Requesting an Onvio e-signature

If you are licenced for Onvio Firm Management (Essentials or Advanced), you can send certain forms to your clients via Onvio Client Centre for e-signature. This feature is only available in the 2020 and later tax years (except where indicated). Currently, the following forms are supported:

T1

• T183
• CRA - authorize/cancel a representative
• T1135 (2022+)
• TP-1000.TE
• MR-69
• TP-274

T2

• T183CORP (2021+)
• CRA - authorize a representative (2021+)
• CRA - cancel a representative (2021+)
• T1135 (2022+)
• CO-1000.TE (2021+)
• MR-69 (2021+)

Sending an e-signature request

Go to the Tax Return screen of the client and click the "Request e-signature" button on the toolbar, or select "Tools > Onvio > Request Onvio e-signature" from the menu. Check the box of the form for which you wish to send an e-signature request. Click the "Send/Update" button. In addition to sending the request, clicking the button will also update the status for any outstanding (pending) e-signature request (see "Updating the status of the request" below). An entry will be added to the client audit trail to record the e-signature request.

T183/T183CORP - Client-Signature keyword

Sending an e-signature request for the T183 or T183CORP will cause the Client-Signature keyword to be added (if not already present) to the Efile group (T1) or Efile-Federal group (T2), and the value to be set to "Form(s) will be signed and dated electronically". This will prevent the electronic transmission of the federal tax return to the CRA until the date and time of e-signing has been added to the Data Entry. This will happen automatically once the form has been signed (see "Updating the status of the request" below).

Expirations

By default, requests for e-signatures expire after 7 days, but can be set to any value between 1 and 99 days. To change this value, go to "Preferences > Onvio" in the menu.

Notifications

After an e-signature request has been sent, the client will be notified by email. After the client electronically signs the document, another email will be sent to the tax preparer. Likewise, should the client decline to sign the form, or let the request expire, the tax preparer will be notified by email.

Revoke a request

If you accidentally sent an e-signature request to a client, you can undo it by opening the Onvio Client List ("Tools > Onvio > Show Onvio client list" in the menu), right-clicking the client in question, and selecting "Revoke e-signature request". You can only revoke a request until the client has either declined it or signed the form. An entry will be added to the client audit trail to record the revocation.

Updating the status of the request

Besides receiving status updates via email, you can check the status by going to the Tax Return screen of the client and clicking the "Request e-signature" button on the toolbar, or by selecting "Tools > Onvio > Request Onvio e-signature" from the menu. The status from the last update will be initially shown. Click the "Send/Update" button to get the latest status. Any status change will also be recorded in the client audit trail. In the case of a declined request, the reason given by the client will also be saved in the audit trail.

If the form has been successfully signed, DT Max will add a signed copy of the form to the Documents tab of the client in Onvio Client Centre, and add an entry to the client audit trail. For information on automatically saving a local copy of e-signed documents, see the "E-signatures" section of the Preferences - Onvio page. To control how duplicate documents are handled, go to "Preferences > Onvio" in the menu.

For T1 only, DT Max will add a Progress keyword group to the Data Entry after any form has been successfully signed (for the TP-274 form, this will only happen in 2022 and later tax years).

For the T183/T183CORP forms, DT Max will add/update the E-Signature keyword group in the Data Entry with the date and time at which the form was electronically signed.

For the T1135 form (T1 and T2), DT Max will add the E-Signature keyword group in the Data Entry after the form has been successfully signed.

For the MR-69 form (T1 and T2), by default, after the form has been successfully signed, DT Max will download a copy of the PDF and include a link to it in the MR-69-PDF-Attach keyword (see the Preferences - Onvio page for more information). This only applies to 2021 and later tax years.

You can see the statuses from the last update for all clients by going to "Tools > Onvio > Show Onvio client list" in the menu. The list can be filtered by the e-sign status.

Note: E-signature requests with a status of "Pending*" are for forms which have already been signed by the client, but still need to be updated before the status can be changed to "Signed". This situation happens when you try to revoke an already signed form.

Viewing the signed forms

Once a form has been electronically signed, you can click the PDF icon to open a temporary copy of the form stored on Onvio. This provides a quick and easy way to see the signed form. If, however, you want to keep a local copy of all signed forms on your computer, you can configure this to happen automatically by going to "Preferences > Onvio" in the menu.

Video

A training video is available. Please consult our Video page.