What’s new

November 2026

• Small things that add up. Set-up's first step now shows your working hours, each day to change, and your first travel zone starts at how far you travel. Settings → Account has What your clients get — the emails and texts a client is sent at each step, as they would read for a made-up signing. When you save a later date for your commission, bond or E&O policy, the card asks Renewed — add what it cost to your expenses? On the web's Mileage, Add a drive by hand logs a business errand the phone didn't record. A client whose confirmation email went less than twelve hours before the morning's reminder gets no second message. And the town or ZIP code a client searched on Find a notary goes with them to your page and your request form. Set up your account · Add a drive the phone missed · Add your commission, bond and insurance.
• Getting paid on terms. A company you book for the first time is billed net 30; a person still pays at the signing. Once an invoice on payment terms has had its final notice and is still unpaid, Remind them for me emails the client their statement once a month, and their record with you says Slow to pay — the client never sees it. A client's statement page has Send it, for this month's. On the web, closing out a company's flat-fee order asks whether the company agreed to pay waiting; unticked, the invoice is the flat fee alone. Chase unpaid invoices · Close out a signing.
• What waits on you, and what you typed, kept. On the web, Today lists what waits on your answer: a request asked of you alone says when your answer is due, a hold of your own says until when it's held, and an order you named a fee on is left to the company to answer — with Directions beside a stop still ahead. Picking a company on New job fills in the acts of its last signing, not its last signers or their numbers; with commissions in more than one state, New job asks which state the signing is in when the address doesn't say. When a save doesn't go through on the web — no connection, an update while the page was open, a sign-in that ended — what you typed is kept in that tab for a while, and put back when you return to the page. Emails about your account — such as your commission, bond or insurance coming due, your commission check, a disputed card payment, or a refund that didn't go through — come even with email alerts off. For companies: the order's page shows the words a notary wrote with their no, where their Decline step said the company is told; Keep my fee says where the order goes; and a copy of an order its notary can still accept asks before it goes, and says two notaries could be booked for one signing. Plan your day · Book a signing · Follow an order.

October 2026

• Tell us what you'd like next. Contact support has a new choice, An idea or a feature request. On the web, Suggest a feature under More opens it (on a company's desk, under Settings); on the phone, it's in More → Help → Contact support. Say what you'd like Hand & Seal to do and what it would help you with: a person reads every idea, and each one is kept on the list we build from. Suggest a feature.
• When something goes wrong: a reference, and we hear of it. An error nobody planned for now shows a short reference — “Reference R-7K2M9Q4XTB” — the same one our own records carry, and Report this sends it to support with your message, so nobody has to describe what they saw. The app and the site also tell us by themselves when a screen fails: which kind of screen, the error, and the app's version. The report is made of the fault, not of your work — it has no place for what you typed or for anything about a client. What we collect · Contact support.
• Your state's rules, held against the law's own text. Every state's rules in Hand & Seal — the most you may charge, your journal, identification, travel fees, what a notary may offer beside notarizing — were read again against that state's statutes and handbook, and corrected where they were off. Settings → State rules says the day yours were checked, and that they aren't an attorney's advice. What you'll notice: where your state limits a travel fee by the mile, a travel fee is held to it; where your state has every notary's advertising carry a statement, your page carries it; a journal line starts with no act chosen, because that choice is never the app's; and a fee the app refuses says which rule refused it. Read your state's rules.
• Fewer letters you didn't ask for, and a way to stop each. Every letter Hand & Seal sends says who sent it and where we are; invitations, announcements and requests for a review each carry Stop them.
• The help center, for both phones. Every guide to the phone app now has the iPhone's steps beside Android's — setting up drive recording, the widgets, taking a card, the phone's calendar, notifications and the rest. Where the two phones differ, choose Android or iPhone, and the pictures follow. Install the app and sign in · Is there an iPhone app?.
• Mileage, held tighter. A signing's round trip is never counted on top of the drives your phone has for it, and I'm here notes how far you were from the address — what stands behind a waiting fee or a trip fee. File your drives.
• One trip on two devices, counted once. With your phone and your tablet both in the car — or two phones — each records the drive. Your log now counts the trip once: the second recording is kept, with its route, marked Recorded on two devices, and adds nothing to your miles. If it got it wrong, Count this one instead or These were two drives puts it right. Two of my devices recorded the same drive.

September 2026

• Getting paid in the field, on the phone. Owed to you on Books lists every open invoice, the oldest first, each with Record payment. A job's invoice has a screen of its own, Invoice & payment, apart from its Trip & mileage. Close-out starts on the way you're usually paid, and Card, on their phone shows a code a client scans to pay by card on their own phone. Close out and get paid.
• One Needs you card on the phone's Today. Everything waiting on you, the most urgent first — with Confirm tomorrow's signers (a call or a text each) and To ship (the tracking number, typed or pasted). When your state's fees change, Today says so 60 days ahead, with one tap to set your prices for that day. Plan your day.
• File a day of drives at once. File the rest › on a day in Mileage → To file, with Undo. File your drives.
• A new job, fast and complete. On the phone, Right now is the first choice on New job: a walk-in starts at your office (or Here), stamped as begun, and opens on its journal line. Any day can be booked — yesterday's included, to close it out. Booked lately fills in a client's last place, signers and acts; a name two of your clients share is asked about; How long has chips, with ninety minutes for a loan signing. A loan signing keeps its kind, its pages and sets, who to call about the file and when the documents come and go; any job its witnesses. Prep & access now lives on the job — on the web and for whoever does it. The save button always says what's missing. Book a signing.
• Money in the field. Price a signing on the spot and Send the price — every line, travel on its own, the total — from your own phone or emailed in your name. Not a yes yet? Hold it keeps the time for 48 hours, off your page, and one tap confirms it. And Take a deposit on any booked signing — cash, a check, Zelle, Venmo, or a card on your phone — with its receipt by email or text; it comes off the bill at close-out, and a job you cancel asks whether to refund it or keep it. A job billed in advance now closes out too: what was paid carries over to the final invoice. Take a deposit · Send the price.
• Sign in with Apple. On the web, on Android and on the iPhone — where the iPhone's own sheet signs you in with Face ID, and Continue with Google sits right under it. Keep your email private with Hide My Email if you like: Apple forwards our letters. Already have an account? Connect Apple in Settings → Sign-in & security. How it works.
• Contact support, from everywhere. Under More, at the foot of Settings, as Support in the side bar, at the end of every help article, on a company desk's Settings — and on the phone, More → Help → Contact support. Signed in, it already knows who you are; choose what it's about, and it points you to any help article that may answer it before you write. Attach a screenshot, or from the phone its drive diagnostics. You get a case number and a copy by email, and an answer, usually within one business day. How it works.
• The help center. Step-by-step guides with pictures of the real screens, for the web and the phone app — and a way to write to us from every page. Find it under Help on the web app's More page and Settings, on the phone's More tab, and at the foot of every page.
• Businesses with more than one notary. Add a partner (an owner, who sees everything), an employee (a notary who sees their own signings) or an assistant (who books signings and sends invoices, and doesn't notarize) from Settings → Team. A notary's journal, mileage log and commission are always their own — wherever they work, and after they leave. How to add them.
• Dark mode on the web. The web app and the company desk follow your device, or choose Light or Dark in Settings → Account. Invoices, receipts and your page stay on light paper — that's what your clients see.
• Sign in with a passkey. Your fingerprint or face instead of a password, on the web and on Android: Settings → Account → Passkeys.
• A walk is never a drive. The phone now records a drive only once it has measured driving speed, so walking to a signing no longer starts one. How drives are recorded.