What is a document witness?
Document witnessing may or may not be common in your state of commission, and typically involves the act of a private individual witnessing a principal signer sign a document, followed by adding their own signature to the document as a witness.
Below are a few good articles from the National Notary Association on different types of witnesses, with an emphasis on document witnesses
We intentionally don't define what a document witness is with much specificity due to the varying definitions across states and any subsequent differences in how a notary may or may not be permitted to address document witnesses.
Adding a document witness to an entry
Document witnesses (as well as signers) are added on step 2 in the Notary eJournal
To add a document witness, click "Add Document Witness". You are then presented with 2 options
Add an existing client as a document witness. To add an existing client as a document witness, click the button that says so. This will bring up your master client list and allow you to search for an existing client to add as a document witness to this entry.
Add a new document witness. To add a new document witness, click on the appropriately named button. This will prompt you to add details related to a new document witness*
*If you add a new document witness to a journal entry via this method, this document witness will be added as a client in your master client list automatically. After this happens, they will be considered an "existing client" for future references
What is an existing client?
If you have created a journal entry with this person in the past or if you manually add them as a client from the menus, they are considered an "existing client" and will be found on your master client list
Default document association for document witnesses
By default, document witnesses are not associated with documents automatically. This is unlike signers, who are automatically associated with documents added in step 3 (so long as the signer was added to the entry in step 2 prior to the documents being added).
This is because, in many instances, document witnesses are only required for a smaller subset of documents that may be notarized together at the same time, ie for a loan signing.
Important notes
On step 2, after you add a document witness to an entry; clicking "Edit Document Witness" under the client's name allows you to edit the client's name, address, identifications and signature. Any changes made here will automatically update the client's saved information in your master client list.
For example, if you change the name fields from John Carpenter to Jonathan Carpenter, the client's profile in your master client list will also reflect this change
Signatures for document witnesses are captured on step 2 in the "Edit document witness" section. Signatures are NOT collected on step 4, where signer signatures are normally collected