Financial advisers
The client agreement,signed before the advice starts.
Initial advice and ongoing service on one document, each line carrying its own VAT treatment, agreed in writing and kept for as long as the file has to last.
Letter of engagement 2026/27
From: R. Hartley, Hartley & Co
The three documents
Only one of them has to come back signed, and it is not the one you would guess.
The client agreement
Sometimes called the terms of business. It sets out the service, the fees and the basis of the relationship, and it has to be in writing before the advice is given.
The ongoing service schedule
What the client gets each year and what it costs, whether that is a percentage or a fixed fee. It is the document that discloses the fee clearly and in advance.
The letter of authority
The one document in this set that genuinely has to come back signed, because the ceding provider will not act without it. Send it with the agreement as one pack rather than as a second email three days later.
Where this sits in taking on a client
After the checks. Before the advice.
The client agreement has to be in place before the advice is given, and it has to be the version you can produce years later. It sits in the middle of taking on a client: after your checks, before the advice.
Your client checks, screening, the back office and anything touching client money stay in the systems built for them. This carries the client agreement, the ongoing service schedule, the letter of authority, the signature and the evidence around all four.
Keep an agreement per service
One agreement for initial advice, one for ongoing service, one for the annual review, each holding the clauses your compliance officer signed off rather than the ones in whichever file was opened last.
Send the pack, not four attachments
The agreement, the service schedule and the letter of authority go out together and complete as one record with one certificate. Anything that must be given rather than agreed can be routed to the client as a viewer, so it is delivered and recorded without asking for a signature.
Keep it for as long as the file has to last
Every send, open and signature carries its time, the signer and the IP address, and the finished document cannot be edited afterwards. On a file that has to be kept for years, the ability to produce the exact agreed version later is the whole point.
Put your next client agreement through it.
What you can produce when someone asks
The FCA, the UK regulator, expects the client agreement and the services it covers to be set out in writing, and the file to last for as long as the rules require. The signature is not the rule: it is how a firm shows the client engaged with what was sent. What this gives you is a dated, agreed version of the document that set out the fees, with a record of who agreed it and when.
The certificate
Produced automatically when the last signature lands. Each signature with its time, actor and IP address, a fingerprint of every document in the pack, and a QR code linking to an independent check.
Still checkable years later
A client, a compliance reviewer or an ombudsman can verify a completed document without an account and without asking you. It confirms the document, the signers and that the chain is intact; it does not disclose what the document said.
Verify a document →CecurSign
Certificate of Completion
- Subject
- Letter of engagement 2026/27
- Created
- 04/06/2026 09:12 UTC
- Sent
- 04/06/2026 09:14 UTC
- Completed
- 05/06/2026 16:41 UTC
Documents
Engagement letter and schedules.pdf (7 pages)
SHA-256: a4f1c9e0b7d3
Signers and recipients
- R. Hartley (Signer)Signed 04/06/2026 11:02 UTC
- J. Okafor (Signer)Signed 05/06/2026 16:41 UTC
Scan to verify
Envelope ID
9c1f2a34-5b6d-4e71-8f90-2ad4c6e13b58
What you would actually be using
The parts of CecurSign that matter to financial advisers, and what each one does here.
Templates
One agreement for initial advice, one for ongoing service, and one for the annual review, each holding the clauses your compliance officer signed off rather than the ones in whichever file was opened last.
Build a document once with its fields, its signers and its reminders, then send it as often as you need without rebuilding it.
Sending for signature
The client agreement and the ongoing service schedule go out as one document to be signed, and joint clients each sign their own copy of it rather than one of them signing for both.
One person or several, in a set order or all at once, with a deadline and a copy to whoever else needs one.
Client records
Which clients are on ongoing service, which agreements have a review coming and which have lapsed, taken from the agreements rather than from a status somebody maintains alongside them.
Your clients, and every document you have sent each of them, with its date, its status and its certificate.
Certificate of completion
A file that has to last as long as the advice does: the agreement, the date, the signatures and a fingerprint of every page, in one place.
Produced when the last signature lands: every signature with its time, the person who made it and their IP address, and a fingerprint of each file.
Independent verification
A compliance reviewer, or an adviser taking the file over, can check a completed agreement themselves without asking you for anything.
Anyone holding a completed document can check it themselves, with no account and no login, and see that it has not been altered.
What firms ask before they buy
The usual questions, answered briefly.
Is a client agreement signed this way legally binding?
We charge VAT on advice and not on intermediation. Does that work?
What happens when fees or the ongoing service change?
Does it replace our back office?
More detail on how a document is sent, signed and proved on the e-signature page, or see how other companies use it on the industries index.
How it fits your documents
Send a document for signature, or sign one yourself. This is what each looks like in your line of work.
E-signature
Your terms, your privacy notice and your service proposition are read by the client beside the agreement, with a record of what they opened for the file.
Sending for signatureSelf sign
A declaration the firm signs alone, a compliance sign-off, or an internal approval: done in one sitting and filed beside the client agreements it relates to.
Signing something yourselfWhat to read next
The parts of the help centre this page assumes, in the order you would meet them.
- Creating a templateSet up a document you send often, with the fields already in place.
- Adding the people who need to signSigners, approvers and people who only need a copy, and how they differ.
- Getting the signed documentWhere the finished PDF lives, who receives it, and how to download it.
- Checking that a signed document is genuineHow anyone, including a third party, can verify a document we produced.
Everything else is in the help centre.
Put your next client agreement through it
Build one from your own services, with your own VAT treatment on each line, and look at what the client sees.
No credit card required.