Legal Documents

As part of a customer joining your gym you can would normally ask them to sign some legal documents.  For example a waiver and/or some membership terms and conditions.  With WodBoard you can do this whole process digitally.

What kind of documents can be signed digitally?

The Legal Document system has been designed to be generic so you can use it for any type of document that you need the customer to sign.  The most common use-cases would be:

• A waiver - normally waiving rights around injuries or accidents, signed before somebody starts training at your facility
• A PARQ (Pre-Activity Readiness Questionnaire) - a common document in some countries that people sign to assert their readiness to train
• Membership terms and conditions - typically covering rules around membership minimum commitments, rights of cancellations etc
• Conditions for a specific class or event - eg a COVID waiver, a workshop waiver or a social media photography release

Creating a legal document

Head to Settings -> Legal Documents and click New Document.  You will need to add a name and the body of text for the document.

As part of the legal document you may want to add some questions the customer will answer.  To do this click the link to add a questions section.  A single question area appears and you can add more by clicking the link below the question.

For each question you enter the question itself and how you want the customer to answer.  This could be a Yes/No question, a checkbox or a free text area.

The acceptance text is the next field on the form and is the text that you have next to the checkbox/initials/digital signature field (more on these below).  it would normally be something along the lines of "I agree to the terms above" or "Signed by".  The phrase you use here will depend on your local laws and you should check what you should use.

The final option is the document type:

There are five options here:

• All Customers - all people that join your gym must accept this wavier
• Children/dependents - when booking a child into a class this document must be accepted
• Customers joining a specific class/workshop/service/course - you can link the document to the event and only those customers who attend have to accept
• Customers purchasing a pass or plan - customers who buy one of your products accept this when they make their first purchase
• Customers purchasing a specific pass or plan - customers who buy a specific products accept this

The different types allow you to be control who needs to accept what document.  For example it would be common to have everybody accept a waiver, but only those buying a membership accept the membership terms.  This would mean drop-ins and trialists don't end up agreeing to membership terms which you probably don't want.

If you opt for the legal document to be linked to an event or product you need to specify which ones you want this to apply to.  You do this on the class/workshop/service/course type or product page rather than the legal document page. Do not forget to do this on other products/events if you add them in the future.

You can create as many documents as you like and have multiple ones of the same type.

Choice of document acceptance method

There are three ways a customer can accept one of your legal documents.  These are:

• Checkbox - the customer checks a box
• Initials -  the customer types their initials, which must match their name
• Digital signature - the customer does a digital signature

You can control which method is used under Settings -> Customer Options.

You'll want to ensure the method you choose will be compliant with your local laws on accepting legal documents digitally.

Checking the legal document

To check how the legal document looks head to Settings -> Links & Code -> New Customer and open the link in an incognito window, another browser or on another device (so you're not recognised as an existing customer who has already signed the document).  We recommend checking at least the following:

• The wording next to the checkbox/initials/digital signature (this was added in the Acceptance Text field on the document form)
• That the checkbox/initials/digital signature method you're using is compliant with local laws
• The general layout of the document is acceptable
• The legal entity the document is being accepted under (head to legal entities to control the setup here)
• For US gyms - you're happy with the UETA disclaimer

When a customer accepts a document

Depending on the legal document type will depend on when the customer will accept it:

• All Customers - this is accepted when a customer joins your gym
• Children/dependents - this is accepted the first time a customer books a class for children.  It can also be accepted if the parent registers via a dependent signup link from Settings -> Links & Code
• Customers joining a event - this is accepted the first time a customer makes a booking for that event
• Customers purchasing a pass or plan - this is accepted when a customer purchases a pass or plan
• Customers purchasing a specific pass or plan - this is accepted when a customer purchases the specific pass or plan

Customers can also accept any document if you manually request they sign a document (see Requesting a manual signature for details)

A customer must accept the documents when they are shown them and cannot proceed without accepting them.

It's possible for a customer to not sign a document when they normally would due to the sequence in which events happen.  For example a gym staff member allocates the customer a membership (so they can't sign at the point of purchase) or you introduce a new document.  In those cases the customer is shown the documents when they next make a booking and can't proceed until they are accepted.

There is one exception to this rule if you have a product specific document the customer hasn't accepted and the customer books in using a different product.  In this case they won't have to accept the document as they're not using it.  Of course if they book in using that product then it will have be accepted.

Requesting a manual signature

In most circumstances the customer will sign the documents themselves when claiming their account, booking their first class or purchasing a membership.  There can be some situations however when it's helpful to manually request a signature.  For example if you add a customer via the gym admin panel and then want to book them in to a class or PT they won't have signed the documents yet (as they haven't booked anything themselves).

To do manually request a document is signed head to the Customer profile and click Documents.  On this page click the "+ Document" link:

In the popup dialog choose "Request a signature" option and choose the required document.  The customer will receive an email and also be prompted to sign the documents when they next login to the website or open their app.

When the customer has signed a paper copy of the document

In some circumstances you may have a paper, or offline, copy of a signed document.  In that case you mark in the system that you have this so it doesn't need to be asked for again.  To do this head to the Customer profile and click Documents.  On this page click the "+ Document" link:

In the popup dialog choose the "Mark as signed offline" option and then choose the required document.  The document will now be recorded as offline and will no longer be required for customer booking.

Storage and notification of accepted documents

When a customer accepts a legal document they are emailed a PDF copy and the file is saved under their account for easy access.  Additionally you can access the documents under their customer profile.

If the customer hasn't used their account for a period of time and no longer holds a membership at your gym then their data is automatically cleaned up (to be compliant with data protection laws).  The cleanup process does not effect legal documents.  They are available for much longer and can be accessed under Reports.

You are notified when a customer signs a legal document but you can control when this happens.  This option is available under Settings -> Notifications

The four options work as follows:

• Always - you are notified on every document acceptance
• Never - you are never notified on a document being accepted
• On a yes, checked checkbox or comment - if you have questions in your waiver and you're only interested if somebody takes one of these actions.
• On a no, unchecked checkbox or comment - as above but to be notified on a No, unchecked checkbox or a comment.

The later are useful if for example a perfectly healthy person would choose No to every question and you therefore only need to know the details if they answer a Yes.

You may occasionally see a document has been signed twice on a customer profile (with the earlier one being labelled as "non-latest version".  This happens in a few occasions:

• You added a new version of the document and the customer needed to re-sign
• The customer left your gym and came back
• The customer registered for a trial or drop-in and came back for a second time.  As they hadn't claimed account before the second booking they had to re-sign

Updating a legal document

You can update a legal document however the existing customers will have signed the old version which means they won't have your updates.  You may be fine with this or you may want them to re-sign the new version.  In the later case please contact support who can archive their old version so it's still available, but they will have to sign the new version when they next take an action like booking a class or buying a membership.

Bear in mind only those customers who are still active will sign the new version. If you have a customer that joined a year ago and has since left, they won't get the new version.

You can also add a new document but this will mean new customers will sign the old and new version, so you should only use this option if you want that to happen.

Multiple legal entities

If you have multiple legal entities then you get an additional option when creating a legal document:

A legal document can either apply to all entities or a specific entity only.  If you choose all entities then the customer will sign that legal document under the entity they first join your gym as.  If they change home location or book into a class at a different location, then they will not need to resign the document.  That's because it's not tied to a location so the first signing is sufficient.

If you choose to tie the document to a specific entity then the customer is asked to accept that document when either they:

• join and that's their home location
• purchase a membership or class pack tied to that location
• book a class at that location

There are a few common cases here in a multi-legal entity setup:

• Your documents only need to be signed once under any of your entities to cover you for all entities - you do not need to tie your documents to an entity.  Note this is normally only possible if there's some explicit clause in the document stating that this document covers all locations.  Bear in mind also the document will be signed under the legal entity the customer first joins.
• You have one document that's the same but it needs to be signed under a different entity when the customer first interacts (books, purchases, etc) with that entity - duplicate the document and have one version assigned to each entity.  The customer will sign one version when joining, and the other entity when they first interact with that entity
• You have one document that's different between locations - tie each document to the that entity