Notary services can consist of a number of steps of either:

• A one step process where the Notary identifies a signatory to a document and witnessing that person sign, (drafted by the Notary or by others) or certifying a document is a true and correct copy and that document is then sent to the country where it is relied upon;
• It can be a two step process with the document being Notarised and then the document being taken to the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (or it can be posted) where an Apostille is affixed at a cost of $83 per document (as at July 2019 and which increases every year). This is done when the document destination is to be relied upon is a member state of the Hague Convention on Apostilles. Australia is also a member of that convention.
• It can be a three step process where the country in which the document is to be relied upon is not a member of the Hague Convention on Apostilles. In this case then after the document is notarised then an Authentication is applied to the document by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade at the same cost as an Apostille  The document will then need to be produced to the embassy of the foreign country for further legalisation and at further cost.