Whether it's a solo bookkeeper or a multi-partner CPA firm, engagement letters and client onboarding paperwork don't move at a steady pace across the year.
Volume clusters hard around filing season, and chasing signatures over email across dozens of clients at once turns into a spreadsheet of who's signed, who hasn't, and who needs a third reminder before a file can open.
Fifty engagement letters in a few weeks is what turns straightforward paperwork into a bottleneck.
What's possible
Engagement letters as civil contracts
Engagement letters, onboarding forms, and general representation agreements are civil contracts, and they're the documents electronic signature law was built around.
Legal foundation Firma.dev supports
Firma.dev is built to support the ESIGN Act, UETA, and eIDAS (SES and AES), the legal foundation that makes an electronically signed engagement letter enforceable on the same terms as a paper one, wherever a firm and its clients are based.
Filing-specific rules are separate
Filing-specific signature rules are a separate matter, and they vary by country and by form. Check current guidance from the relevant tax authority before assuming a specific filing can be handled electronically.
For US firms: where IRS forms fit in
Some IRS forms accept electronic signatures under specific conditions, and the list has changed more than once in recent years. That determination has to come from current IRS guidance for the exact form in question.
Firma.dev covers the engagement letters and onboarding paperwork around a client relationship. Confirm IRS filing rules for specific forms separately.
A typical onboarding workflow
Engagement letter and onboarding form go out together
A new client's engagement letter goes out with signature fields already placed, alongside an onboarding form collecting the details needed to open the file.
Client signs from a phone
Signing takes a couple of minutes from a phone.
Firm gets notified instantly
The firm gets a notification the moment it's done, with a timestamped audit trail attached, so nobody has to open a separate spreadsheet to check who's still outstanding.
Pricing that matches seasonal volume
Per-seat e-signature plans, including most electronic signature software marketed to CPAs and bookkeepers, charge the same flat rate every month regardless of how many documents move through them.
Firma.dev charges €0.049 per envelope (about 5 cents USD), with no monthly minimum and no per-seat fee, so a firm sending three documents one month and thirty the next pays for exactly what it sends. Full breakdown on the pricing page.
