Do you keep a notary register? Does your notary register follow the Notary Public Law? Hopefully you answered “yes” to both questions. If not, keep reading to find out why your answer needs to be “yes.”

According to the Notary Public Law, every time you place your notary stamp on a document, you must make an entry in your notary register. For example, you have a customer who asks you to notarize an affidavit, which requires the use of your notary stamp only one time. One stamp equals one notarization which equals one entry in your register. That’s straightforward.

What if that same customer walks in with five exact copies of a Power of Attorney (POA) and asks you to notarize each copy? How do you complete your register? Remember, each and every time you place your notary stamp on a document, you must make an entry in your register. So, one stamp on each of five separate POAs requires five separate entries in your register.

Can you make an entry in your register and use ditto marks in the next four lines? Absolutely not!

Pennsylvania Notary Public Law requires that a separate entry be made for each and every notarial act you perform. In addition to making separate entries, you are also required to keep the entries in chronological order.

Let’s go back to the previous example. It’s Friday and you notarize the five POAs. Your customer leaves and you get involved in other things until it’s time to go home. You return to work on Monday, notarize and record two documents when you remember that you never recorded the notarizations for the POAs from Friday. The problem is that you have already recorded the two notarizations in your register. Can you simply enter the five notarizations from Friday after the two from Monday? NO!

The Notary Public Law requires that entries in your register are kept in chronological order. You are not permitted to alter or change any information already recorded.

What do you do now? Do you forget that you notarized the documents, never making the entries in your register? Do you make the entries in your register even though they are not in chronological order?

You need to decide. Either decision you make could possibly lead to disciplinary actions being taken against you by the Department of State. The lesser of two evils is to record the notarizations in your register even though they are not in chronological order. It’s better to have the notarizations recorded than to omit them.

Recording a notarization into your register is just as important as personally identifying your customer. If a notarial act you perform is ever called into question, your register provides proof that you performed your notarial duties correctly. Never put yourself into this type of situation. Every time you use your notary stamp, make the required entry in your register at that time. Don’t wait!