for example, when you may have multiple identical fields and do not want the signee to have to type the same information over and over.)

Watch this video tutorial for more help:


AdvicePay Auto-Populated Fields

Important: If you would like for AdvicePay (Sender) to automatically populate information, our auto-filled feature option only works with  Standard Fields - Textbox field box. 

To set up fields that automatically populate when the document is sent out for signature:

  1. Select the Textbox field, then drag and place it into your document template.
  2. In the field's drop down menu under under Assigned To, select: Sender
  3. In the field's drop down menu under What text goes here?, select either: 
    1. Client Name -- and any other Signee Role names (when sent, this will auto-populate the printed name of the signee for that role)
    2. Advisor Name (when sent, this will auto-populate the printed name of the client's advisor)
    3. Invoice Amount (when sent with a payment request, this will auto-populate the invoice amount)
    4. Invoice Frequency (when sent with a payment request, this will auto-populate the invoice frequency)
    5. Up Front Invoice Amount (when sent with a payment request, this will auto-populate the upfront invoice amount for one-time invoices attached to subscriptions)
    6. Split/Rep Code (when sent with a payment request, this will auto-populate any advisor rep code added to a payment request)
    7. Advisor Signature (this is another way to add your printed name to the document if you don't add yourself as a signee on the template!)

Edit Field Size & Placement

To adjust the field size to better fit your document or to allow clients to enter lengthier inputs (e.g. email addresses), grab the corner of the field with your cursor and enlarge/reduce it. Making the box larger in height will increase the text size!

Click and drag the entire field to move it around the page:

To remove a field you've added, hover over it and click the ⓧ icon.


How to Disable eSignature

Visit Firm Settings > Billing and toggle Enable eSignature to off. Then confirm that you want to disable!

This will remove the ability to attach documents with payment requests. If you had open documents out for signature, signing will no longer be required before a client makes a payment. Also, if you have signed or voided documents, they will still be viewable!

When disabling and re-enabling Dropbox Sign, everything will continue to work as normal -- so there will be no need re-send or re-create documents and/or invoices! 


Ready to do more with eSignature?

Check out the articles below!

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