Don't skimp on the date this year.

Local experts agree that abbreviating the year while dating documents could open yourself to attack.

“It would open the door for somebody to manipulate the date,” said Tom Breth, a lawyer with Dillon McCandless King Coulter and Graham.

Because the second two digits, a common place to abbreviate the year in a date, are the same as the century, it would be possible for someone to manipulate the date.

Breth said a manipulated date could cause many problems in paperwork.

“Most importantly, it establishes a timeline the document existed, that the signature was on that document,” he said.

Breth said people shouldn't sacrifice accuracy for speed when filling out documents.

“Everybody is in a hurry nowadays, so we tend to abbreviate things,” Breth said. “Any time you abbreviate things, you open yourself to manipulation or misunderstanding as pertaining to the abbreviation.”

Tim Rogers, owner of A Notary, which owns five offices in Western Pennsylvania, said notaries are trained to use all four digits of a year when dating a document, but it's always possible to fall into bad habits.

“You leave that 20 open-ended, so someone theoretically in the future could make it 21, 22, or anything,” Rogers said.

He said the state Department of State holds notaries to a high standard. He said the department will likely remind all notaries about the possibility for error this year.

“You're protecting yourself and you're protecting your client,” Rogers said.