How accountants can automate legal documents

If you work as an accountant or in an audit firm, you know the situation: a client calls and needs an employment contract, a lease or a confidentiality agreement, preferably today. You are not a lawyer, but you are still the one the client trusts.

Finding the right document, adapting it, sending it back and forth and making sure it is legally correct is a time-consuming task. And in practice it is rarely your core job.

In this article, we look at how accountants can automate standard documents and thereby save time, reduce errors and improve the service to clients.

Why accountants increasingly handle legal documents

Accountants and bookkeepers sit in the middle of the client's business. As clients expect broader advice than the annual accounts and tax, legal documents increasingly land on the accountant's desk.

Contracts for new employees, cooperation agreements with subcontractors and company documents on a change of ownership are all tasks that many audit firms help clients with today, even though they formally belong to legal advice.

The problem is that most audit firms do not have the right systems to handle this efficiently. The contracts are saved in a folder on the server, may be outdated, and the adaptation is done manually, with a risk of errors and legal uncertainty.

The traditional method and its weaknesses

The typical process for legal documents in an audit firm looks like this:

1. Find an old template from a previous case
2. Copy and edit it manually in a word processor
3. Send it to the client by email
4. Wait for a reply and any corrections
5. Print, sign physically, scan and archive

This method is not just slow, it is also risky. Outdated templates, missing updates on changes in the law and errors in the contract text can cause legal problems for the client. And in an audit firm, liability and documentation are decisive.

What does automating legal documents mean?

Automating legal documents does not mean you replace a lawyer. It means that standard documents, that is those that typically do not require tailored legal assessments, can be generated quickly, correctly and digitally from one place.

With a digital document platform, accountants can typically:

• Generate a document in a few minutes by filling in a form with client information
• Send it for digital signature, for example with MitID, which is legally binding under the eIDAS Regulation and saves printing and scanning
• Archive the document digitally with an audit trail of who signed when
• Work from templates that are kept up to date when the law changes

Practical example: an employment contract for an SME client

Let us say one of your clients, a web shop with four employees, is going to hire two new people next month.

Without automation, you typically find an old employment contract in the client folder, check manually whether the rules have changed since, edit the name, pay, start date and workplace in the word processor, send it back and forth with the client, and finally print, sign, scan and archive it. That can easily take about an hour per contract, with a continued risk of outdated content.

With a document platform, you choose the template, fill in the fields, send it for digital signature, and both parties sign with MitID. The document is archived automatically. It typically takes a few minutes, and the template is up to date.

The most requested documents among accountants' clients

Document	Typical situation
Employment contract	New employee, part-time employment
Consultancy agreement	Freelancer or external specialist
Confidentiality agreement (NDA)	Negotiations, cooperation, suppliers
Commercial lease	New office, warehouse or clinic
Shareholders' agreement	New co-owner or capital change
Company articles	Formation or amendment of articles

What does it take to get started?

Using a document platform as an accountant does not require a technical background. A web-based portal is the simplest starting point: you choose a template, fill in the fields and generate the document without installation or coding.

For audit firms with their own systems, an integration can be the next step, so documents can be created directly from the bookkeeping or case-management system. Whether that is relevant depends on the firm's size and systems.

Legal responsibility

A document platform provides templates as a digital tool, not legal advice. Good platforms, such as LegalDock, design their templates in cooperation with lawyers and update them on relevant changes in the law. For complex or atypical agreements, you should always refer the client to a lawyer, and you should be aware of the line between making a tool available and giving actual legal advice, which lies outside the accountant's competence.

Summary

Accountants can save time and help clients better by automating recurring standard documents instead of reusing old word-processor files. The benefits are faster creation, digital signing with MitID, secure archiving and templates that are kept up to date. The complex agreements still belong with a lawyer.

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This article is informative and does not constitute legal advice. Contact a lawyer for complex or atypical agreements.