How to collect handbook and policy acknowledgments

Which policies need a signed acknowledgment

Any policy you may later have to show an employee received is worth a signature:

• the employee handbook;
• the code of conduct;
• IT, acceptable use and information security policies;
• remote work, expense and travel policies;
• safety rules for a site or a role;
• confidentiality policies;
• every update to any of them.

Build the acknowledgment into the document

Attest signs PDFs of up to 8 MB, with five field types: signature, initials, date signed, full name and text. Put the acknowledgment where the signature goes:

1. End the handbook with an acknowledgment page, for example: "I have received the Employee Handbook, October 2026 edition, and I have read it. I understand it is my responsibility to follow it."
2. Place a Signature, a Date signed and a Full name field on that page. The date and the full name fill in by themselves when the employee signs.
3. If a section matters most, such as the confidentiality policy, place an Initials field on that page too.
4. Add a Text field if you need one more detail, with a label such as "Department". A text field can be required or optional.

Put the version in the title, such as "Employee handbook, October 2026". The employee's passkey signs a statement that begins "I have reviewed and I sign" followed by that title, and names the document's fingerprint, so the version is part of what each person signs.

One document per employee

Send each employee their own document. Each acknowledgment is then its own record: it completes as soon as that person signs, one person's delay holds up no one else, and their signed copy is between them and you.

A document can have up to 20 signers, so a small team can sign one shared copy, which counts as one document. The trade-offs are real: it completes only when everyone has signed, any signer who declines closes it for every party, and every signer sees everyone's signatures in the shared copy. For most teams, one document per employee is the better record.

"I never received the handbook": what the record shows

Months after a policy update, an employee says they never saw it. The signed acknowledgment shows:

• Which version: the employee's passkey, a cryptographic key only they control, unlocked with Face ID, Touch ID, Windows Hello or the device PIN, signed a statement naming the document's fingerprint (a SHA-256 hash, a short code calculated from the file's contents). Any SHA-256 tool gives the fingerprint of each edition you keep, so you can match it and know which edition they acknowledged.
• Who signed: the signature was made with a passkey registered to the address you invited, and the passkey had to confirm the signer was present and verified. Attest confirms control of that address and the passkey, not a government ID, and a work mailbox is one the company itself can reach: how employers prove an employee signed explains what that means and how to strengthen the evidence.
• What happened, and when: the audit trail lists each step up to completion with its time in UTC, including when it was sent, when the employee opened their signing link and when they signed, and the completed acknowledgment is anchored on Horizen, a public blockchain, whose block time shows when.
• That nothing changed: change one byte of the document, of the employee's entries or of the signed pages, and verification fails.

You and the employee hold the same sealed PDF: the signed pages, with a "Signed with Attest" stamp on each signature and a seal line at the foot of every page, a certificate of completion, the audit trail up to completion and a "Verify it yourself, without us" page, with the full evidence, the original document and a standalone verifier attached inside. An HR adviser, a lawyer or a tribunal can check it for free with that verifier, in any browser, even if Attest is gone: it checks each signer's passkey signature, the original document, the pages you see and Attest's anchored record on Horizen. See how employers prove an employee signed for more.

When a policy changes

Send the new version as a new document, with the new edition in its title. Its fingerprint differs from the old one, so each employee's record shows exactly which edition they acknowledged, and the earlier acknowledgments still verify. Keep each edition's PDF with its signed copies, so anyone can match a fingerprint to the text it belongs to.

Rolling it out to a team

1. Go to attest.datahubz.com/sign, click Start free, sign in with your work email and set up your signing key once, with a passkey and a recovery phrase, on the Security page.
2. For each employee, click New agreement, give it the edition's Title, attach the PDF and add the employee's work email under Signers.
3. Under Verification, choose Private, so the certificate, which would otherwise show anyone with its link details such as the title and the employee's name, stays between the parties.
4. Keep Reminders at every 3 days, or choose every day, every 2 days or every week; each employee gets at most 5. Set Expires (optional) if the acknowledgment is due by a date.
5. Click Next: place the fields, place the acknowledgment fields, and click Create and send.
6. The documents are end-to-end encrypted, so employees new to Attest wait for your browser to release theirs. Each one waiting is under Action needed in your dashboard: open it, confirm, and approve with your passkey.
7. Watch the Waiting on others tab, and click Remind on any row to email the link again.

Internal policies stay internal

Some policies describe how you protect your systems or handle money. Attest encrypts every document in your browser before upload, and only its parties can open it, in their own browsers; Attest stores it only as ciphertext it can't read. Attest does see the information around a document: its title, file name, size and type, your note, the email addresses of your account and of the signers, the signers' names, where fields are placed and when each step happened.

What it costs

Each acknowledgment you send is one document, and employees never pay to sign.

Your rollout	Plan
A team of up to 20 in a month	Signing plan, $5 a month for 20 documents
More than 20 documents in a month	Pro, $49 a month: documents count as records, with 10,000 records a month and no separate document limit
Trying it first	Your first 2 documents are free, in total

Paid plans are monthly, and you can cancel any time.