Your county wants its own septic inspection form. Not a PortaPro report that covers the same ground: *their* PDF, with their layout, their seal and their box positions. Regulatory Forms lets you upload that PDF once, place fields on it, and fill it per job, in the office or by the driver on site. What comes out looks exactly like the county's form, because it is the county's form.
Settings → Regulatory Forms.
Regulatory form vs. job report. A job report is *ours*: we designed the structure, so the data comes back as structured fields that feed billing, analytics and pump-out prediction. Pickers call it PortaPro report. A regulatory form is *theirs*: a fixed PDF we stamp text onto, and its whole value is looking like the original. Pickers call it Your county's PDF. Use a job report to capture work; use a regulatory form when an authority requires their document.
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RF-1: Uploading the Form
Settings → Regulatory Forms → New form template.
Give it a name (what you'll pick from later, for example "Ashland County Septic Inspection"), an optional description of which jurisdiction and when it's required, then drag the PDF onto the drop zone or click to browse.
Multi-page PDFs are fine. You get page arrows in the editor.
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RF-2: Placing Fields
Pick a field type, then click the document where it goes.
| Type | For |
|---|---|
| Text | Names, addresses, numbers, anything written |
| Date | Dates. Defaults to auto-filling today |
| Checkbox | A checkmark |
| Signature | A drawn signature, stamped onto the PDF as the signer drew it |
Moving and resizing
Drag a field to move it. Drag either blue edge handle to make it wider or narrower, which is what you'll want on forms with tight columns like City / State / ZIP, where the default width overlaps its neighbours.
You can also type exact numbers into Font size and Box width (pt) in the panel on the right. A signature box has a width only; its height follows the width.
Placing many at once
A county checklist can be forty-eight checkboxes. Click Checkbox, then click Lock on. The tool stays armed and every click drops another one. Press Esc when you're done.
Labels are required
Text, date and signature fields start blank and you must name them. A field with no label shows red on the page, and Save tells you how many are still unnamed and jumps you to the first one. The label is what the person filling the form sees, so "Pumper's signature" beats "Field".
Checkboxes are exempt and auto-number themselves ("Checkbox 1, 2, 3…").
Required fields
Turn on Required when a driver fills it for a field the driver must answer. The driver can't send the form with it blank, and the server checks it again. The office can always file what it has.
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RF-3: Auto-Fill Bindings
Each field (except a signature) has an Auto-fill from setting. Bind it and the value arrives already filled when someone opens the form on a job. Every filled value stays editable.
| Binding | Pulls |
|---|---|
| Customer name / phone / email | From the job's customer |
| Site address (full, street, or city / state / ZIP) | From the service location |
| Site county | From the service location's county |
| Tank capacity (gal) | From the on-site system record |
| Equipment type | From the on-site system record |
| Gallons pumped | From the job's recorded gallons |
| Job date / completion date / today's date | From the job |
| Technician name | Whoever is on the job |
| Truck plate / Truck number / Hauler permit number | The job's truck; if the job has none, the driver's truck that day, then the driver's own truck |
| Disposal site / Dump ticket number / Material | From the dump recorded on the job |
| Your company name / phone | From your company settings |
Leave it on Manual entry for anything only the person on site can answer.
The tank capacity and equipment bindings come from the customer's On-Site System record. Record the tank once and every county form for that address fills its tank fields by itself.
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RF-4: Drivers Fill It on the Job
At the top of the form editor, turn on Drivers fill this on the job. Then pick On these jobs: Service and pumping, Deliveries, Pickups, Swaps. A form switched on with nothing picked attaches to service stops.
Turn on Required before the job can be completed when the driver must send it before finishing the stop.
On a matching job, the driver app shows a County forms section with a County form: <name> step. It opens filled from the job, the driver checks each answer, signs where there's a signature box, and taps Send form.
Nothing changes for a form until you switch it on: every existing form stays office-only.
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RF-5: Filling a Form in the Office
Open the job → three-dot menu → Fill a county or state form. Choose the form, and it opens as a list of labeled fields with the bound ones already filled. Signature fields show a pad. Fill the rest and click Generate PDF; PortaPro stamps the values onto the original PDF at the positions you placed them.
The action appears only once your company has uploaded at least one form, and only office staff (owners, admins and dispatchers) can use it. A form can only be filed under your own company's job and customer.
Filled forms appear on the job under County and state forms. A driver's fill reads, for example, "Filled by Antonio Ruiz in the driver app · signed". A filled form is never edited in place, a signed one least of all: to change one, fill the form again and the new PDF joins the list.
You can also reach the fill action from a component's own screen (Fill a form), with the same office-staff rule.
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RF-6: Where the Files Live
Uploaded PDFs, filled outputs and drawn signatures are stored privately. They're never publicly linked; every view goes through an access check scoped to your organization. A form belonging to another company is simply not found.
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RF-7: Common Questions
Can I edit a template after filling forms with it?
Yes. Existing filled forms keep their own snapshot of the template name and values, so they're unaffected.
What if a field ends up off the page?
It's skipped when stamping rather than producing a broken PDF. Move it back in the editor.
Does text that's too long get cut off?
It shrinks to fit first, then truncates with an ellipsis if it still doesn't fit. It won't overflow into the next box.
What about emoji or special symbols?
Characters the form's typeface can't print are left out (an arrow becomes "->"), so a stray emoji never stops a form from being filled.
Can the customer sign it?
Yes, with a Signature field: the driver hands over the phone, or the office signs on screen. It is a drawn signature stamped onto the PDF, not an e-signature ceremony. For a signing ceremony, use an Agreement.
Can I use this for anything other than county forms?
Yes: any fixed PDF you fill repeatedly. Pumper's logs, disposal manifests, landlord forms.
Why doesn't it look like PortaPro?
Because it shouldn't. The point is that the inspector receives the document they expect.