Directors signing the approved statements by link
How directors or trustees with no Achekam login sign approved statements by e-mailed link, in order, and what the completion certificate records.
By Achekam · · 4 min read · For Accountants & audit firms in South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya
A trust with four trustees in three cities. A company whose two directors are rarely in the same office. A body corporate whose trustees change every year. Getting approved financial statements signed has traditionally meant couriers, scanned signature pages and a final copy assembled from pieces that may not all belong to the same version.
Achekam lets a firm send the statements for electronic signature to people who have no Achekam login at all. This article explains how that works, where it fits in the approval sequence, what record is kept and what kind of signature it is in South Africa.
Approving the draft is not the same as signing the final set
Two different steps are easily confused.
Approval of the draft happens on the review link. The client's authorised review contact receives a link to a frozen copy of the draft and can comment, confirm or ask for changes, and that decision moves the set on or back. It is the client telling the firm the draft is right.
Signing the final set is the directors or trustees formally approving the statements as theirs, usually on the approval page at the front of the set. It comes once the content is final, and it is this signature, rather than an e-mail saying "looks fine", that evidences the board's approval.
Keep the two apart in the file. A confirmation on the review link is not a signature. Achekam has no client sign-in or portal account; clients deal with the firm through the links it sends, and both steps work that way.
Setting the signing order for several directors or trustees
Staff prepare a document for e-signature and add signers, approvers and copied recipients in order. For financial statements the order usually mirrors the formal process:
- The chairperson, or the director the board has authorised, signs first.
- Other directors or trustees follow, where the entity's rules or practice call for more than one signature.
- A copied recipient, such as the company secretary or the financial manager, receives the completed document.
Think about the order before sending. If one trustee is travelling, putting them last avoids holding up the others. If one director must not sign before another has, the order enforces it.
A practical note: there is no menu entry for the signing console. It opens from the "Out for signature" tile on My Dashboard, from a document's own page or from the signing templates under Settings > RFI Templates. Saving a signing template for each regular client's board spares the team rebuilding the signer list every year.
What each signer receives and does
Each signer receives an e-mailed link and signs from it without an Achekam account. By default the links last 30 days. Signers install nothing and create no password, which removes most of the reasons signing stalls.
Before the links go out, tell the signers what to expect: who will send the e-mail, what the document is, and that they should read it before signing. A director who signs a set they have not read has not really approved it, however convenient the process.
The completion certificate and where the signed copy is filed
When everyone has signed, Achekam produces the signed PDF with a completion certificate. The certificate lists each signer's e-mail, the times, their IP address and browser, and the document's fingerprint. The signed PDF is filed in the client's "Signed documents" folder in the vault.
That certificate is the record a reviewer or regulator will want: who signed, when and what. Keep it with the engagement file, and make sure the signed copy is the one that goes to the client's bank and anyone else who needs it.
What a simple electronic signature is in South Africa
Achekam's e-signatures are simple electronic signatures. The certificate cites section 13 of South Africa's Electronic Communications and Transactions Act and states that they are not advanced electronic signatures, so never describe them to a client as advanced or qualified. The official text of the ECT Act on gov.za is where electronic communications, transactions and electronic signatures get their legal recognition.
Whether a simple electronic signature is enough depends on what is being signed and on the entity's own rules. Approving annual financial statements rarely calls for more, but a trust deed, a memorandum of incorporation or a lender's conditions can say otherwise, so check before relying on it. Nigerian and Kenyan firms should take their own advice on electronic signatures under local law; the certificate records the same evidence wherever the signer is.
Keeping the signed version and the issued version the same
The risk with any signing process is that the directors sign one version and the firm issues another. Two records help. The completion certificate carries the fingerprint of the document the directors signed, and issuing the statements stores the final PDF with its own fingerprint and locks that version.
A fingerprint identifies one exact file, and a PDF produced again can differ from an earlier one byte for byte even when its wording and figures have not changed. So the control has to sit in the process rather than in comparing two strings:
- Send for signature only once the firm's review is complete and the client has confirmed the draft.
- From that moment, treat the content as closed: no figure or wording changes.
- If anything must change after a director has signed, send the new version for signature again rather than working around the signature.
- For audited or reviewed statements, plan the order so the directors approve the statements before the practitioner's report is dated.
- File the completion certificate beside the issued PDF, with a note that they carry the same content.
How the various fingerprints help when someone later asks which version was signed is covered in proving which version was signed and issued; e-signing more generally is in e-signing letters and certificates.
General guidance only, not advice on your own circumstances. Tax and payroll rules change: check the current position with the authority or your adviser.
