Documents and signatures

Divvent applications can turn a record into a PDF document, keep it exactly as it was issued, and have a customer sign it by email. You can't add a document to your own application yet. Neither the AI on Changes nor the editors under What it is can write one into a change, and none of the templates includes one. This page says what the feature does, so you know what to expect when it reaches you.

You can't ask for a document yet

If you ask on Changes for something like "Send the customer a PDF invoice when a job is paid" or "Let the customer sign the record of work on my phone", Divvent can't propose it yet.

Until then:

• Receipts for card payments can come from Stripe itself, if you take payments through it and turn its receipts on there. See Connect other services.
• Totals on quotes, orders and invoices can still be worked out from their lines, with tax and discounts, inside your application. Ask for that on Changes.
• A confirmation or receipt by email can be sent when something happens. See Messages, email and texts.

What a document will look like

A document is a layout over one record: your business's details, the customer's name and address, the lines and totals, and any notes. The kinds of document are:

• an invoice, including a full UK VAT invoice;
• a receipt;
• a delivery note;
• a record of work, such as a job sheet signed on the doorstep;
• a general document.

Your staff will find them on a documents page in your application, listing the records each document can be made from, and whether each one has been issued and signed.

Issued once, and never changed

Staff can preview a document before it is issued. Issuing it takes a snapshot of the record at that moment and turns it into a PDF, once. After that:

• it is never made again from the live record. If a price or a tax rate changes later, a document already issued stays exactly as the customer received it;
• every download is checked against a fingerprint taken when it was issued, and a file that doesn't match is not handed out;
• a record has one issued document of each kind. A mistake on an invoice is put right with a credit note, not by issuing the invoice again;
• a document with figures is issued only once those figures are final, for example once an order has been issued.

A UK VAT invoice carries everything HMRC asks for, such as a sequential number, your VAT number, the tax point and VAT per rate. Your application refuses to issue one that is missing any of it. It must be priced before VAT and in pounds.

Kept for six years

An issued document, and its signature, is kept for six years from the day it was issued. Erasing a person, or deleting the record, does not remove it, because the law can require you to keep what you sent. See Privacy: what is kept about people, and erasing someone.

How signing will work

1. A member of staff asks for a signature on an issued document, giving the signer's name and email address.
2. The signer gets an email with a link. The link is never shown to the person who asked, so the signature rests on the signer having that mailbox. It works once, and it runs out after 7 days unless the document says otherwise (30 days at most).
3. The signer opens the link, reads the document, types their name, can draw a signature too, ticks that they agree, and signs. They don't need an account.
4. The signed file is the original document, unchanged, with a certificate page added. That page says what was signed, who signed it, when and from where, and everything that happened to the document along the way.

Once it is signed, the document is sealed: it can't be signed again or reissued. One person signs each document.

This is a simple electronic signature. In the UK it can be used as evidence, and it is generally enough for everyday agreements such as a record of work or a delivery note. It is not an advanced or qualified signature, and it is not suitable where the law asks for a particular form, such as a will, a deed that must be witnessed, or a lasting power of attorney. The signing page says so. If you are unsure, take advice.

Not yet, even when documents arrive

• Several people signing one document.
• A document issued automatically by a flow, rather than by a person.
• Text outside the Latin alphabet in the PDF, or your own fonts.