Managers and supervisors on an Hourly Platimum Plan can set up paperless HR documents for employees. In addition to providing tax forms such as a W-4 or 1099, documents can also include an Employee Handbook, Safety Manual, Policies and Procedures, etc. 

The original document must be in PDF format. If the original PDF is already fillable online, it will remain fillable in Hourly, and you can add only a DocuSign signature request. If the original PDF is standard (not fillable), you can add auto-fill fields, as well as a signature request.

Note: Hourly does not support secured PDFs, which is the typical format of government forms. If you plan to use a secure PDF, you will need to unlock it before uploading into Hourly.

To add the document to your account, click Documents along the left. Click New Document, choose the PDF, and click Open.

If the form is a standard PDF (not fillable), you can add auto-filled fields to the document. Simply drag the field from the list along the left directly into the document. For example, a Full Name field will be automatically filled with the employee’s name. The Signature field can also be added if the document needs to be signed by the employee. (Signature requests will be covered later in this article.) 

If the PDF is fillable, auto-fill fields cannot be added. Only a Signature field can be added.

You can zoom in on the document by clicking the field at the top. By default, the Employment Type option is None, which means the document will not be shared automatically. But you can choose 1099 Contractor, W-2 Employee, or Both, which means the document will be available for selection during the onboarding process for each new hire of the selected type(s). 

The default document name is the filename of the original PDF. To change this file name, click the Edit icon at the top left and enter the new name.

When the document is ready, click Save template at the bottom. Once saved, the document appears on the Templates list, with Published status. Only published documents can be sent to employees. Each template has a three-dot icon that opens options to edit or view the document, request signatures, or unpublish. To delete a document, it must first be unpublished. Note that a document that has been signed, or has signature requests, cannot be unpublished or deleted. 

In addition to employee ability to complete forms as part as their onboarding process, documents and signature requests for new and existing hires can also be provided from the Documents page. There are two ways to request an employee's signature from here. Note that requests are sent via email, and Hourly will notify you about employees who do not have an email address on record.

To request signatures for a single document, click the document’s three-dot icon and choose Request Signatures. Find or search for employees, and click Send Requests.

To request signatures on one or more documents, click Request Signatures at the top right. Find or search for employees, click Next, then choose the documents to be signed. All documents with Published status will be available for selection. When finished, click Send Requests.

Once the request is sent, the employee receives an email that a document is awaiting their review and signature. After clicking the Review Document link, the employee will proceed through the DocuSign steps. Any fields included with the document, such as name, email, or date, will be automatically filled in. Fields without any information in the employee record will have to be filled in manually. To sign, the employee can click the Sign link, click Adopt and Sign, then click Finish.

To track documents and their signatures, open the Signature Requests tab of the Documents page. A signature request can have one of three statuses, along with a three-dot icon that opens a menu with relevant options:

• Missing data means that a piece of data is missing from the employee record. The menu options include Complete missing info, which will take you to the employee profile page where you can fill in the missing information. You can also cancel the signature request.
• Pending means that the employee has not completed the signature request. You can choose to send a reminder, or cancel the request.
• Signed means the request was completed, and the signed document can be downloaded.

To help you keep track of signature requests, there are two ways to filter the list. Clicking the All Documents filter at the top right enables you to search for specific documents. Clicking the All Status filter enables you to find requests with missing information, or those that are pending or signed.