Unlock eSignature Legality for Freelance Contracts in the UK with airSlate SignNow

How to eSign a document: eSignature legality for Freelance Contract in United Kingdom

hello everyone hi if you can hear me please just tell me that the sound is good because today my setup is different it's a very weird tripod situation going on here so if you can hear me just like maybe put a thumbs up or say that yes you can hear me that'll be good hi srividya uh okay great so you can hear me that's that's good that's good it's it's just very very sunny today like it's been raining all morning but it's sunny um right now so i did not want to face the window because i would be glowing so i just decided to change the setup a little bit and before you all ask me yes those are some taylor swift paintings because i know that's going to be a question that's always a question when you uh when i'm on the live so yes those are taylor swift paintings and today is again something very um technical i would say something about contracts and uh i'm doing good niklas suman i'm doing good thanks for asking so yeah so today's about contracts because i mean i spoke about invoices yesterday and actually so many of you messaged me after that that it was really helpful that it um not yesterday before yesterday and that it was really helpful and that uh you know it kind of clarified your doubts and i understand that you know things like a contract or an invoice are things that you can just basically find online it's very easy to um find the details and information about what's supposed to be in a contract i understand that but sometimes it's just i guess it's easier when i'm sitting and telling you that and of course the best part is that you can ask me questions back so that's something different from a google search that you know after i tell you something if you have any uh doubts you can just ask me back that's the only thing um so yeah so today again if you are new here then let me tell you that um the session is like about me talking for like you know 20 25 minutes i give you all the information today's outline is what is a contract um what do you include in a contract how do you sell in a how do you set a contract and the last thing is a q a so the q a is restricted to contract so if you have any questions about contracts you can put them in the comment box or in the question tab whatever you prefer so yeah so that's it so let's begin and i will also like you know i want to read out a few contracts i've written while i explain this so that i just hope that that will help you kind of you know better understand what's supposed to be written and like don't worry about noting it down like if you miss those sentences you can always like this will be saved so you can always like you know rewind back pause and keep writing it so that that may help so okay so first things first what is a contract so a contract very simply is just an agreement between you and the client and it outlines both of your responsibilities so if i'm like i'm a freelancer and if i'm sending a contract to my client that that contract is going to include all the details about our work what details i will tell you in a few minutes it's going to include all the details about our work it's going to include any responsibilities duties from my site and if you like you can also include the clients responsibilities and duties so like okay as a writer i am supposed to write xyz but as a client you are supposed to uh you know give me the required information things like that so you know whatever it may be those things expectations from the client can also be included in the contract okay so basically that's a contract it's just an agreement and like it is a legal agreement normally but i'm really like you know when i uh when i send a contract to a client and if the scope of work changes a little bit depending on you know the relationship and how it how the work has been i'm okay sometimes tweaking the work even though it's not in the contract but then that's totally up to you how you decide to abide by the contract and you know what importance you give to it that's completely on you but yes a contract is a very good way to save yourself at the end of everything because it makes sure that you know you have committed how much time or money i mean how much time or effort or work you're going to provide for this particular payment for this particular period of time and it really safeguards you from you know going overboard and working too much so yeah so that's basically what a contract is so i want to tell you some things to include in the contract so i'm just going to pull out a contract just give me one minute i should have done this before but i haven't so i'm going to pull out a contract that i have written and let me tell you like when i first started writing a contract my idea was also that i had done a google search as to what should be included in a contract and i actually found some pretty good content and that's something i used in the starting i used uh like i literally copy pasted it because the website said you could copy paste it so i literally copy pasted it i tweaked it as required later on and with time i've kept you know changing it working on it and making it suitable to what i need to include in a contract so this is important because some points that i tell you here may not be enough for you maybe you want to include something else and if you think it's important you should go for it there's no like you know the idea is that through a contract clarify as much things as possible so that you are safe and the client is safe and you both have clear expectations that's the goal so i am going to find a contract which for some reason i cannot uh if i do not find it in the next 30 seconds we can just move on with it okay found it all right so the first thing about a contract is an introduction so what i like there's a heading of course on the heading i put is like a letter of agreement or contract between sri apatha and company name something like that very helpful and just below the heading i like to put um basically i like to put what the scope of work is so just like a quick summary so that if somebody is uh if somebody is like you know just seeing what is the contract about they can get it instantly so i'm gonna share like okay so one second i really should have planned for this earlier but okay so this is what uh this letter of agreement looks like for me so i just put on top i put letter of agreement and then below that i write a quick summary of what the scope of work is so it says letter of agreement on the top and then below it says monthly content newsletters and social media marketing so what that does is it gives a quick snapshot of what's in the complete contract you can do it your way and i would like to read out what i write the introductory line the first line that i read out that i write is as discussed i have set out below a description of the services that i shreya patar bracket writer will provide to you bracket client together with our agreed upon fees so this is the introduction again if you've missed it you can go back and watch it later on uh don't worry about that and then the next important thing is the contract is between company name with its office at company address and my name shreya residing at address so in the introduction what do you cover you cover that the contract is based on what we had discussed that's the first thing second thing you cover who is the contract between if the contract is between the client and you client's company name uh client's company address if you want you can also include the email id and contact number things like that within the contract and my as a freelancer my name and my address so because i don't have an office i just write reciting at and wherever i recite i write that address that works completely fine the next thing that i include is a scope of work so the scope of work is basically what work am i going to do so like in this contract it was about say social media content and newsletters so i write scope of work and then there are two main bullet points social media content newsletter and under each bullet point there's a description of exactly what is provided how many newsletters how many um how many uh okay how many newsletters are there uh what word count what is the expectation what kind of language will be used anything that you've discussed put it all in there social media posts what am i doing am i writing the content the graphic designing the video editing the posting um what like you know how long uh is this posting for how many posts will be included uh what is the approximate number of platforms that i'm going to include all those kind of things again be as specific as possible to avoid any ambiguity to avoid any uh concerns as to um uh you know like there should be no question mark there should be no uh vagueness no ambiguity nobody should later come in and ask you that hey wait this was not mentioned so can we do this also so always try to in the contract always try to mention what is included and what is not especially for social media marketing i always mention that okay i'm doing this this and if the posting is not from my side i also mention posting is not included so again this clarifies things what is included what is not included right both of them in your scope of work so for articles again it could be word count number of articles in a month on what days you will provide the articles if that makes it easier things like that just again make it as specific as possible so that's the second thing the scope of work the third thing is the fees now in terms of the fees you can give it in a breakdown so like again i'm doing say two things newsletters and social media marketing so i can write that the fees social media marketing this much newsletters this much and then the total and in the fees always mention the currency in the phase always write it in numerical form and then write it in words so if it is say thousand rupees you write rupees one zero zero zero and you also write rupees one thousand only this i had mentioned even for invoices because if you make an error in the digits then those words will save you and by common sense please don't end up making an error in the words because if you make an error there then it's very difficult to save yourself from that so just be very very careful about the cost so yeah so that's uh a way to write the fees just very simple you can put a breakdown or you can just put a total phase and preferably uh you can also put in the date so like uh you know how how long is that fees for is it per month per week per year whatever it is so preferably let's make it per month so you can just write that um that face inr 1000 per month example okay that's next thing another thing i include that is not something i've seen in a contract but i prefer to include is the writer's availability so i always include writer's availability which is basically my work hours so i write writers availability monday to friday 4 am 10 am to 4 pm bst so that again that clarifies my availability and when these people are supposed to contact me i am normally i'm also available on the weekends for like any urgent queries any like you know crisis i would say which doesn't really happen but sometimes the requirement is urgent i'm available in that sense if you want you can mention that but i prefer only to write my availability that's it so that's something you can consider adding so as i said like you have to kind of tweak the contract in a way that suits you best like you really need to you know figure that out yourself um after the fees are after your availability the next thing is the process of working so how are you going to work so for example for me like i've spoken a lot that uh you know when i when it comes to articles i always send an outline so in my process of working i prefer to write that all content will be provided on a google doc or sheet um an outline will be shared and upon approval the article will be written and edits may be requested directly by commenting in the doc so things like that whatever your process of working is keep it very brief that doesn't have to be like don't make it like you know 10 15 lines don't elaborate every single thing but it should be clear enough to understand that at what point you know the client needs to come in and help you out or what is the client's involvement that is the most important thing that you need to make very clear in the process of working so here you can also mention like whether it will take you like say three or five days to write an article try to mention that so that the client is prepared for that as well for the timelines the next thing is the final deliverable the uh deliverables so what's the final thing that the client will get by working with you for say newsletters it the final thing would be the newsletter content on a google doc if it is uh social media management the final thing will be graphic designs videos and those will be uploaded on the social media platforms that's the final thing so whatever is your final deliverable mention that what this does is it clarifies what the client has to expect from you every month and how they can keep a track that's one thing and the second thing is they know where the process stops when i say that you know the final deliverable is a newsletter content on a google document it means my process stops at writing the newsletter it does not include you know designing it sending it none of those things so my process is finished that's the final thing i'm going to provide for newsletter so that's something again that helps you set your grounds as to you know until what stage you're going to be involved and once that is done uh the the client is prepared okay this task is complete from this person's side so that's another helpful thing the next thing is terms so all your terms include everything the terms are very important be very careful in you know including as um as many terms as you need of course don't be overwhelming don't try to make a term out of every single thing but some terms that you know i mentioned include i'll read them out uh some terms are that i writers shall provo provide up to two additional edits per piece of content so number of edits second is uh that the edits must be requested within three working days of receiving the content so that is you know the time limit of when the edits must be requested so yeah so those are my terms you can have your own terms you can have uh anything you want honestly number of edits it could be it could be something like your buy line is your buy and included is it ghostwriting um and you know on within what time will the edits be provided how much will the extra edits be charged all of those kind of things can be included in the terms section the next thing is the payment terms i prefer to give that working terms and payment terms separate because it just makes it easier and makes it makes the contract also much more you know easy to understand and read and you know really grasp so in the payment terms what i mentioned is advanced payment like how much if there's a percentage around then 50 advanced payment if you are charging up small like if you are not charging 100 advance then you should always mention the dates of the next payment so suppose today is 20th right so suppose you send a contract today that the first payments and you say okay 50 payment advance and then 50 in 15 days so what will you say you will write 50 payment advance by say 21st august and then a second payment of 50 percent 50 remaining payment by um say fifth september or something so make the dates very clear because if you count by number of days then it's very um it's just not helpful for anyone it gets confusing it can raise a lot of questions so just make it very clear i'm going to keep saying make it very clear because that's the purpose of a contract it's to clarify everything so you know in include as many things as you can but also don't overwhelm the person so yeah so in terms of payment terms it is you know how much advance payment what dates the payment have to be made if it's a monthly contract then you can write that the payment must be made on the same date every month like your netflix subscription if you subs if you're subscribed to netflix you're going to get a payment you're going to be charged every single month on the exact same date so on the 15th of august if you start then you will be charged on the 15th of september same date so that's a monthly cycle so you can clarify that as well um and you can include your bank details so that is what i prefer include bank details and another thing who's going to pay the transaction charges who's going to pay the transfer fees make it all very clear so if normally what i write is kindly note if uh you know if your bank charges any uh transfer fees those are payable by you so any extra transfer fees are payable by you so again that like really helps it's it's it makes a lot of sense for international bank transfer because within india you don't really have those fees but on international bank transfer these can be very significant so try to you know keep that root clear as well and finally you can add some like you know casual line in there like you know i'll just read out what i have written so this is something that i've seen on their website and that's why i've written this if you agree that the above fairly sets out your understanding of our mutual responsibilities please sign a copy of this letter in the space indicated below and email it back to me however if you if you would like changes let's chat so you are giving that information that you if you would like to get any changes made in the contract if there any uh anything you're confused about let's talk about it and finally in the end you can just put your name the company name and while signing you can just you can do a digital signature and that's fine with you and you just add the date and signature so that's it that's your complete contract right there so i'm just gonna quickly run through everything i've said in terms of contracts so the first is an intro where you have uh okay first thing is the heading uh you can say monthly agreement letter agreed letter of agreement monthly contract whatever you want um you can have the in the introduction you have your name company's name their address your address just who's involved make that clear the scope of work the fees the process of working the final deliverables uh the terms the payment terms and finally your signature now normally when i sign a contract it is usually until we are doing the work okay so that's up to you uh you can have a time period set that the contract is valid for this first month only or the contract is valid for three months six months contract is valid until we stop working whatever you want in that validity you can kind of you know do it your way so that's how you create a contract sending a contract what i do is i just um okay so what i do is for a contract i make it on a google doc nothing fancy is just text written and for every heading it's just a different size and the size of the heading is bigger and it's bold and i send this uh document as a comment only document to my client they can review if they have any changes or if they're like okay this is different they can add comments so in this sense i can you know edit the contract and clarify queries before i send it before i do all the hard work of you know converting it writing an email sending it and making sure it comes back signed so again this is you could say like it's an outline format again basically getting approval before sending the final thing so that's what i do i send a google doc link with the comments only feature they can check they can add comments um doesn't mean you have to accept all the comments it means that you know whatever you find uh you know whatever you find feasible you can work with that or you can answer their queries then once it's done i convert it into a pdf and i send that to uh my client over email uh so yeah that's the easiest way to do it they can do a digital signature they can print it out sign and then send it send a scan copy back to you whatever you prefer another thing is some of my clients recently started using this tool called eversign so ever sign so it's basically a website where you can upload your contract and you can add emails email id of your client and the other person gets the contract and they can just sign it so i this time like i had sent the pdf to one of my clients and the client sent it back to me as a ever signed document so that's also a good way and then the contract stays on that website on that platform um and if you can figure it out then that's good it's a bit confusing to use but if you can figure that out maybe that's a good way to send contracts as well so yeah that's how you uh that's how you you know you create a contract you send a contract and that's how you keep the agreement between you and on and your client so that's a little bit about contracts now if you have any questions about contracts we can answer those so you can comment your questions but overall just you know try to keep it as crisp as possible and as clear as possible and of course the most important thing is uh you know try to make the most of that contract that you are creating like you know as much as possible you should clarify it think of it as you know your safe card that's the only thing i can say so i think we have a few questions is there any tool we can use like grammarly copyscape if you're asking for contracts you do not really need anything i just use a google doc and i convert it into a pdf so that's pretty fair enough do you include what will happen if they break the contract that's a very good question um i do not mainly because i mean if you want you can probably use the contract in a dispute or something legally but it's okay like if they break the contract in terms of you know um say we had a contract of say like six months and instead they just stopped work after four months that's fine i'm fine with it then the same contract does not work after that that's the only difference but i don't really consider it and most people that you know if we have a contract um and if they say that okay we i want to do a fifth newsletter then i say that's going to be an extra charge because look as for the contract this was our deal so if you want to do one more newsletter there's going to be an extra charge so that's one way that you clarify it and the other way is maybe if you want to consider based on you know the client and your relationship with them if you want to consider an extra piece of task as a complimentary offer or just included within your contract that's fine as well so i don't really consider that as a question if they break the contract would you include the penalties what would those terms be i think this is a very very tricky place to be in and um especially as a freelancer it's if you're a freelancer if you're charging an advance payment you are reducing your risk mainly if you are charging an advanced payment your risk is already low because you're getting paid for the work you do okay so you're saved in that sense so if someone does break the contract chances are you are it's going to mainly be that you're not getting paid for the work you didn't do which means you thought that you would be getting paid for say six months instead you got paid for three months okay but you didn't even work for the three months so in that sense even if they break the contract you're not too much at a loss because you know you are ending up still getting paid for the work you do and the the penalty you could include would be say financially you could tell them that say if you if you have a six month contract if you break it in three months then you must pay xyz amount to break the contract but i don't think anybody is going to abide by that because if they're breaking the contract they do not want to pay you know and they do not want to work with you and it just it just helps you be at good terms with them if you don't unnecessarily charge them when you're not working with them again completely depends on the client on the situation on the working relationship you have but this is something i prefer to completely avoid because it's very uh subjective and it's probably not going to help me out it's not going to help me out by including anything like this so yeah uh okay when you don't want to do a contract work with someone how do you politely decline so you mean that you don't want to create a contract um see it's completely up to you if you do not want to create a contract i mean i don't think there's any harm in it because a contract is basically you sharing your scope of work which you would normally do over a call over an email but just in a formal document that's the main difference right and um you should be fine with it but like you know like it doesn't really make a lot of difference i have never been in that situation so i don't know how i would react i do get a bit skeptical when i get the nda from the client when i send a contract it's different but when i get it from them it usually has a lot of legal jargon it's probably made by like a lawyer or something and you know it's complete it's very long it has weird terms and things i don't understand and then i really have to sit down and read every single word to make sure that it's exactly what we had spoken about on the call or you know in the email so in that case i become extra cautious and i read it at least two or three times before i sign it and send it so you can do that or if you're not comfortable with it you can say that i'm not comfortable with signing an nda or a contract and you can just say that and see if maybe if they're okay with one working without it then it may work out for you if not then i think they'll just be like okay and just walk away so what about legality so league i mean legality it's again it's a very big thing right so if you're a freelancer and if somebody does not really abide by your contract chances are you're not going to you know make it a legal issue and take them to court because it's just not worth the effort and the money and the time and the emotional investment and whatnot so depends again on the situation on the client uh on the amount largely depends also on the amount depends on a lot of things but i have not faced the faced any situation where you know it has become a legal issue as such so yes again completely up to you at what age did you start your social media journey i'm 18 i also want to start it today is not about this today's about contracts but if you're 18 just started why do you care when i started when anyone else started you want to start it you do it that's it there's nothing else to think about okay should my contract be branded as a new freelancer i have not worked out on a brand name or logo yet supriya supriya you don't really need a branded contract or anything uh i just include my name in the footnote so you know like basically every document you it has a footnote like common footnote that's same on everything so i just write contract between company name and sharia but that's my branding i could say so you don't really need to work on a logo or whatever if you have a logo you can use it i have a logo i still don't use it in my contract if you have a logo you can use it if not then it's completely fine as long as your name is mentioned and the company's name is mentioned i think you're good to go so yeah that's all okay so everyone seems to be okay so if you have any other questions you can let me know and what do you think about this life just maybe if you want to comment with an emoji just comment your emoji about how you thought about this life okay karishma said hundred okay so yeah so that's all for today that's all about contracts uh there is a post on my page that i had made a few weeks ago which was like a small snapshot of 10 things that should be in a contract i will share that on my story after this so if you if you would like a snapshot then that's a good way to go if anything else you can forward this video on my channel and watch it so most people liked it so that's good weirsing keeps saying that app development and content writing is the best that's good so that's what i'm here to talk about maybe you can learn from this uh amir barbie rocker thank you so much thank you i'm glad i'm glad everyone liked the life and um when will i be live next amir i'll be live next on saturday i'm actually reconsidering because i know it's ganesha tutti on saturday and i don't know if any of you would be around but maybe i'll still do it so you can watch it later or i can have a q a or something maybe that would work as well i'll let you know the topic but i will be live every tuesday and thursday at this time and every saturday at around 6 pm uh indian time or 1 30 british time yes i will save this life i will save this life yes brain orbit said it was bomb so that's good okay i think yeah that's all for today so if there's any questions of course you can dm me after this live and this live will be available saved on my ig tv so you can check it out there and that's all for today and thank you so much for joining before i leave a little bit of promo if you haven't really uh if you haven't really checked out my ebook yet please go and check out my ebook the link is in the bio and yeah that's all please go check out my ebook and that's all thank you so much for joining today and i will see you again soon this saturday hopefully and i hope you like this life and just good luck working on your contract so thank you so much for joining and i'll see you soon bye