Engagement letters and e-sign

Upload your firm's engagement letter PDF once, send it to clients with per-client variable fields, and collect signatures right inside PeakBooks. No DocuSign account required, no separate billing for sigs.

Create a template

Templates are stored at the firm level. Once you've added one, your whole team can send it to any client.

1. From the accountant portal, go to Settings → Firm → 📜 Engagement Letter Templates.
2. Click + New Template. Give it a name (e.g., "Annual Bookkeeping Engagement 2026") and an email subject line for the send email.
3. Upload the engagement letter as a PDF (max 5 MB). It uploads directly to PeakBooks's private storage.
4. Optionally define Variable fields — things that change per client like fee amount, scope items, dates. Each field has a key (snake_case), a label, and an optional placeholder. You'll fill these in when you send.
5. Per field, mark whether it's filled by the firm (you, before sending) or the signer (the client, during signature) — and whether it's required.
6. Save. The template is now available on every client's record.

Send to a client

1. Open the accountant portal's Clients tab.
2. Click the 📜 button on any client row (visible for both active clients and prospects who haven't onboarded yet).
3. Pick the template. The Send form dynamically renders inputs for each variable field marked firm-fill.
4. Fill in fee, dates, scope items — whatever the template asks for. Required fields are marked with a red asterisk.
5. Confirm the client's email (pulled from the client record, editable here).
6. Click Send for signature. PeakBooks emails the client a unique signing link.

What the client sees

The client opens the link and lands on a public signing page (no PeakBooks account required). They see:

• The rendered subject and an Engagement details panel showing the variable values you filled in
• Your PDF embedded — they can scroll, zoom, and download a preview
• Any signer-fill variable fields you defined — they fill them out
• A typed-name signature field — or they can switch to draw mode and sign on the PDF itself with a mouse or finger
• An "I agree to the terms" checkbox

Once they hit Sign, PeakBooks records who signed (name, IP, user-agent, timestamp), flips the letter status from sent to signed, and emails confirmation to both the client and your firm.

After signing

Every signed engagement letter shows up:

• As a 📜 Engagement chip on the client's card in your accountant portal
• In the engagement-letter modal's history list when you click 📜 on that client row
• Downloadable as: (a) the original PDF, and (b) an HTML "signature receipt" showing signer name, IP, time, and the variable-field values they signed against

Prospects vs active clients

You can send engagement letters to prospects — leads who don't have a PeakBooks account yet. The engagement letter flow doesn't require the recipient to be a PeakBooks user. Once they convert to an active client via the normal client-create flow, their prior signed engagements stay attached.

Permissions

Only the firm owner can create and edit templates or send letters. Firm staff (added via Team Members) see Settings → Personal but not the Firm tab where templates live. This matches the typical CPA firm model where the partner owns engagement signing.