Useful contract hints for sysadmin consultants? [closed]
You should also be concerned with some sort of errors and omission or professional liability insurance. Ideally, you would create a corporate entity such as a C-Corp, S-Corp or LLC and insure it. That way, you are shielded by the corporate veil.
Points to include in a contract (in no specific order - only as they came to me):
- continuing personal guarantee - the client personally guarantees you are paid; can hold up in court if they don't
- scope of work including a time frame
- automatic renewal clause
- any monthly recurring charges and what they are for
- well-defined invoicing policies with NET 15/30/60 terms
- exact items that are covered in scope of work; clauses that additional work outside of scope will result in additional charges or are not covered at all
- USE SERVICE CALL SHEETS that you can take with you and have the client sign-off and receive a copy; comes in handy for invoicing later so they can't say "You weren't really here that long" or "You never did this work". This is from experience, sadly.
- late fees imposed for late payments
- not so much for the contract, but find a good collection agency or someone that you can have call delinquent clients. They sometimes want 30% of any recouped payments.
- non-disclosure agreement of sensitive information
This depends entirely on whicch country you're working in.
If you're in the UK, I recommend PCG. See: Professional Contractors Group