I am wondering what you enter as fees for NSA/Mobile Notary work in journal entry.
For example we do a NSA/work for Refinance, it might have number ( example 12/15 depending on title) notarial signatures. When you enter fees in journal entry, what is the amount you enter ?
I am little confused what to enter, as we are not charging directly customer, and is done by contract ed work by title/escrow/ss agencies.
should we enter as state mandated amount $ multiply with X number of signatures ?
The NNA training course states that we should NOT enter our signing agent fee in our journals for two reasons. Lesson 4, slide 19 for reference.
First, because our fee incorporates all of our tasks in regard to the assignment not just notarizations. For example, printing, prepping the document, driving to the appointment, so on. And second, because recording our signing agent fee in our journals could be interpreted later on as us overcharging the borrower. We aren’t charging the borrower anything, so it wouldn’t make sense to include a fee in our journal because it would imply that we charged them directly for notary services when we didn’t.
To add…
I look at it like this… SS offers me a flat fee to complete the signing, from printing to mailing. I accept and just provide the actual notary acts for “free”, while being paid to do everything else.
I guess this gets tricky when it comes to taxes, for example if you’re trying to avoid paying self-employment taxes on as many dollars as possible and thus want to separate “signing agent” fees from “notarization” fees. I would assume, though, that if you want to go this route you will need to have a breakdown of each signing agent fee you receive that lists the exact $ amount that you’re being paid for signing agent tasks vs. notary tasks in regard to the assignment. I can’t imagine that, if audited by the IRS, they will accept whatever numbers you made up without paperwork to back it up.
That said… I’m not a tax professional and I’d definitely recommend consulting with one before making any final decisions in this regard.
My state used to have very confusing laws, mostly dating from the 18th century, and it was impossible to figure out what fees were allowed. Recently the law was overhauled, and the new law is clear that there is no limit on notary fees. That means there is no need for me to keep track of my notary fees, because I can’t deduct them from my social security income.
So the way I have always dealt with it was to make a note at the beginning of my journal that unless otherwise indicated, I did not charge any notary fees, although I did charge for travel, printing, and waiting while the signers read unnotarized documents. On the rare instance where I was doing general notary work and charging a fee, I would write that fee in the journal.
If your state has limits on notary fees, there’s a good chance you should use a strategy different from mine.
Actually, the only fee that should go in the journal is the fee for the notarization - that’s it…keep full fees and breakdowns in a separate accounting
So if, in your journal, you have listed 3 notarizations, then in the fee section only put the state allowed fee times 3. - here in FL it would be $30
.We’re not required to keep a journal in FL but I do - and I would put only the state allowed fee - I keep a separate ledger for payments made and how it’s broken down for tax purposes.
I leave the fee blank for my NSA jobs and track all of that separately. I don’t want the signers to see any financial info unnecessarily. Just add the notarizations in your accounting and you will be able to figure out your exempt income at the end of the year.
" I look at it like this… SS offers me a flat fee to complete the signing, from printing to mailing. I accept and just provide the actual notary acts for “free”, while being paid to do everything else … "
I with agree but to avoid confusion, i use the Notary Expense Log from the NNA. It covers everything from printing fee to mileage for every transaction
Enter “0” when doing notary signings. We are not collecting the fees from the clients. I make a note in the additional information column on which contracting company assigned it. All my signings are recorded in my accounting file with the total fees. I only enter fees when doing regular notarial work.
