This week we’re going to focus on what services you’re providing for your client and how it is that they’re paying you for those services and how to document it.

Number 1: exactly what services you’re going to be performing for your client. The thing that’s important in this services agreement is that you carefully define exactly what the services are. The important thing is to define them, you can either put them in the body of the agreement itself, you can also have a separate schedule that’s attached to the agreement that would specify the particular services you’re providing. If you’re going to be providing services for the same client many times and the services are going to change, that’s a good reason to put it in a separate exhibit. Similarly, if you make changes down the road or you want to allow for changes to the services, you can have an exhibit and you might call it a change order. Or the exhibit might be called a task order for the actual work that you’re going to perform. So the terminology is less important than actually defining exactly what the services are.

Number 2 : whenever you’re performing the services, who’s going to be providing which pieces of equipment that are necessary for your particular services. It’s something that’s easy to overlook, but it’s good to have in the agreement if your client is going to be providing the conference room space and a podium for you to perform a speech if that’s the kind of services you’re providing. Or if you are providing the printing press and different things like that if you’re a freelance printer. So defining the equipment and who’s providing the equipment is also important in the services agreement.

Number 3 : Obviously as the service provider, what you also want to do is make sure you have in there is how you’re going to get paid and how it is that the client’s compensating you for your services. So question three, I would say, is how is the client going to compensate you. You want to define both how much they’re going to pay you for your services, and when they’re going to pay, whether that’s upon conclusion of the services, whether that’s in 30 day intervals, or whenever you have sent them a bill that they’re going to pay within a certain number of days. Obviously, that’s the key amounts we think of whenever it’s in terms of compensating you as the professional.

Also make sure you include in there reimbursable expenses. So if you’re going to be incurring out of pocket expenses as you perform these services, you want to define in the agreement how your client’s going to reimburse you if they are going to reimburse you.

Number 4: I would say is related: what happens if your client doesn’t pay you? Obviously what we hope is that they pay according to the terms of the agreement. But you also want to define in there if you’re going to be allowed to charge interest if they don’t pay on time. And also we’d strongly encourage that you include in there provisions that if you have to go to court to try to collect money that they owe you, that your client who isn’t paying is going to also be on the hook for the expense of collecting as well. And it’s key to have that phrased the right way so that they court will enforce it. But it’s definitely a way to make collecting on the agreement much easier and more palatable for you as a service provider.

That concludes the first part of Services Agreements for Freelance Professionals. We’ll conclude next week. In the interim, if you have any questions, please feel free to email me, bokes@GeneralCounselLaw.com. Thank you.

Thanks for listening to this edition of the Legal River podcast. If you have a business law question you would like to see answered in a podcast, please email us at Podcast@LegalRiver.com. To reiterate, all views expressed in this presentation are intended only as a general discussion of the issues and should not be regarded as legal advice. For additional details or advice about a specific situation, please consult legal counsel directly.