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Onboarding documents & the digital W-4
Send new hires a signing packet — WTPA notice, I-9, handbook and more — and let them complete the official IRS W-4 through a guided form.
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Hiring paperwork in SafeShift: the packet, the templates, what the new hire signs, and the countersignature. Open Documents, then Onboarding. Every employee has a row. Someone who already has a SafeShift account gets Assign Onboarding. Anyone else gets Send Invite, which emails a link to set up the account and sign. The packet is a checklist: employment essentials like the WTPA notice, the I-9 and the W-4, your compliance agreements, your policies, and the state pamphlets. Untick anything that does not apply.
Manage Templates is where each document's source is set. Every built-in document has a preview. SafeShift generates it from your legal business info, and the employee signs it in the app. Have your own version? Switch the document to Custom Template and upload the PDF. Employees download it, sign it and upload a scan. And for anything SafeShift does not cover, create a custom document, say a parking policy, and upload your PDF.
Back on Onboarding, assign the packet to Olivia. SafeShift checks first. The WTPA notice needs the business profile complete, and the employee needs a hire date and a pay rate. Each warning links to the fix. Settings, Compliance and Legal Info: the legal name and address, payday, the workers' comp carrier, the paid sick leave policy. Save.
Now the employee profile. On the Team page, open Olivia, set her hire date and her pay rate, and save. Now the packet goes out. Olivia is pending, zero of seventeen. She gets an email, and a push notification in the SafeShift app. On her side, the home screen says documents are waiting. Each document opens inline, already filled in with her details and your business info, so she reads exactly what she is agreeing to.
She signs by typing her full legal name. It is time-stamped and IP-stamped, with the electronic-signature disclosure right there. The next one, the same way. Signed documents move to Completed Documents, where she can open them again any time. Back on your side the row shows her progress, two of seventeen. The menu has View Docs.
Every document, its status, who signed and when, with View and Download PDF. Documents with an employer line, like the WTPA notice, also have Countersign. Type your name and title and sign as the employer representative. The employee's signed copy is never changed. Countersigned, dated, under your account. That is the hiring packet, start to finish.
New hires sign their employment paperwork before their first shift — from their phone or computer, no printer needed. You pick which documents go in the packet; SafeShift emails a secure link, collects legally binding e-signatures, and files everything as tamper-evident records. The W-4 and the I-9 are guided forms: the employee answers plain-language questions and SafeShift fills out and signs the official IRS and USCIS PDFs for them. The video above runs the whole packet once: templates, the checks before sending, what the employee signs, and the countersignature.
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Choose the templates once
Documents → Onboarding → Manage Templates lists every document SafeShift can put in a packet, with a Preview of each built-in version — generated from your legal business info and signed in the app. Prefer your own wording for the WTPA notice, the arbitration agreement or the handbook? Switch that document to Custom Template and upload your PDF: employees download it, sign it and upload a scan. Anything SafeShift does not cover (a parking policy, a vehicle agreement) goes under Custom Documents → New Document with your own PDF.
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Send the packet from Documents → Onboarding
Open Documents in the sidebar and find the employee. Someone who already has a SafeShift account shows Assign Onboarding; anyone else shows Send Invite, which emails them a link to set up their account and sign (valid 7 days; resending mints a fresh one). Either way you tick the documents to include — the WTPA notice, W-4, I-9, agreements, policies, state pamphlets. Before anything goes out SafeShift checks what the documents need: the WTPA notice needs your business profile complete (legal name and address, payday, workers' comp carrier, sick-leave policy — the warning links to Settings → Compliance & Legal Info) and the employee needs a hire date and pay rate on their Team profile. Fix those and assign; the employee is told by email and by push in the app, and their row shows the progress.
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The employee signs from the emailed link (or in the app)
Under Documents in their app or web portal, each pending document opens inline, already filled in with their details and your business info, so they read exactly what they're agreeing to. They sign by typing their full legal name — timestamped and IP-stamped, with the electronic-signature disclosure beside the signature line. Signed documents move to Completed Documents, where they can open them again any time. Spanish-speaking employees can switch the W-4 form and key documents to Spanish.
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The W-4: questions in, official IRS form out
Instead of deciphering the IRS form, the employee steps through filing status, dependents (credits are calculated automatically), other income, and extra withholding. SafeShift fills the official IRS Form W-4, stamps their e-signature on it, and gives them a copy of the signed PDF. Their Social Security number is written only into the PDF itself — never stored in any database.
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Review and verify
Back on the Documents page you'll see each document's status. Typed-signature documents (including the W-4) verify automatically. The I-9 is two-sided: the employee completes and e-signs Section 1 in the app (no later than their first day of work), and you complete Section 2 in the app within three business days of their start date — open the employee's row, examine their identity documents in person, record which List A (or List B and List C) documents they presented, and sign the attestation. SafeShift fills Section 2 on their signed form, adds your signature certificate and files the I-9; you get a reminder the day before it is due, on the day, and while it is overdue. If a receipt was presented, the original is due within 90 days and you'll be reminded. When a noncitizen employee's work authorization is about to expire, you're reminded at 90, 30 and 7 days to reverify (Supplement B on the printed form, filed the same way). An employee who completed the form on paper is filed by uploading the completed form instead. Download any signed PDF whenever you need it — for your files or your payroll provider.
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View, download and countersign signed documents
Open the employee's row on Documents → Onboarding. Every document they signed in the app has View and Download PDF (the print dialog opens — choose Save as PDF), showing exactly what they signed. Documents with an employer signature line — the WTPA notice, arbitration, confidentiality and commission agreements — also get Countersign: type your name (and title, if you like) to sign as the employer representative. Your signature is recorded with the date, time and your account and appears on the employer line; the employee's signed copy itself is never changed. Your own uploaded PDFs (custom documents and custom templates) can be countersigned too: SafeShift adds an employer countersignature page after the employee's signature page as a new copy, and Review Document then shows that copy. Each document can be countersigned once.
Good to know
- Already have signed paper documents? Use Upload paper documents on the employee's row to back-fill scans — including a paper W-4 and any of your custom documents. One-off files that aren't a document type (a garnishment order, an offer letter) go under Other documents on file on the same row.
- An employee who claims exempt on their W-4 must file a new one by February 15 next year — SafeShift's renewal digest reminds you.
- Employees can complete the W-4 guided form on the web link from any phone browser — the mobile app points them there.
If something goes wrong
Does SafeShift store Social Security numbers?
No. The SSN the employee enters goes only into the signed W-4 PDF, which lives in secure document storage with access logging. It never lands in a database column, report, or export.
What if an employee's tax situation changes later?
They can submit a fresh W-4 any time — re-send the onboarding invite with just the W-4 selected, and the new signed form replaces the old one for payroll purposes while every prior version stays on file.
Is the e-signature legally valid?
Yes — typed-name signatures under the federal ESIGN Act and UETA, with a timestamp, IP address, and a tamper-evident copy of exactly what was signed. The W-4 additionally carries the signature on the official IRS form plus a signature certificate page.