Client contract confusion - do I need a professional to assist?

CharleneUK

Good Evening all,
I will soon be starting an ltd company providing a range of administrative services to help sole traders and small businesses manage their communications.  I've searched online for contracts or SLA's and have come across many many examples and it's overwhelming! Does anyone have a template for a similar sort of business they can share, or point me in the right direction? If I need to seek some paid support with this, I'll get on with it but wanted to see if there was a bog-standard template available first.
Thanks in advance.

Pennywise

General advice is to avoid bog-standard templates unless you can find one from a reputable source (i.e. respected firm of solicitors or similar) AND you don't need to make any changes at all.  It's very easy to void an entire contract by changing a few words or adding your own sections or deleting things you don't think are important.

Savvy_Sue

Agree with Pennywise: by all means look at a few, but you need something bespoke to you. 

When you're thinking about what you need from it, think about where it could go wrong. How do you agree with the client what you will and won't do? And how / when does the client communicate with you if they're not satisfied?

Also think about your payment terms. ;-) You'll find a few threads on here about companies who haven't paid for work that's been done, and the fundamental question is "What does your contract say about payment / staged payments?" 

You definitely don't want a situation where the first time you hear that the client wasn't satisfied is six months after you submitted an invoice, which they haven't paid and are now disputing ...

Mistral001

I would concentrate on making sure that some basic terms and conditions are on your invoice, namley time for payment (usually 30 days).  

Do you belong to a professional body or a trade association?  They can often help out with legal advice specifically targeted at the particular a sector. 

CharleneUK

Thank you all so much for your advice! I appreciate it
@Mistral001 Good point! I am, so will check their website out now, thanks for this as it didn't occur to me at all.