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Whether home business or not, all contracts should be put into writing!
This will come in quite handy if something goes wrong with a particular deal and
litigations are filed against your home business. Hence the importance of
contracts and agreements in your home business.
Putting It in Writing: Contracts for Customers.
When you're dealing with customers, sometimes things can go wrong. It might be
your fault, it might be their fault or it might be no-one's fault -- but if you
didn't make a contract, then you'll all suffer.
Why Do I Need Contracts?
The answer seems to be obvious but most home business owners tend to ignore
this. They only wake up when it is too late and when some joker has filed for
damages against your hard built home business.
A contract gives you a sound legal base for your business, and some guarantee
that you're going to get paid for your work without you having to ask the
customer for payment in advance. In the event of a dispute, the contract lays
down what the agreement was so that you can point to it and say what was agreed.
If you ever end up having to go to court (let's hope you won't), the contract is
what the judge's decision will be based on.
The point is, treat your home business exactly like any other business. You need
legal contract, agreements, policies to protect you when something goes wrong.
Having contract is like an insurance against exploitation of your home business.
Please remember that you are not running a corporation! You are running a home
business and your cash deployment power is limited against litigations.
Without a contract, you leave yourself vulnerable and open to exploitation.
Someone could claim that the terms they agreed with you were different to what
you say they were, or that they never signed up for anything at all and so they
won't pay. It's especially common to see big businesses mistreat small ones,
thinking that they won't have the knowledge or the money to do anything about
it. Essentially, contracts take away your customers' ability to hold non-payment
over your head, and give you the ability to hold it over theirs instead.
Written and Verbal Contracts.
It is important to point out the distinction in the law between a verbal
(spoken) contract and a proper, written one. A verbal contract is binding in
theory, but in practice can be very hard to prove. A written contract, on the
other hand, is rock-solid proof of what you're saying.
Every professional home business owners understand the reality and power of a
written contract. They just do not take anything and anyone as granted.
You might think that you're never going to get into a dispute with your
customers, but it's all too common to find yourself in a little disagreement.
They will often want to get you to do some 'small' amount of extra work to
finish the job or make it better, not realizing that doing so would completely
obliterate your profit margin.
For this reason, you should be very wary of doing anything with nothing but a
verbal contract. On the other hand, if you were incautious or too trusting and
only got a verbal contract, it could still go some way towards helping you,
especially if there were witnesses.
Won't It Be Expensive?
No! Not at all. Especially when you compare with damages a non-contract can
inflict upon your home business. Another misconception is that you need a lawyer
to make contracts for your home business deals.
Pleas know that written contracts don't necessarily need to be formal contracts,
which are drawn up by a lawyer with 'contract' written at the top and signed by
both parties. These kinds of contracts are the most effective, but can be
expensive to have produced, not to mention intimidating to customers.
What you need is customer friendly contracts that protects your home business at
the same not perceived as threatening! There are many simple contract templates
that your download from the Internet for free.
The most common kind of written contract, oddly enough, is a simple letter. If
you send a customer a letter (or, indeed, an email) laying out your agreement
before you start work, and they write back to agree to it, that is enough to
qualify as a written contract, with most of the protections it affords.
If you are doing high-value work for some clients, though, it could be worth the
time and trouble of having your lawyer write a formal contract, or at least of
doing it yourself and getting a lawyer to look it over. Formal contracts will
give you more protection if the worst happens, and there's nothing to stop you
from making it a one-off expense only by re-using the same contract for multiple
customers.
Contracts for Small Purchases: the Terms and Conditions.
Your home business requires a simple terms and conditions is all it requires if
the purchases are small!
Obviously it would be silly to expect everyone who buys some $10 thing from you
to sign a contract, or write back indicating their agreement to your terms. In
this situation, you should have a statement of the 'terms and conditions' that
your customer is agreeing to by buying from you, and they should have to tick
some kind of box indicating their agreement before you send anything.
Luckily, it isn't usually so necessary to be paranoid about contract law with
small purchases anyway, since customers will be paying you first and receiving
the goods or services afterwards, not the other way around. If you plan to offer
any kind of payment plan or other long-term agreement, of course, this should
always be backed up with a signed contract.
We hope you will take care of the contract aspect your home business very
seriously and implement them so as to avoid ugly future situations.
Lot more home business based articles spread through out this site. Why not make
use of them too!
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