contracts

speedytyper

Hi

I'm looking for advise.

I set up as a sole trader a few months back after finishing a masters degree. my business involves creating websites and online stores. I had worked out a draft of a contract to present to clients with a view to everything being in black & white, signed off on by both me and the client etc. I have sent it to a solicitor friend to have a look at and she is to get back to me with a legally binding copy that I can present to clients.

What I am wondering is, have any of the Entrepreneurs on here who operate similar businesses had experience with this, what should I be looking for in the lines of contract, how do I go about presenting the 'black and white' of what the contract says to a client?..

I have an existing client base from my years in college who I hope to get maintenance fees off of over the next few months, but I have one client in particular at the minute who's site I literally cloned and changed from a static html4 to a dynamic html5 site so its now mobile friendly, but he is driving me around the bend with 'can we have', 'but my old site did' even though I know full well from the code it didn't.

pedroeibar1

Your solicitor will need to be led by you on the technical stuff, unless she has extensive IT company experience but I wonder if that really needs to be in the contract? In general you are referring to a standard services contract, a sort of “scope of works to be done” agreement, in which legally IT differs very little from the supply of any service. Essentially the contract should set out who does what, when, for how long, where and at what cost, followed by the post-delivery part, how the ancillary services will be provided and at what cost, with notice periods (both sides) for breaking the contract. Also ensure it has a clause on retentions and arbitration.

Take a random job you have done in the past and fit it into the contract. Show it to her again for any comment. Then pretend you are talking to the client and explaining “Now, this is what I see as the job we are to do for you and how we will manage things together”. Most people will like that as it brings clarity. Then do the presentation to a friend and await the comments.

Best of luck with the venture.

Graham

OP are you trying to lump a specification/requirements document in with the contract?

There are many examples of documentation/contract packs for freelance web designers floating around the web so there's probably no need for you to completely re-invent this particular wheel. Find one that you think you can work with and get your solicitor to review the legal parts.

Axwell

Your contract needs to cover ip, terms of service, general payment terms, what happens if theres a breach of contract? Some of that would apply to bigger longer projects but its good to have it in place.

Aside from the contract you should have a scope of work as Pedro said which outlines what the development is and how long it will take. Depending how you operate there may be sprints (milestones) of work with downpayments before/after each sprint or they may be smaller website where you turn them around in a few days. It depends on the size of your projects. If you are doing wireframes/mockups etc that would be an initial sprint and would have its own deliverables and deadlines separate to the next sprint of development etc - you get the idea. So that should all be documented up front for both parties to sign off on in the contract so everyone knows what is being delivered and when. That scope of work changes project to project, the contract doesnt and just references the scope of work part.

As Pedro said take a past project that was a decent size and use it to determine what you needed at the time for those but probably didnt have in place.

http://docontract.com/ will give you a draft idea of what you need - its for games dev but the same applies for any software or web based systems.