613A Letters

613A letters are notices required under Section 613(a) of the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), sent to the applicant — the subject of the background check — when public record information, such as criminal history, is being reported. This is not an adverse action letter; it's an advance notice giving the applicant an opportunity to dispute or explain the reported information before any employment decision is made. The letter is sent either by email or hard copy mail, depending on the report and state involved. If a report contains an applicant email address and the applicant's state of residence isn't designated as a "snail mail" state, the 613A letter is sent to the applicant automatically via email — no manual action required. A report only lands in the 613A Queue for manual handling when one of the following is true:

Any letter needing manual attention — for the reasons above — will appear in the 613A Queue on the Report Management tab, where you can print a hard copy to mail or email each letter, individually or all at once.

A 613A notice is only triggered once per report. If a report has multiple searches that come back flagged, this will not generate duplicate letters — only a single 613A notice is sent per report.

613A Letters can be set at three levels: Global, Client Type, or Client, each by navigating to that level's respective "Compliance Settings." This setting determines whether reports ordered under a given client (or clients under a given client type) are eligible to trigger a 613A letter to the applicant — it is not something the client themselves receives or is notified of.

The Global-level setting acts as the default. Any Client or Client Type that doesn't have its own explicit 613A Letters setting will simply follow whatever the Global level is set to (Yes or No).

A Client or Client Type can override the Global default by explicitly setting 613A Letters to Yes or No in their own Compliance Settings. Once an explicit Yes or No has been selected at that level, a "Delete from client settings" link appears — clicking this removes the override and reverts that Client or Client Type back to following the Global default.

This gives you flexibility: for example, leaving Global set to No, then setting Yes only for the specific clients or client types whose applicants should receive letters — or the reverse, setting Global to Yes as your account-wide default, then explicitly setting No for any client whose applicants should be excluded from receiving them.

The Service Type trigger — which searches generate a 613A letter to the applicant when flagged — is different from the Yes/No enablement setting above. It can only be configured at the Global level, and it applies across your entire account regardless of how individual clients or client types have their 613A Letters setting configured.

Non-criminal, custom searches and verifications will need to be manually flagged in QA, as the results entry for custom searches does not always utilize the record/no record convention, and verifications completed as "Not Verified" are not always due to a negative discrepancy.

Navigate to System Settings -> 613A Letter to edit the Subject, From email, and the body of the 613A letter. At the bottom of this page is a list of several placeholders that can be used to automatically plug certain details into the letter upon creation, such as the name of your CRA, the client's name, applicant information, and the current date.

Navigate to the client's account and, under the Additional Settings heading, click on Compliance Setting. Set 613A Letters to Yes or No to override the Global default for reports ordered under this client, and check the box for any states where an applicant cannot receive their letter via email, as advised by your legal counsel. Any state checked here is treated as a snail mail state, meaning applicants residing there will always have their letter routed to the 613A Queue rather than sent automatically. To remove the override and have this client follow the Global default again, click Delete from client settings.

Navigate to Sales -> Client Types, expand the Client Type in question, and click on Compliance Setting. The same 613A Letters Yes/No toggle, state checkboxes, and delete option are available here, applying your settings across every client under that Client Type at once.

Enabling 613A Letters at the Client or Client Type level controls whether reports ordered under that client are eligible to trigger a letter to the applicant — it does not determine which searches actually generate one. That's controlled by the Service Type trigger, which lives only at the Global level:

Note: The Global-level 613A Letters Yes/No toggle only matters for clients or client types that don't have their own explicit override. You do not need to change this toggle in order for a specific client's applicants to receive letters — set it based on whether you want it to serve as your account-wide default. Only the Service Type Trigger selections are required for letters to generate.

Navigate to Report Finder -> 613A Queue to see reports awaiting manual action. A report appears here only when it's a snail mail state, the applicant has no email on file, or an automatic email attempt bounces or fails to deliver — all other eligible reports are emailed to the applicant automatically and never touch the queue.

You'll notice some applicants in the list missing the Email option, which indicates their state is currently marked for snail mail only. Depending on the current list of applicants in your 613A queue, you can choose the Email All and Print All boxes at the top, or select the checkbox for only certain applicants, and scroll to the bottom to click "Process 613A."

Note: Applicants will remain in the 613A Queue until their letter has either been emailed, printed, or canceled.

The Report Notes tab records when the applicant's 613A letter was printed, emailed, or canceled — including letters sent automatically. Email delivery success or failure is also logged at the report level, so you can confirm whether a sent notice was actually delivered or bounced.

Note: Whether sent automatically or processed manually from the queue, the applicant is removed from the queue only after the letter has been emailed, printed, or canceled.