During the past 12 months, some of my clients, and I, have experienced legitimate woes that have significantly affected our bottom line. These kinds of lesson range from slight to substantial. The bottom line is as a business owner; you ought to be sure that you protect yourself. You have to be sure that you put the best systems in place to be sure this someone else cannot come in, in addition, to snatch your business right from within you or pursue almost any legal action that you have to close the doors on your business. What you ought to consider about San Jose bonds.
So this week, I aim to share with you five legal classes that our clients and we learned collectively in the past 12 months to ensure you do not go through the same challenges.
Legal Session 1 – Make sure you have a contract for ALMOST EVERYTHING.
You need to have a contract in place for that subcontractors. Next, you must set up a contract for your customers to ensure you are protected and included as tight as a swaddled baby. You may be thinking, “why do I need a contract with our customers.” Well, depending on your current industry, this is a must requirement. Up with your customers lets your visitors know the scope of the performance you perform for them.
That removes any ambiguities across the types of services that you are giving and the extent to which you happen to be offering them. Because, often, customers and clientele wish to change the scope of the involvement once they begin working with you. Second, you need to have an offer in your contract that declares what would happen if almost any changes are made, or supplemental services are provided and what people’s additional fees would be if anything needs to be negotiated within a separate agreement.
Legal Lessons 2 – Make sure that a legal representative reviews the commitment
If you want to create your agreements by yourself with templates that you come across online, make sure that you have a legal representative review them afterward to make sure that everything that needs to be in the deal is included in the agreement. Ensure that the deal’s provisions protect you and your client. You don’t wish your agreements to be entirely one-sided to the point where the client isn’t even want to sign the item.
So be sure that some stuff in there protects them likewise. Be sure that your agreements include provisions around start and times, detailed high-level ways around what will be done, how the agreement can be terminated by you or the consumer, and who is liable or perhaps responsible for legal fees in the event of a case. Including all of these provisions will ensure that you are safeguarded if something occurs (knock on wood) and a lawsuit pursues.
Legal Lesson 3: Be sure to have agreements along with your subcontractors and independent technicians
Subcontractors and independent technicians are vendors who do the job. And what I have found far too often in small businesses is that these kinds of contractors want to be treated as employees. Employees are paid on a regular payment schedule. Many people weekly, biweekly, monthly, or perhaps bimonthly. When working with a small company, subcontractors and independent technicians often want to be paid on the same plan as your employees, or even worse, they want to be paid when a job is completed.
From your cash flow perspective, that is a menu for disaster. So ensure that your agreements include the critical points when payments will be acquired, the proper source document that must be submitted before payment is even made, and that 100 % legal documentation needs to be signed or received before any installments are issued. I cannot strain this enough. You need to be sure they understand that a monthly bill must be submitted before monthly payment is rendered and that monthly payment will not be issued just because many people showed up at your office doorstep. That is not how business is carried out.
Payments are not issued with demand. Don’t allow subcontractors to help rule or govern how you would pay your bills. As a business owner, it can be your job to build these policies and techniques and ensure that these procedures are usually explained in detail to the vendors.
Legal Lesson 5 – Include a non-performance position
This is often forgotten. What happens if the subcontractor does not complete what they say they will complete? Do you still pay for these? If your agreement does not express what would happen in the event of non-performance, you may be required to post payment still.
Add a process close to reviewing a job once it is complete before submitting repayment to that vendor, and make sure that will process is stated in your current subcontractor agreement so that they cannot say that they performed and you did not pay. They need to be apparent, plain, and manifest and understand that their ultimate payment is contingent upon an effective job completed.
Legal Session 5 – Have a legal professional on retainer.
All of these ideas that I am sharing with an individual that my clients and I have experienced over the past twelve months can only be enforced if you have a lawyer on retainer. But unfortunately, little business owners are often afraid to hire a lawyer because we could be scared of what it costs. Yet I promise you that it is a more expensive problem not to have a very lawyer than it is to have one in particular.
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