Start from the send screen for a client request. Once you have picked a borrower, an "Anyone else on the application" section appears below them, optional and collapsed until you need it.
Add a Co-Applicant to the Application
Search your existing contacts by name or email to reuse someone you have already met, or add a new person by hand with a first name, last name, and email. Each co-applicant needs their own email address; the send screen will not let two people on the same file share one, because their answers are stored separately by contact and one inbox cannot hold two identities.
Aim an Ask at One Person
Once the application carries more than one applicant, adding a document or a signing form to the file gives you a choice of who it is for. A "Who is this for" row appears above the request library: Everyone, or a name. Leave it on Everyone for something either applicant can settle, like a joint bank statement. Pick a name and every item you stage in that pass is pinned to that person specifically, so it shows up on their own card rather than sitting open for whoever gets to it first.
The Link Each Applicant Gets
Every applicant on the file gets a fresh link of their own, not a shared copy of the main borrower's. Sending by email queues one invite per person; sharing a link by hand instead gives you one to copy for each name. Their answers land on one shared application, but each person works from their own session and cannot see or edit anyone else's private details. If someone needs their link again later, open the co-applicant list and copy a new one for them at any time.
Who an Automated Ask Follows
An automated ask, set up in your document rules, decides who it goes to before it is ever sent. A rule about the deal itself, like a property already found, a renewal, or debts being paid off at closing, always goes to the main borrower, because nothing on the application says which co-applicant owns a fact like that. A rule about a person, like their employment type, hourly pay, or a private pension, follows whichever co-applicant's own answers matched it.
That split holds even when you tick a document type by hand instead of trusting a rule: if the recommendation engine already matched that document to particular people, ticking the type stages one request per matched person rather than a single ask for the whole household.
Reading a Joint File by Applicant
Once a file carries more than one applicant, a view toggle appears wherever their figures are compared: stacked, one block per person in order, or side by side, a column for each so a number can be read across the file at a glance. It only shows up with two or more applicants; there is nothing to lay out beside a solo file.
What to Do Next
- Send a Client Request for Documents once you know who is on the file.
- What Your Client Sees to check each applicant's own link and answers before you send anything.
- If a co-applicant says their link never arrived, check delivery for that specific person rather than resending to everyone on the file.