Guide
A notary signing request should give the notary everything they need to say yes or no in one look: the date and time, the signing address, the fee, the kind of signing, how the documents get to them and back, and the order number they will bill against. Everything else, from signer phone numbers to the shipping label, can follow once the appointment is accepted.
This is the agency side of the exchange a notary runs through in the confirmation call with the borrower. For how the request fits into the wider scheduling process, see how title agencies schedule notaries, and for the document-return side, what scanbacks are.
Six things, and a notary who has them can usually answer in under a minute. The date and time, including the time zone if your offices or notaries span more than one. The signing address, and a note if it differs from the property address, because the drive is what the notary is really evaluating. The kind of signing: purchase, refinance, seller side, HELOC, loan modification, or a single-document notarization. The rough size of the package, since a 150-page refinance and a 12-page seller package are different afternoons. How the documents move: pickup at your office, eDocs to print, or documents waiting at the closing, and whether the signed package ships or comes back to you. And the fee. Leave any of these out and the notary either asks, which costs a round trip, or guesses, which costs more.
The details that only matter once the appointment is real. Signer names and phone numbers, so the notary can make the confirmation call. The order or escrow number they will put on the invoice. Your day-of contact: the person who picks up when a signer asks a question at the table that the notary cannot answer. The documents themselves. Any lender-specific instructions that arrived with the package. Shipping details, the carrier, and the label. There is nothing wrong with sending all of it up front. But the request itself should read in a glance, so most dispatchers send the decision details first and the rest with the confirmation.
As a route, not a category. A signing is an itinerary for the notary: where the documents start, where the signing happens, and where the signed package ends up. Documents at your office and back to your office is the simplest route. eDocs means the notary prints the package, which costs paper, toner, and time before the appointment, and then ships it back or returns it in person. Documents already at the closing means no print and no pickup, but the notary still needs to know whether the signed set ships or comes back to you. Spell out which leg is which. It changes how long the notary has to block and it changes whether they want the job.
As early as you have them, and the day before when the package is going to be printed. Notaries commonly ask for the package the evening before so they can print, collate, and check for missing certificates or a signer name that does not match the ID they were told to expect. Same-day documents are common, often because the lender released them late, and an experienced notary can work with that. What they cannot work with is silence. If the package is going to be late, say so when you know, give a realistic time, and let the notary decide whether the appointment still works. Many notaries publish their own policies on late documents and on print fees for packages that arrive after a cutoff; those are their terms, and knowing them in advance is part of knowing your roster.
Yes, on the request, before the notary is asked to say yes. A request without a fee is a request for a phone call. State the fee for the signing, and state what it covers: travel, printing if it is an eDocs job, and any scanback you expect. If you pay a different amount for a second signer at a different address, or for a signing that runs past a certain length, say that too. Notaries who work for several agencies compare requests side by side, and a clear fee is often the difference between the notary you wanted and the notary who happened to be free. It also removes the most common invoice dispute, which is two people remembering a different number.
Specificity, and brevity. Useful instructions tell the notary something they could not learn from the package: a signer who needs extra time, a gate code, a document that must be signed in blue ink, a witness the lender requires, a copy the signer should keep, a page you already know is missing and will send separately. Instructions become noise when they are a wall of boilerplate pasted onto every order, when the same sentence contradicts something in the package, or when they ask the notary to do something outside their role, like witnessing a document they are also notarizing. Keep the standing rules in your roster notes and keep the request for what is different about this signing.
The slot stays open longer, which is the quiet cost. A notary who gets a request with no fee or no address usually does not decline it. They set it aside, look at the next one, and your closing waits while you chase a reply. When the missing detail is discovered late, the failures are physical: the notary arrives without a shipping label, prints the wrong version of the package, plans an hour for a signing that takes two, or shows up at the property address when the signing was at the signer's office across town. Every one of those started as a field that was blank when the request went out.
A form with the same fields every time, sent to notaries who are actually free at that hour. In NotaryBoard, a request carries the appointment time and its time zone, the signing address or the office it takes place at, the duration to block, the fee, the order number, the document route, including which office the documents start from and where the signed package returns, an optional travel buffer, and free-text notes. It goes to one notary, or to a filtered pool, and the notary accepts with one tap; nothing is treated as accepted until they do. What NotaryBoard does not do is carry the documents. It does not store, transmit, or receive loan packages, so the package still moves the way it moves today, by your eDocs portal, encrypted email, or a pickup at the office.