Signatures

Signatures capture agreement from staff and guests at check-in and check-out by having the signer draw on the device with a finger. They are an item type inside a configuration’s sections, and are booking-specific — they are always collected in-app, in-person, at the time of check-in or check-out.

Note

Checklist signatures are different from booking contracts. Contracts use an external digital signature provider with third-party legal attestation. Checklist signatures are a captured drawing with a Floatist-maintained audit trail, but no third-party attestation. If you need a legally binding signed document (charter agreement, deposit terms, etc.), use Contracts.

Configuring signatures

Signatures live inside configurations. Open a configuration at

Settings > Bookings > Configurations, add a Signature item to the appropriate section of the appropriate phase, and choose:

• Who should sign — charterer, skipper, staff, or other.
• Whether it can be skipped — by default a signer can choose to skip. You can configure the signature to be required, in which case the checklist cannot be submitted until it’s signed.

See question types for where signature items fit among other question types.

Note

Signature items are automatically excluded from the manual phase. See question exclusions.

Recommended setup

For most charter workflows, we recommend:

Phase	Signatures
Pre check-in	None
Check-in	One staff signature + one guest signature
Check-out	One staff signature + one guest signature

You can adjust this to fit your operation — for example, some operators collect a client signature during pre check-in as an early confirmation.

Which device is used

The device depends on the phase, because Floatist’s check-in/check-out flows are always conducted on the staff device:

Phase	Device signing happens on
Pre check-in	Guest’s own device (via guest app)
Check-in	Staff device (staff hands the device to the guest for their signature)
Check-out	Staff device (staff hands the device to the guest for their signature)

There is no remote or email-link signing flow for checklist signatures — signing is always in-person, at the time of the phase.

Skipping and refusal

By default, a signature can be skipped. The checklist can still be submitted, and the audit record shows the signature slot as skipped.

If you set the signature item to always require a signature, the checklist cannot be submitted until the signature is captured. There is no built-in override — if the guest refuses, the phase cannot be closed out until the situation is resolved (guest signs, or staff changes the configuration).

Tip

Most operators allow skipping. It keeps the check-in process unblocked if a guest refuses or something goes wrong, and the audit record still shows clearly that the signature was skipped.

Audit trail

Every captured signature is recorded with:

• The role of the signer (charterer / skipper / staff / other).
• The timestamp of signing.
• The IP address of the device used.

These details are visible on the submitted checklist and included in the downloadable PDF.

Retrieving signed checklists

Once a checklist is submitted with signatures, the signed record is available in several places:

• Booking timeline — the submission is stored on the booking and can be downloaded as a PDF by staff.
• Guest app — guests can view and download the signed checklist from their own app.
• Automatic email — if the charterer’s email address is known, the signed PDF is emailed to them automatically after submission.

Re-signing after a manual check-in undo

If a check-in is manually undone (only Admins, Booking managers, or Base managers can do this), all signatures on that check-in are removed. When the check-in is re-submitted, the signers will need to sign again.

There is no flow to re-request a single signature without undoing the full check-in. See Guest experience for when and how to use the manual undo.

Offline behaviour

Signatures are captured locally on the device. If the device loses connection mid-checklist, the in-progress answers (including drawn signatures) are preserved locally — but the checklist cannot be submitted until the device is back online.

Caution

Private / incognito browser windows do not save in-progress answers. Don’t capture signatures in a private window — if anything interrupts the session, the signature is lost.

Signatures on task checklists

Signatures are a booking-only feature. Checklists attached to tasks do not support signature items.