The BATE announced that they are (finally) launching their new cloud-based eForms platform this month (December 2021).
As stated by the BATFE:
“The goal of this ‘modernized eForms’ is to provide ATF with an infusion of technology to provide better services to our industry members, trade associations, and the public. This much needed modernization will reduce the effort and time required to review and process applications. Specifically, ATF Forms 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 6A, 9, 10 and 5300.11, by incorporating online validations and other enhancements.”
Finally, the electronic Form 4 is back!
Based on our understanding of the new process, unlike a paper Form4, with an eForm4, multiple BATFE and FBI agents will be able to work on the eForm4 concurrently instead of only one at a time.
Typically a paper from 4 is touched around 40 different times during the approval process and it has to wait until the previous agent is done with a step until the next step can begin. This should speed the process.
Hopefully this will impact wait times in a positive manner.
More to come as we learn more.
Update:
The ATF has supplied this information to us:
eForms upgrade start: Friday, December 17 at 9 p.m.
eForms tentative upgrade finish: Tuesday, December 21 at 6 a.m.
The web address of eForms is not changing.
Your eForms User ID is not changing. All your previous submissions will transfer to the new system.
After the upgrade, you’ll need to manually reset your password before you can log in for the first time.
Once you log in with your new password, the system will ask you to update your user profile information and create a security PIN.
Another Update:
This is a notice to current eForms users about a change in the outage period for the upgrade to ATF eForms.
The tentative finish date is now Thursday, December 23 at 6 a.m. ET.
No action is needed at this time. However, there are some required steps you’ll need to complete after the upgrade is finished (details below).
Update: Outage period
In order to facilitate this upgrade, eForms is offline during the following time frame:
Upgrade Start: Friday, December 17 at 9 p.m.
Tentative Finish: Thursday, December 23 at 6 a.m.
If the outage window will impact business operations, paper submissions of forms will always still be an option during this period.
