E-File Process

[CedarviewCPA]

I am new to efiling returns as my prior firm had an entire team who handled the returns once they were prepared.  So I have a few questions related to this:

1. What are the steps to efiling a return? Please correct any of the steps below:
   1. Date federal and state efile forms - Do you date them after the client has esigned or before you send them to the client?  Not sure if you can edit them after they are signed
   2. Send client efile form for federal and state using eSignature or other esign option
   3. Receive signed forms back from client and retain a copy for several years
   4. Then go into return and click efile (Do I need to do anything else with these efile forms once they're signed such as upload them somewhere in ProConnect?)
      1. I haven't clicked efile yet, so I'm not sure what happens at that point.  Will I be prompted to enter my client's pin that they signed off on the efile form?
2. I assume if I am efiling, that the only thing my client needs to sign are the efile forms mentioned above.  The actual tax return (990 and state return) will just be left blank on the signature line - is this correct?
3. When trying to set up the efile forms for eSignature, my Federal 8879-TE and California 8453-EO do not show up as automatic options in the Client Authorization eSignature section of ProConnect.  Do I need to manually download pdf copies and upload them?
4. The IRS said they don’t want a copy of the 8879-TE, how do I know if they will receive it or not? Is the “government copy” what gets efiled?
5. Has anyone printed to pdf and for some reason had a lot of duplicate forms within the pdf?  I just want to make sure there aren't duplicate pages sent to the IRS causing confusion.

Any answers to the above questions are greatly appreciated!

[George4Tacks]

https://proconnect.intuit.com/support/en-us/help-article/electronic-filing/e-file-return-print-confi...