Version control for the disclosure document
One current FDD per brand, with every previous version retained, dated and frozen. The document a candidate received is the version they received, even after the annual update replaces it.
FDD management software
FDD management software: every disclosure tracked, every deadline enforced
Issue the franchise disclosure document from the candidate’s record, capture the signed receipt, count the waiting and cooling-off days automatically, block the signature until the clock has run, and keep the version, the receipt and the state registration status on file for as long as the agreement lasts.
What is FDD management software?
FDD management software is the system a franchisor uses to control the franchise disclosure document: which version is current, which candidate received which version on which date, whether the receipt came back signed, how many days have passed since, and whether the franchise agreement can legally be signed yet. In the United States the Federal Trade Commission’s Franchise Rule requires the FDD to be given to a prospective franchisee at least 14 calendar days before they sign a binding agreement or pay any money. Australia’s Franchising Code of Conduct carries a 14-day disclosure period and a cooling-off period after signing. Canada’s provincial franchise acts, most of Europe and a growing list of other markets have their own versions of the same rule.
The rule is simple; the record-keeping is not. A network with a development pipeline of a few hundred candidates a year issues hundreds of documents, receives hundreds of receipts, renews the document every year, files updates in a dozen registration states, and needs to be able to prove years later exactly what a particular franchisee was shown and when. When a franchisee later claims they were rushed, mis-sold or not disclosed to, the franchisor’s defence is the record. If the record is a shared drive of PDFs and a spreadsheet of dates, the defence is only as good as whoever last updated it.
FDD management inside a franchise ERP puts the disclosure step where it belongs: inside the development pipeline, against the candidate, with the clock enforced by the system rather than by a development manager’s calendar. This page sets out what the software has to do, how the disclosure timeline runs, how registration states and international rules are handled, and how Gorilla Dash builds it into the same platform the network is sold, opened and run from.
Disclosure rules differ by country and, in the United States, by state, and they change. Gorilla Dash enforces the waiting periods, cooling-off periods and registration rules your franchise counsel configures; it is a compliance record and a set of controls, not legal advice. Confirm the rules that apply to your network with your franchise lawyer.
How the disclosure timeline runs
From the moment a candidate is qualified to the day the agreement is countersigned, every step is dated, attributed and checked against the rules for the candidate’s jurisdiction.
- 1
Confirm the candidate can be disclosed to
Before the document is issued, the system checks the candidate’s state or country against the registration status of the current FDD. A candidate in a registration state where the document has lapsed cannot be issued a document, and the development manager is told why.
- 2
Issue the current version
The FDD is sent from the candidate’s record in the development CRM, so the version, the date, the time, the sender and the delivery method are recorded automatically. Delivery is by secure link with tracked access, so opening the document is logged too.
- 3
Capture the signed receipt
The candidate signs the receipt page electronically; the signed receipt is attached to the record and the disclosure date becomes the date the receipt was signed, not the date the email was sent. Unsigned receipts are chased automatically.
- 4
Run the waiting period
The 14 calendar days (or the period configured for the jurisdiction) count down on the record. The earliest signing date is shown to the development manager and to leadership, and any attempt to generate or send the franchise agreement before that date is blocked.
- 5
Re-disclose when something material changes
If a new FDD version is published or the franchisor makes a unilateral material change to the agreement while a candidate is in the waiting period, the candidate is flagged for re-disclosure and the clock restarts according to the rule configured — the seven-day rule for changed agreements in the United States, for example.
- 6
Sign, then honour the cooling-off period
Once the waiting period has run, the agreement is generated with the candidate’s territory and terms, signed electronically and countersigned. Where the jurisdiction has a cooling-off period after signing, the record shows when it ends and what a withdrawal within it entitles the franchisee to.
What FDD management software has to cover
A signed receipt in a folder is not compliance. The software has to hold the version, the timing, the jurisdiction and the evidence together, per candidate, for the life of the agreement.
Per-candidate disclosure records
Every issue, receipt, re-disclosure, agreement and amendment recorded against the candidate in the development pipeline, with who did it and when. The record follows the candidate when they become a franchisee.
Electronic receipts and signatures
Receipt pages and agreements signed electronically from the candidate’s own device, with the signed document, the signer’s identity and the timestamp stored on the record and available to both sides.
Waiting-period and cooling-off enforcement
Calendar-day counters that start from the signed receipt, show the earliest signing date, block the agreement until it arrives, and track the cooling-off period after signature where the jurisdiction has one.
State and country registration tracking
The registration or filing status of the FDD per jurisdiction, with effective and expiry dates, renewal reminders and a hard stop on disclosing to candidates in a state where the registration has lapsed.
Annual renewal and quarterly update workflow
The annual update deadline after the fiscal year end, the quarterly material-change updates and the per-state renewal dates tracked as tasks with owners, so the new version is published and filed before the old one expires.
Financial performance representation control
The financial performance representations in the document are the only ones the development team may make. Approved figures live on the record, and the sales reports franchise development can share with candidates are built from them.
Audit trail and legal export
A dated, tamper-evident history of every disclosure event per candidate, exportable as a single bundle — the document version, the receipt, the emails and the timeline — when counsel asks for it.
Multi-brand and multi-country
One document set per brand and per country, with the rules for each jurisdiction configured once. A group franchising three brands across the United States, Canada and Australia runs all of them from one system.
The disclosure rules the software has to know
The most common jurisdictions Gorilla Dash networks sell franchises in, as a starting point for the rules your counsel configures. Periods are calendar days unless a jurisdiction says otherwise.
| Jurisdiction | Document | Before signing | After signing | Registration and renewal |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| United States (federal) | Franchise Disclosure Document under the FTC Franchise Rule | 14 calendar days before signing a binding agreement or paying; 7 days for a unilaterally changed agreement | No federal cooling-off period | Updated within 120 days of the fiscal year end; quarterly updates for material changes |
| United States (registration states) | The same FDD, registered or filed with the state | Federal waiting period, plus state-specific requirements | Varies by state | Annual registration or filing per state, with its own effective and expiry dates |
| Australia | Disclosure document and the Franchising Code of Conduct | 14 days before entering the agreement or making a non-refundable payment | 14-day cooling-off period after signing | Disclosure document updated within four months of the financial year end; profile on the Franchise Disclosure Register |
| Canada (regulated provinces) | Disclosure document under provincial franchise legislation | 14 days before signing or paying | Rescission rights where disclosure was late or deficient | No registration; the document must be current when delivered |
| Other markets | Country-specific disclosure or pre-contractual information | Configured per country — from none to 20 days | Configured per country | Configured per country |
One candidate, followed from disclosure to signature
What the process looks like when the software holds the clock. The candidate and the dates are illustrative; the sequence is how the controls are designed to work.
Day 0
The development manager
The document goes out from the pipeline
A candidate in Illinois reaches the disclosure stage. The system confirms the Illinois registration is current until next March, issues the current FDD version by secure link from the candidate’s record, and logs the send. The candidate opens it that evening; the open is logged too.
Day 2
The candidate
The receipt comes back signed
The candidate signs the receipt page electronically. The disclosure date is recorded as day 2, not day 0, and the earliest signing date is shown on the record as day 16. The development manager’s pipeline view shows the candidate in the waiting period with 14 days to run.
Day 9
Head office
A material change triggers re-disclosure
Head office amends the territory clause in the standard agreement for this candidate. Because the change is the franchisor’s and material, the system flags the candidate for a seven-day re-disclosure of the revised agreement and moves the earliest signing date to day 16 or seven days from the amended agreement’s delivery, whichever is later.
Day 17
Both sides
The agreement is signed
The waiting period has run. The agreement is generated with the candidate’s territory drawn from the territory map, signed by the candidate and countersigned by the franchisor. The signed agreement, both FDD versions, both receipts and the full timeline sit on the record, which now belongs to the new franchisee.
Three years later
Franchise counsel
The record answers the question
The franchisee disputes what they were told about the territory. Counsel exports the disclosure bundle for the record: the version issued, the date it was opened, the signed receipt, the amended agreement and its re-disclosure, and the signature dates. The question is answered from the record in an afternoon rather than from memory in a deposition.
The compliance failures a spreadsheet cannot prevent
None of these are exotic. They are what happens when the clock lives in a person’s calendar and the evidence lives in a folder.
The agreement is signed a day early
The problem
A keen candidate, a development manager counting from the send date instead of the receipt date, and the agreement is signed on day 13. Nobody notices until the franchisee’s lawyer does, and the entire agreement is exposed.
What good looks like
The counter starts from the signed receipt and the agreement cannot be generated or sent until the earliest signing date. There is no way to sign early without deliberately working outside the system, and that would be visible.
The wrong version went out
The problem
The annual update was published in April; a development manager’s saved attachment is the one from last year. Four candidates receive a superseded document with out-of-date financial statements and outlet lists.
What good looks like
Documents are issued from the system, never attached from a desktop, so the current version is the only one that can be sent. When a new version is published, every candidate mid-process is listed for re-disclosure.
Disclosing in a state where the registration lapsed
The problem
The state renewal was filed late. For three weeks the brand had no effective registration in that state and two candidates there were disclosed to anyway, because the development team had no way of knowing.
What good looks like
Registration status per state is on the system with expiry dates and renewal reminders. A candidate in a lapsed state cannot be issued a document, and the reason is shown to the development manager.
Receipts that were never signed
The problem
The document was sent; the receipt page was never returned. Years later the franchisee says they never received it, and the send log in someone’s email is the only evidence.
What good looks like
Receipts are signed electronically and chased automatically until they are. The disclosure date is the receipt date, so an unsigned receipt means the clock has not started and the pipeline says so.
Financial claims the document does not make
The problem
A development manager, trying to close, shares a spreadsheet of a top-performing location’s sales. It is not in the document’s financial performance representations, and it becomes the centre of a misrepresentation claim.
What good looks like
The approved representations are on the record and the reports development can share with candidates are built from them. Anything else has to be created outside the system, and the training says why that is not allowed.
Proving what happened, years later
The problem
The development manager who handled the deal has left. The emails are in a closed mailbox, the receipt is in a folder named after a previous version of the brand, and the timeline has to be reconstructed for a dispute.
What good looks like
Every event is on the candidate’s record in the platform, not in a person’s mailbox, and the bundle exports in one click. The record outlives the staff who created it.
What Gorilla Dash brings to FDD management
Disclosure is one stage of the development pipeline, in the same franchise ERP the location will be opened and run from — so the record, the territory and the agreement are never re-keyed.
Disclosure lives in the development CRM
The FDD is issued from the candidate’s record at the disclosure stage of the franchise development pipeline. The development manager does not leave the CRM, and leadership sees which candidates are in the waiting period from the same view.
The territory is on the agreement
Item 12 territory descriptions and the agreement’s territory schedule are generated from the territory map, so the boundary the candidate was shown is the boundary in the contract and the boundary the CRM routes leads by after opening.
The clock is enforced, not remembered
Waiting periods, re-disclosure and cooling-off are computed by the system from the signed receipt and the jurisdiction’s rules. An early signature is not possible by accident.
The record becomes the franchisee’s file
When the agreement is signed, the candidate record becomes the location record. The disclosure history, the agreement, the renewal date and the territory travel with it through opening, operation, renewal and transfer.
Renewals and transfers are the same workflow
A renewing franchisee or a transfer buyer is disclosed to with the same controls as a new candidate — current version, signed receipt, the waiting period the jurisdiction requires — from the existing location record.
One platform, one audit trail
Disclosure events sit in the same activity history as calls, emails, agreements and royalty statements, so a dispute about what was said is answered from one record rather than four systems.
FDD management software — frequently asked questions
What is FDD management software?
FDD management software controls the franchise disclosure document for a franchisor: which version is current, which candidate received which version and when, whether the receipt was signed, how many days of the waiting period remain, whether the agreement can be signed yet, and whether the document is registered in the candidate’s state. It replaces the shared drive of PDFs and the spreadsheet of dates with a per-candidate record that enforces the rules and keeps the evidence.
What is the 14-day rule?
Under the United States FTC Franchise Rule a prospective franchisee must receive the FDD at least 14 calendar days before signing a binding agreement or paying any money to the franchisor. Australia’s Franchising Code of Conduct and Canada’s provincial franchise acts have 14-day disclosure periods of their own. Gorilla Dash counts the period from the date the receipt is signed and blocks the agreement until it has run.
Does it handle the cooling-off period?
Yes. Where the jurisdiction has a cooling-off period after signing — 14 days in Australia, for example — the record shows when it ends and what a withdrawal within it entitles the franchisee to. Where there is no statutory cooling-off period, as at the federal level in the United States, nothing is shown, so the development team is never told a right exists that does not.
How are state registrations tracked?
Each registration or filing state has its own status, effective date, expiry date and renewal task on the system. A candidate whose address is in a state where the registration has lapsed cannot be issued a document, and the development manager sees why. The same structure covers countries, so a brand selling in the United States, Canada and Australia configures each jurisdiction once.
What happens when the FDD is updated?
The new version becomes the only version that can be issued, the previous versions are retained and frozen against the candidates who received them, and every candidate currently in the waiting period is listed for re-disclosure with the clock restarting according to the configured rule. Annual renewal and quarterly material-change updates are tracked as dated tasks with owners.
Are the receipts and agreements signed electronically?
Yes. The candidate signs the receipt page and, once the waiting period has run, the agreement from their own device. The signed document, the signer’s identity and the timestamp are stored on the record. Electronic signature laws in the United States, Australia, Canada and the European Union recognise these signatures; confirm the position for your jurisdiction with counsel.
Can it stop a development manager from sending the wrong document?
That is the point of issuing from the system rather than attaching from a desktop. Only the current version for the candidate’s brand and jurisdiction can be issued, and only when the registration is effective. A superseded version cannot be sent by accident because it cannot be selected.
Is Gorilla Dash giving legal advice?
No. Gorilla Dash enforces the waiting periods, cooling-off periods and registration rules your franchise counsel configures, and keeps the record. The rules differ by country and state and change over time, so the configuration is reviewed with your lawyer, not chosen by the software.
Does it connect to the rest of the platform?
Yes — that is what makes it a franchise ERP rather than a document tool. Disclosure is a stage of the franchise development CRM, the territory on the agreement comes from the territory map, and when the agreement is signed the candidate record becomes the location that is opened, run, reported on and charged royalties in the same platform.
How is FDD management priced?
FDD management is part of the franchise development and compliance module, offered alongside the Gorilla Dash base platform (USD $52 per location per month with unlimited team members). Pricing depends on the number of brands and jurisdictions you disclose in — talk to us and we will scope it with you.
See disclosure run inside the pipeline
Bring the jurisdictions you sell in and we will walk a candidate from qualification to a signed agreement with every clock enforced — book a demo with our team.
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