Boost Accounting and Tax Efficiency with Digital Signature Legitimateness in Australia

How to eSign a document: digital signature legitimateness for Accounting and Tax in Australia

you use for most of us the ATO portals or the Office of State Revenue portals either which is fabulous because as we all know they're possibly not the most reliable platforms in the world and the efficiency of using gov reports compared to using say Biagio portal is just you know hands down chalk and cheese when we're using does reports we're actually sucking our lodgement out of our general Ledger's and directly into the lodgement software and i think what we also like about using go reports as a lodgment platform just before we get on to digital signatures is that it keeps a secure and historical reference of our lodgements and work papers separate to our general Ledger's which we may lose touch with over time as clients drop off our LS so the other ports digital signature is particularly great because it becomes part of that lodgement process so as you suck your judgment out of your general ledger software that signature step or that step in the process that requests that signature is just inbuilt into the application another great feature and at the great Year breezes use go reports is it's not only for the lodgements so yes you can actually prepare and send your lunch mints for signature in the one process but you can also go into the government digital signature software and just upload any old document that you either need to sign yourself or need to get signed by a client or associate so it very very handy they're very flexible and now another great feature of the government digital sort of software is we have a choice between optional security protocols now we're all very security conscious and in particularly the last two years and most of us would have two-factor authentication of some kind on nearly everything we do certainly in my business we have two FA over everything including our password software and when we issue signatures when we issue a request for a signature we also choose to have that sent out with a two-factor authentication but the thing we love about God reports is that we can choose two different types of two factor authentication and if we're actually sending something little bit less sensitive we don't have to have a security protocol at all so it gives us lots of flexibility and lots of choice some clients prefer a four digits in that they remember and other clients prefer that their security code or the to a Seiko get emailed to them to the same email address so we also in government digital signature have optional signature reminders again love that it's optional and we can set them any way we like that means that after we've sent let's say an activity statement out to get an authorization or a signature we can have a reminder automatically sent out say a week later to make sure and help that we're getting those signatures collected in a timely fashion and we're also indulging in optional document expiry settings which is fantastic so sometimes if you're for example issuing a quote or an engagement scope that you need to be actions within a certain time are kind of quotes a great example this quote follows for seven days and we can set that document to expire in seven days time and we also have the standard features so there multiple recipients multiple signatories you can have somebody copied in who's not a signatory and have choosing the trees or just send things out for a view only and the software has unlimited signatures and documents are customizable message templates and of course is absolutely free with your girl reports subscription which is then always nice so we're going to jump into a live demo I will beg your forgiveness up front it is live anything can go wrong but hopefully it will be smooth sailing today and I'm just gonna walk you throw a few of the processes and features so setting the email settings so that it comes from the email of your choice requesting a signature by the reporting process setting in we have technology going crazy already there we go setting pins and making sure that everything's working smoothly with your clients choice of two-factor authentication or in fact no two-factor authentication we're going to see how we can manage the documents that we have been done reports sip reminders manager custom message templates and actually also get a document signed that has nothing to do with the lodgement process at all so you can see how that works if there's anything I missed or anything you'd like a bit more information on again please shout out in the chat window or send us an email and we'll absolutely come back to you with whatever it is that you need to see so this is your gutter ports dashboard and the first thing that we're going to do is actually set our email in our account settings so settings and then my account we're going to set our email settings so that where when we send out a document for signature we're able to have it come from a email of our choice so here are my email settings I can edit those email settings and I might choose that that email address when I get notifications goes to notifications at government points I won't update this I'll get into trouble but I can also actually send my outgoing email so we use Juna you could use yahoo or another other mail provider I've got my Gmail settings in here and I'm also able to cut and paste my email signature here so that will take pictures in HTML as well which makes it really really nice and when I submit those changes it will update and these settings will they'll be applied to anything that comes from government so we'll pop back and the next thing that we'll walk through is how to manage that enlargement process and how to get a signature as we go through a lodgment so the first thing I'm going to do is pop into my favs reports again because this is a demo file I can't show you all of the fun stuff that's my last part up in the corner there I can't show you the fun stuff of how to actually prepare a lodgment but today's demo is actually about getting the digital signatures so that's what we're going to focus on I'm going to pick an FTP event and I'm going to go to the Edit settings and then scroll right down to the bottom and after I've entered my STP payroll lodgement details which is at the top here I'm actually going to go to validate and then send the signature so I could just validate the report that sends a message to the ATO and comes back with errors or with not but if I would like to validate and send for signature this world when I submitted automatically open up the signatures for all the technology gods hate me let's try this one okay there we go first technology God stumble it's all good so this is part of that reporting process as I said uploaded my STP lodgement details have followed that process all the way through and at the end of the process I've asked to validate and send out the signature now that opened our government's signature software application and you can see that the STP lodgement document is here and of course did lodgement itself is not the only thing that we send out for signature so I'm also going to upload let's say some work papers these are my demo work papers where we're very important so now not only do I have my lodgement document but I also have my work papers and I can add as many documents here as I like and I can have signatures on one or all of the documents so the next step if we just follow the process is to go down and figure out who to send it to so I'm actually going to send it to myself which is handy I can take anybody's name and email in here and the designation of this person is going to be assigning I'm going to have to sign it and I'm going to actually enter a security code to the email address that means that for me to sign this document when I receive it at Kate at this BFO I will get another email with the two-factor authentication now if I chose to I can set a security code for example I can search w7 can't see myself a bit of a blonde girl as a security code and I would communicate that to my client either by text message perhaps or through a set standard or process that we have in our client and I can also send a private message if I chose that would go to that signatory only now I'm actually going to add let's say the business manager into this lodgement authorization but we're going to make Jamie of you only recipient and because it's me you only we're going to set no secure for this one okay so as you can see you can add as many recipients if you like they can be view only or signatories and then we get to the part where we're able to send out the message that goes with the lodgement software there are your FTP authorization okay so either type and then I can either write my own message or I can select from preset message messages or if you're just setting them up you can actually type in a message here and then save the message as you send it so what we can also do is set reminders and notifications for this signature so remember we are actually asking for an authorization on an FTP judgment so yes it's pretty important I'm going to create a reminder now I'm going to send a notification to the signee right away so just one day and I'm going to repeat it every day because you know we might only have three days to get a payroll authorize now this is a payroll so I am going to set it to expire and let's say three days am I going to have it note a notification of that expiry sent just one day before it exists now remember this is optional you don't have to create a reminder and you don't have to set an expiry date but it's a nice feature to have so once you're happy with who you're sending it to and the message that you're sending with it we're going to click Next and walk ourselves through where these signatures need to go on this document now the first person and second person we get to put the cross where they need to sign so if Jamie were actually a signatory we could pop her on one page and then myself Kate here on another but as it happens if I try to get Jamie to to untie this one it's not going to let me because she's actually only a viewer of this software so I'm gonna sit where Kate myself is going to sign pretty obviously in the signature box is the same place and you know what I actually like my client to sign off on the work papers and that could be anywhere on that document at all and if I accidentally make a bit of a mistake look I can remove those signatures and just have another girl there so now I am fining both the FTP lodgement authorization in the box and the demo work package at the bottom of the page I don't have to find one in fact I can turn these work paper signatures if I didn't require my client to find them but I do really really like to have people sign off that they've acknowledged those work papers or whatever it is that means they have a reasonable basis for that Authority so I think the ability to send multiple documents is really important and away we go I have clipped a sense of signature and this is just become part of my lodgement and authorization process now this has bounced me back into the managed documents what I call the manage documents section and my documents section in the government courts digital signature software if we were back in go reports proper we could go to our apps up here and access that same Digital authentication up from the home page here so if you weren't doing this as part of a lodgment process again you'd simply go to the app box in the top right just like a lot of the other software we use and go to the digital authentication app so since we're here we might like to manage our documents now once we select any in the list here we've got the option to send a reminder if it hasn't been signed to void the document let's say it becomes no longer valid but you do need to keep a record of it for your work papers I'm to delete the document pretty self-explanatory and to archive it again pretty self-explanatory one thing I really do like about the digital signature software in gov report is that we have an activity feed against each of the documents so we can see who's done what who's assigned find out who's uploaded pages who edited etc which is really nice just from an audit perspective and of course we can choose to view the documents there's also the menu options over on the right here to view them as a separate PDF or actually view those documents as a component a combined PDF which is quite handy if you had multiple pages in something you've sent to signature you can view those documents of the combined PDF and one that download them as one file if you wanted to you also have a certificate which basically endorses that signature and you can send it out as an email again I think those are really good features they're not standard in a lot of the document software that I've seen and certainly the ability to set these messages as customizable messages for different types of signatures saves a lot of time and is very efficient so what we might also do is pop in and see how we can edit the document as we're going so I'd like to select this one come on Boyd or I can send a reminder from this top right hand corner here but all my document details and I've also got in this application a list of my contacts and a list of things that I've signed I can also set my signature that's pretty standard across these digital signature software's you can type in a signature or even upload a signature file that you have I would also like to do is actually sign a document ourselves and we're going to upload something here something very important for me to sign and go through the process is just like uploading any old document not part of the lodgement software at all I need to sign this document and here's where I give you know I might of greeting you about my firstborn and waive reliability care responsibility for that child he's 14 at the moment believe me that's starting to sound rather appealing and I can finish and now in very short order I've put my signature on any document that I might need to sign myself perhaps a workers comp declaration and then I can go ahead and email that to however it needs to go to again this is a demonstration of how you can use the government supports digital signature software for anything at all that you need to sign or you need to get signed by one of your clients or associate so not only does it offer that inbuilt lodgement process signature but you can get anything you like signed in here and use it as a standalone piece of software for that matter so that pretty much brings us to the end of our demo I will flick back to the slides to make sure I haven't missed anything whoops I have custom message templates okay very quickly up in the settings my messages here all the messages that I have already saved obviously some of them a test and you saw that I've saved a new message as I was going through the demonstration process I can delete any of these and indeed I probably should and I can also add new messages as and when I need them so this becomes a message that I can put on any particular type of lodgement let's say we have 50 bath lodgements to get out we don't want to be copying pasting or heaven forbid typing the same message out every time we send that lodgment out to our clients instead we use one of our custom messages and again that's just from our settings menu very easy to access aren't really really intuitive to use so that brings us to the end of our demo I I've you know my practice has gone ahead and leaps and bounds since we started using gov report and I think the digital signature software is just a really another really great feature and a fabulous value and to go reports in general certainly if you did a time and motion study which we have done on the time it takes to prepare and issue a lodgment the old-fashioned way so putting the information into let's say the AG report all or one of the state government portals manually saving that printing it out putting it together with work papers emailing it out to aquire getting and print finance can or even actually manually uploading it into another piece of digital software that process versus the process of working through the reports preparing a lodgment directly from the general ledger and then validating and sending that lodgement for signature in the one process I think about half the time it takes us to you know issue and manage lodgements particularly when you consider that we don't need to log into the Ogier portal again such a reliable piece of software so no mucking around with downtime there we can do it any time of day if the ATO systems are down for whatever reason that's fine because God report stores everything and then pushes it back out when it's ready to go so my role here at gov reports is to talk to you in practice I am myself and in practice so if you have any more questions about how the reports could work for you for your team or your practice and please reach out to us my email is Kate at the report come today you there's always a typo no matter how many times you read one and you can ask a talk of reports on 1865 two five nine zero or in Australia of course and please do remember that if you think those reports could help a friend or an associate in practice the reports dogs have a fabulous referral program and you're able to receive an account credit either thank you for us if any of your friends or associates do subscribe to go reports and so again I hope you've enjoyed this our first webinar for 2019 I hope you had a fantastic break wish you a fabulous year ahead and if you're interested in seeing more of the fabulous features of Governments we have Ally Cochran on at 6 o'clock during another webinar today about the office practice manager which is the theorem and workflow management aspect of the government platform so if you're interested in more please stay tuned jump on have a talk to Allie at 6 o'clock tonight and again if you've any more questions about growth reports or how it can help you in your practice please reach out to light and video knows about q0 for no no they ask your questions and we we haven't gone through so I'll I'll start with the first one there's I think this is what the questions from Trish Anderson and the question is does this eliminate the need to redact tax file number in the document sorry Kiana can you say that again I can't see the Christian and panel view if the question is does this eliminate the need to redact tax file number in the documents I'm not touching through yet what I do so yes I think it is Trish when dev reports we're talking about FTP now and any payroll reports once the reports redisplay there is reports the tax file numbers are rejected and you only get the last three digits so no it doesn't remove the requirement for it but it does do it for you i Trish did that answer your question Thanks the next question is from Ingrid and the question is as we don't have to validate their every stp event now would you still get authorization for every event absolutely as required by the tpb unless you have a binding engagement there are some guidelines on the AHL website like that if you have a binding engagement for pay rules that don't change significantly you can have a binding engagement for a period of 12 months in which case you don't require an authorization however if you don't have a binding engagement and or the payroll changes significantly you will require a payroll or probation for each illegitimate okay and the next questions I have from Jacob can clients do an electronic signature or do they need to print off sign and then upload okay Jacob no they do not have to print scan or print and sign prints I understand the point of having an electronic signature is that we don't have to use a pen anymore at all so what happens when the clients received their document they're asked to click on a link then depending on the security settings that we put in place they will go through a chip actualization or none at all again those optional security settings and from there they're able to click and sign or click to sign online using either a signature they've uploaded or a signature they've just typed or drawn into the application I think the next question is also from Jacob and it says that at the moment they are forwarding the that means the clients are forwarding Jacob them email as a digital signature without copying and pasting a signature as per the demo can can it be done this way I am NOT certain that would be bordering on legal advice Jacob I would want to check with your association or the petitioners board as to whether an email authority is sufficient and for what type of authorization it is sufficient I know that you know in most cases in all practical terms and email Authority is okay but it it's that's legal advice that I can't give you I certainly in my practice would not rely on an email as an authorization primarily because I can't dare I can't you know assure that the authenticity of it anybody can send an email email to you know fundamentally insecure means of communication so I know that my practice relies on digital signature software and that everything that we Lodge submit or send on behalf of the client either is authorized with a digital signature okay the next question is from Peter can the document be signs through our practice app by the office practice manager yes the whole the whole does reports platform is integrated so you today we went through the process of requesting a signature from the lodgement process we went through the process of uploading a document and doing it directly in the signature application and I believe the office practice manager is also integrated in a similar way okay and the next question is from Deb Johnston I actually wanted subscriptions five years ago and never use it is it there is there a chance I could use that now our answer that questions for you Nate we do well unfortunately it's five years ago we don't have you know it's it's probably expect but you can give us a try there is a 30-day free trial on the on the platform and yeah it just we'll take it from there I guess and the next question is from Brenda Brenda Leigh can I please have a recording yes we this session is recorded there was a bit missing at the beginning because um I was somehow we mr. we missed that but we were sent you the reminding of it just the very beginning of it so you want miss very much the next question please go through again how how to add your own signature to a document that has been signed by the client [Applause] [Laughter] and that signature that ingested put onto the documents I've gone through to quantify lift your clients will do something very similar when they receive me to request liquid metal to the signature on the page and all that thanks Kate I hope that's clear for you just seemed cleaner the next questions I've got two for UK to ease that there's a ritual paper okay we can send you through only Ingrid the registrations for at least webinar tomorrow tomorrow would it be possible to make the signing area on the bass where is bigger send it your on the line do you mind uh Newton and answer that yes Dana so we'll check that because currently we have designed the activity statement page to fit into the screen we'll think about that we will talk to our designers and we think about resizing the signature box here's the next question thanks indeed the next questions from also from jacquelina that has been digitally signed by the client or gov reports yeah so we just go back to the basically signing on your own documents for when the kind had already signed you can't upload just jacquelina you can upload your own documents the document that they decline has signed and you can put your signature in send it is their process basically you could have put that at the beginning before you send it off but it's what if you already send it off to the client to be signed and then do you want to sign that document is that possible sending there are two missed you knows once first you need upload the document and you can sign that and download and you can send it to the client the other way is that you can add the when you upload the document you can add yourself as one of the signee then send it to the your client so both of you can do this different things Jana I was I think Jack Lina I will think about that answer and will possibly come back or update with you but at the moment Cindy mentioned you can't initially when you before you sign the document before you send the document for signing by the client you can sign the document beforehand or you can add yourself as one of the person to sign the document that way you know that's that that process is there but if the document has already been signed and you want to add your signature afterwards we'll think about how this process will will fit in but and we'll update you updated as its if we have a solutions for that the next question is the center of often ends up on the bottom line and it's very hard to read and I think that's we come back to earlier questions from from Dana as well regarding it's more we are we work with designers to make that perhaps more easier to see a little character in there throw in there Tiana that it's a digital signature so the the authorization comes from the IP stance and the encryption so absolutely aesthetics has to be there we're running business it has to prevent well but it actually doesn't impact the authenticity or the authorization itself because it's not the picture of the signature that the authorization it's the digital stamp which has been two-factor authenticated so the the questions I got from Jacob I've got a template for bass in is which may forward to me and copy and paste wording in the body of the email together with the attachment which is allowed um Jacob it may well be I can't give you advice on that my consideration there is your client experience I know I certainly had a clan accountant do exactly that to one of my clients recently where the accountant sent an email and said please copy and paste this text into your return email with this document and that's your digital signature I mean to be honest that's a pretty poor client experience you're asking your client to do copy pasting jumping through hoops the alternative is to send them an email saying please can I have your signature here click on the link popular trend and away we go that's also not subject to any middleman attack in your email and it's encrypted and has the benefits of that share factor authentication security I think it's a bit more professional to be honest thanks Kate the next questions is from Poland is the webinar tonight or tomorrow I think are you referring to we do have two webinars tomorrow one is the scalable practice which will also be presented by Kate and the later one is from Ellie Ellie Cochran both will be on practice management the the early one by Kate will be more into the early stages why you why as a practitioner you should be have considering practice management tool right Kate yes absolutely just talking about efficiencies and the components of scaling your practice or growing it and it's not growing it just making it you know work more efficiently easier quicker faster so that you've got some more free time the questions from Ingrid to confirm to confirm the signature can't just be a font yes absolutely and you saw the signatures no just get on the screen before I'll pop them back up there now what do you try and get the question box out of my way so again what I want is that the signature isn't the writing it's not the picture so this is my signature that would do or I can put so you can this is just me typing it in I can draw it in with my mouth but as we saw before that a little bit messy or I can upload a picture of my signature but that itself isn't the authorisation this is the aesthetics so when the client clicks that they sign they've gone through a two-factor authentication process if you've chosen it's the IP student and the encryption of that document through the software that is itself the authorization it's the action of the authorization not just the pretty pictures of signature so to answer your question yes it can just be typed in or drawn in or be a picture that you've taken to be fun I hope that clear sounds good okay thanks Kate next questions do details for mark mccuddin do details of clients Inc over to my contacts safe to be typing your email addresses Celia absolutely so you can see over here over here I've got a list of contacts I've been using with my demo file now obviously in my practice file this is as long as your arm so if also if you've got clients already your client list or in guts as soon as you put in the clients name or even if you when you prepare their reports it's automatically in their details preview that details including their contact details an email address over so you don't have to retype them oh okay is it the next questions from Kim Kim Harris is it also possible to have some basic tools on the form such as highlighting some text etc send it facecam I've been nagging features sent me about now just make note of that okay I still got a questions from Jacob I think following his last question which was about the the template for bass in is but that he's saying that but they still need the clients do you need to create yes I can see them now piano so I only once Jacobs way they send it at once and then they just click that's it it's certainly not a copy and paste and as I just said David if I didn't want to sit up I just didn't quite which you can't see but set up in air quotes of signature by uploading a picture they do that one time and then it's saved in their login otherwise as you said they just type their name in and away they go done on how you answer the question about say candy yeah I'm Sharon yeah so the question is does this software run side by side with sage candy soft if I do bass in sage do I then upload to the reports to email we integrate with sage one um are we talking about the same thing no so it's it's so I'm seeing here it's passed in sage so if it look if it's it's if it's we integrate with sage sage one so you can export the file direct to cut reports but if it's not it's not the versions that we we have integrated with them you can certainly look upload the look sinister the sample file you can download it and and yeah we we an able look at enabling but I believe that sage we were all sage will be making an announcement very shortly because we also integrate with their desktop product and which will be released perhaps in a few weeks one or two weeks time you hear about it possibly from from sage directly not too sure because I'm seeing here is its bass it's not perhaps returns but certainly activity statements for all sage products I hope that answer your question Sharon awesome sorry what answer will be integrate Colleen is the basic so let me just jump back into yeah alright this is a demo file so I can actually show you the list but off the top of my head you can do a manual woodsman so you don't have to include software 0 to be om the sage 1.csv so if you have a CSV import on you can also use that so don't report piano did I miss any reckon ones out reckon one sorry sorry reckon and also reckon desktop product you can also upload the the XML file as well yeah so in short most of them most of the color is in the small business ledger catechol plus the manual process we think we've got to the end of our questions guys if you do have any more questions or something just pops into your head it you know eleven o'clock at night which sometimes happens to me um please send me an email at Kate at go reports or just give sandy the call on the support one and we're always happy to have a chat about how we can add value to your business is the last question I'm from Jacob yeah can you upload the STP files from retconned desktop and send it have we start working with reckoned on the STP file upload can't hear you yet so with the reckon is to be fine it has been already implemented so it's available now the JSON file that can be imported and or can be large local reports there you go so you definitely can upload the file and send for signature as Kate saw earlier yep before you do the lodgement hope that answer all your questions thank you only questions it's really great when we can have an interactive audience and thanks everybody see questions actually really cool well one more piano let me write this one from joy send it the question is what about em well be live uploading to GAO reports so at the moment my OB account right that's the live account I mean on the cloud application that we have integrated for the activity statements so the activity statement directly can be pulled in to God puts for the large printer so the simple answer is yes yeah okay thanks guys thanks again thank you so much again please reach out to us at any time I work in places like you guys really happy to chat to anyone about how to improve your practice and have done reports can buy back some time and efficiency for you joy we are going to wrap up now but I will answer that question for you directly so its Happy New Year everybody and hopefully you'll join us for the rest of our webinar series in January by phonetic