Leads & Estimates

Signed Documents and the Document Cabinet

Where every signed document on a move is filed, how to reopen one, what happens when a signing link expires, and why a signed copy can never change afterwards.

Every signed document on a move is filed against the estimate, in the Document Cabinet on the estimate's Documents tab. There is no separate filing system to keep in step — the move file is the filing system.

What can be signed

Six documents on a move carry signatures:

  • The estimate proposal — what the customer accepted.
  • The Interstate Bill of Lading — the contract for the move itself. See Sending and Signing the Bill of Lading.
  • The closing sheet — the carrier settlement, signed by the carrier's driver. See Closing Sheets.
  • The Job Acceptance Form (JAF) — the carrier's acceptance of the job.
  • The storage agreement — signed by the customer when goods go into storage (Email Agreement on the job's Storage & Job Details → Billing tab).
  • The credit card authorization — signed by the customer from a payment link, from Sign Credit Card Auth on the estimate proposal or the storage agreement, or from a new form staff send with Send new CC authorization form (offered when no signed authorization covers a card charge). See Collecting Payments.

Each is sent as its own secure link and signed by the customer or carrier in their own browser.

Finding a document

Open the estimate and choose Documents. The Document Cabinet sorts the paperwork into drawers on the left — Moving Paperwork, Broker Import, Payment & Billing, Warehouse, Carrier Documents and All Documents — and the search box (Search document name, type, status) finds one fast on a job with a lot of paperwork. Each signed document shows Signed By, Signed At and the signer's IP Address; click Open to view it. Card authorizations and other payment paperwork are marked Sensitive and open for administrators only. You can also upload paperwork at the top of the tab, choosing its Document Type.

Shortcuts also live where you would expect them: on the estimate, Open BOL and Send BOL always start a new Bill of Lading, and View Signed BOL appears beside them once one has been signed.

In the estimate's Email History, the signing buttons inside a sent email open the staff copy of that document in the CRM, in a new tab — never the customer's own link. Hover a button to see whether the customer's link is still valid or when it expired.

Signed copies do not change

This is worth understanding, because it is the thing customers and carriers argue about.

When someone signs, the document is captured exactly as it stood at that moment and stored with the signature. Editing the estimate afterwards — changing a price, adding inventory, moving a date — does not change what they signed. Reopening the signed copy shows you their version, not today's version.

The system re-checks that captured copy every time it is opened. If it cannot verify the document is unaltered, it refuses to show it rather than quietly showing you live data instead. A document that will not open is telling you something real; do not work around it.

Documents signed before this capture existed are shown from live data and carry a notice saying so, printed inside the document itself. Treat those as needing more care in a dispute, because they cannot be proven unaltered the same way.

Multiple signatures on one document

If a customer signs twice, both signatures are kept. Nothing is overwritten and the second does not invalidate the first — every signature is evidence, and losing one would destroy the record rather than tidy it.

Sending a copy to a carrier

  1. Book the estimate and open its Dispatch tab → Pick-up.
  2. Set Picked up by to Carrier, choose the Pick-up carrier and click Save pick-up.
  3. In the Carrier Packet Status box that appears, click Send Carrier JAF. The carrier needs an email on their carrier profile.

The carrier's email carries one secure link to the Job Acceptance Form. Once they sign it, the same link lets them review and download the customer's estimate, the Bill of Lading and their signed acceptance form, showing the BOL terms and signature status — Signed At and the signer's IP Address — without giving access to your portal. The Carrier Packet Status box shows how many packets were sent, any that failed and whether the JAF is signed.

A JAF link has no expiry date, so the carrier can reopen it at any time. It stops working once that carrier is taken off the move or replaced; a replaced carrier is told the job has been reassigned and to call the office. If a carrier reports Estimate Review Unavailable, check they are still the assigned carrier and send the JAF again, rather than emailing the files.

Customer links (the estimate, the Bill of Lading, the storage agreement and statement, and the card authorization) expire. Each emailed signing button carries a line written when the email was sent, such as "Valid until Oct 15, 5:45 PM EDT. After that, call" followed by your office phone.

A customer who opens an expired link sees a clear page that says so — for an estimate, "Your quote has expired." — with your office phone, a large Call button, the sales rep's name with an Email button, and your company name. Carrier and driver pages name the office, not a rep. The job's rep also gets an in-app notification that the customer came back, once per link per day, so they can call and send a fresh link from the estimate.

Customer downloads

Customers can download their signed copy (Download PDF) from the link they signed with, while it is still valid, without an account. After it expires, open the signed estimate in the Document Cabinet and click Email Copy: the customer gets a fresh read-only copy link that lasts 30 days and cannot be signed again. Sending another copy never cancels a link you already sent.