Most dealers have two piles of paperwork: 4473s completed natively in NexusFFL, and years of paper forms from before. The Vault is one archive spanning both — searchable, tamper-evident, and built condition-by-condition against ATF Ruling 2022-01, "Electronic Storage of Forms 4473."
Three separate ATF rulings govern different parts of a 4473's life. NexusFFL's core features map to each of them, and the Vault is specifically the "storage" piece.
Governs electronic A&D recordkeeping itself. Satisfied by NexusFFL's core hash-chained record system and the variance-request packet generator.
Governs capturing the 4473 electronically at time of sale. Satisfied by NexusFFL's native e4473 with buyer + seller e-signature.
Governs retaining an already-completed 4473 electronically — native or scanned from paper — instead of a filing cabinet. This is what the Vault is built for.
Each one maps to a specific condition in Ruling 2022-01 — see the full table below.
One search box covers native e4473s and scanned legacy forms together — query by buyer name, transaction date or number, serial, or firearm type/model/manufacturer/caliber, and results from either source come back ranked by date.
Condition 8Upload years of paper 4473s as PDF or image files, tagged with buyer, transaction, and firearm metadata so they show up in the same search as anything captured natively going forward. This is the separate scan-and-retain authorization the ruling carves out for existing paper.
Conditions 16–18The moment a native e4473 is certified, or a scanned form is uploaded, NexusFFL computes a cryptographic fingerprint of it. Verify on demand that what's stored today is byte-for-byte what was captured then — the "unalterable" half of the ruling's requirement.
Condition 3Found an error on a sealed 4473? File a correction with a reason. It's stored as a linked corrected copy, visible alongside the original on the print view. The original record's fingerprint is unaffected, because the original itself is never touched.
Condition 3Mark any native or scanned 4473 for review ahead of an ATF visit or an internal spot-check, with a note on why, and clear it again once resolved — on either kind of record, from the same interface.
Condition 11Generate the advance written notice letter to your local ATF Industry Operations Area Office, record when you sent it, and track the 60-day clock to the date you're eligible to stop printing paper 4473s.
Condition 1Not every condition in the ruling is Vault-specific — some (like ATF's own read-only access) are covered by NexusFFL's inspector-role login rather than by the Vault itself. Below are the conditions the Vault directly implements.
| Cond. | What the ruling requires | How the Vault satisfies it |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Advance written notice to the local ATF Industry Operations Area Office at least 60 days before stopping paper 4473 printing. | Notice-letter generator plus a tracked 60-day countdown to the eligible-to-go-paperless date. |
| 3 | Records must be unalterable; if a correction is needed, it's made on a copy that's electronically attached to the original, which itself is never changed. | Corrections append a linked corrected copy with a reason and who made it; the original's integrity fingerprint never changes. |
| 8 | The retention system must be searchable by buyer name, transfer date, transaction number, and firearm type/model/manufacturer/caliber/serial. | One Vault search box, covering both native and scanned 4473s, across every one of those fields. |
| 11 | Ability to flag or set aside specific records for inspection review. | A flag/unflag toggle with a reason, available on any native or scanned record. |
| 16–18 | Paper Forms 4473 completed before a switch to electronic storage may be digitally scanned and retained electronically instead of kept on paper. | Legacy paper 4473 upload (PDF/PNG/JPEG), with a sha256 integrity hash computed at upload time and re-verifiable on demand. |
See how your existing paper 4473s and every new native one live in the same searchable record.
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