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Form 4473 and NICS

How a firearm sale is held until the form and the background check are on record, and what happens when they are not. Cashiers run the counter half; managers own the overrides and the review.

The two routes

The store runs one of two ways, set by Paper 4473 Mode in FFL Settings.

Electronic, with the mode off and FastBound switched on. The cashier starts the form from the register, the buyer and the dealer complete it in FastBound, and FastBound tells the system when it is done.

Paper, with the mode on. The 4473 is filled in on paper and the background check is run by phone or the FBI portal. Nothing will ever arrive to close the order, so the cashier states at the counter that the form is done.

Switching the mode takes effect on the next POS page load. Reload any till that is already open, or it keeps behaving the old way.

Statuses

Two fields track a firearm order. They live on the order and on the resulting disposition.

4473 Status is N/A, Pending or Completed.

NICS Status is N/A, Proceed, Delayed, Denied or Cancelled.

A sale of a regulated firearm cannot be completed until Completed and Proceed are both on record for every gun on the ticket. Antiques are exempt and never start a 4473.

The button next to Complete Order shows the state:

Button reads Color Meaning
FastBound 4473 Grey Nothing started yet. Click to begin.
Awaiting 4473 Orange Held. The form is in flight.
4473 Complete Green Cleared. You can complete the order.
Record Paper 4473 Grey Paper mode. Click when the form is done.
4473 Recorded Green Paper mode, recorded.
4473 Not Configured Red Neither route is available. See below.

A small refresh control sits beside it in electronic mode, tooltip "Refresh 4473 status". Use it when you believe FastBound has finished but the screen still says Awaiting.

The electronic route

  1. Ring the gun up as usual and take the ticket to payment.
  2. Click FastBound 4473. Enter the serial for each firearm row.
  3. The order is held in Draft and a FastBound tab opens. Click Start New 4473 there and work through the form with the buyer.
  4. Serve other customers meanwhile. Reopen the order later from Recent Orders → Draft.
  5. When FastBound commits the disposition it notifies this system, which stamps the order Completed with the NICS outcome and unlocks the till.
  6. Complete the order.

Payment can be taken before the check clears. The system says so plainly if you do: "Payment is recorded on this draft, but it contains a firearm and the 4473/NICS has not cleared." If the buyer is denied, a manager refunds and deletes the draft.

An order whose 4473 is already complete cannot be silently restarted. Clicking the button on such an order offers Redo 4473, which is a manager action, and requires that you have already voided the disposition in FastBound and give a reason.

The paper route

With Paper 4473 Mode on, the button reads Record Paper 4473. Clicking it opens a dialog that asks you to confirm, for every firearm on the order:

  1. the ATF Form 4473 is completed and signed;
  2. the background check was run and came back Proceed;
  3. the form is filed with your records.

It ends with: "This is recorded in the bound book under your name and cannot be undone from the counter." Click Yes — 4473 completed.

Recording it books the bound-book disposition for every gun on the ticket, stamped with who ticked the box and when, and the sale can then be completed.

Federal recordkeeping

Paper mode changes only where the 4473 record lives. It relaxes nothing the ATF requires. The form must still be completed, the check still run, and the paperwork still filed exactly as before. Recording the attestation is all the software can do, which is why it stores who said so.

This is a counter action, not a manager action, on purpose. The same cashier who filled the form in says it is filled in, and putting a manager behind every gun sale would not make the record truer.

An order already sent to FastBound for an electronic 4473 cannot be closed out with a paper one. That order is waiting on a real form somebody is filling in, and the refusal is titled Electronic 4473 In Flight.

Manager override

The override is for when FastBound is the problem, not you: the form was genuinely completed there but never synced back, because a serial was edited in a shared account, a partner deleted the disposition, or FastBound was down.

It needs the Sales Manager or System Manager role and a written reason. The dialog on the order says what it does: "Use only when the 4473 + NICS were genuinely completed in FastBound but did not sync back here. This force-completes the sale and books an audited manual-override bound-book record (your name + reason). It does not update FastBound — reconcile the FastBound bound book separately."

It books one Retail Sale disposition per gun, marked with the override flag, the reason and your user, then flips the order's statuses so the sale can complete. It is idempotent per gun, so a double click books one record.

An override is not a lesser record

An override satisfies the sale gate exactly like a FastBound-committed disposition, and nothing downstream treats it differently. What makes it a control rather than a hole is a manager reading it back afterwards.

Every override, and every paper 4473 recorded at the counter, lands on the Hand-Asserted 4473 Dispositions report. Reading it back is item 3 of the morning routine, and Daily checks covers its columns and the questions to ask of each new row.

When neither route is available

If FastBound is switched off and Paper 4473 Mode is also off, the button turns red and reads 4473 Not Configured. Clicking it explains that the counter has no way to record a 4473 for the sale, and that a manager needs to switch on FFL Settings → Paper 4473 Mode or re-enable FastBound Settings → Enable FastBound. A manager can still use the override for a one-off.

Delayed checks and the Brady date

A Delayed NICS result means the sale is on hold, not refused. Federal law lets a dealer transfer at their discretion once the third business day has passed without a denial.

The Pending 4473 Orders report is the queue for this. It lists every draft order carrying a regulated firearm, oldest first.

Pending 4473 Orders

Held firearm orders, oldest first, with the third business day printed.
Column Meaning
Invoice The held order.
Parked On When the check started.
Days Pending Calendar days since.
Customer Who to call.
Firearms The serials on the ticket.
4473 The form status.
NICS The check status.
Brady Day 3 The third business day after Parked On.
Total The order value.
Transfer? Ticked when this is a customer transfer-in, not a sale.

The NICS cell is colored: red for Denied, orange for Delayed, green for Proceed. The Brady Day 3 cell turns orange once that date has arrived and the check is still Delayed. Filter the report by NICS Status to work one outcome at a time.

The Brady date counts three business days forward from the parked date, stepping over Saturdays and Sundays. It does not know about federal or state holidays, so check the calendar before you rely on it.

The NICS Cleared Pickup email

When a check that came back Delayed later proceeds, FastBound tells the system and the buyer is emailed once, using the NICS Cleared Pickup template, to say their background check cleared and the firearm is ready. The email goes to the order's contact address, falling back to the customer record's email. It is sent once per order, so a later sync does not repeat it, and nothing is sent when there is no address on file.

Call the customer anyway if the gun matters. The email is a courtesy, not the queue.

Troubleshooting

Message you see What it means Fix
Awaiting 4473 on an order you believe is done The webhook has not arrived, or the page is stale. Click the refresh control beside the button.
FastBound has not sent the completed 4473 back yet. FastBound has no committed disposition for these guns. Check the form is committed in FastBound, then refresh again.
Could not reach FastBound — checked the local records only. Still waiting on the 4473. The connection failed. Try again. If it persists, see FastBound.
No serial on this order yet — click FastBound 4473 to start. Serials were never entered. Start the 4473 and enter them.
4473 already complete The order is done and you clicked to start another. Nothing to do, or use Redo 4473 if it genuinely has to be redone.
Electronic 4473 In Flight Paper mode was used on an order sent to FastBound. Use the refresh control once the form is committed, or ask a manager to run Redo 4473.
No 4473 route configured Both FastBound and Paper 4473 Mode are off. A manager switches one of them on.
A serial mismatch warning on an order The serial on the invoice line does not match the one the 4473 was run on. Verify against FastBound and correct the invoice serial before completing.