Contract templates

What is a contract template?

A contract template helps you streamline your workflow by standardizing your contract terms and associated legal documentation.

No matter whether you’re a freelancer, a real estate agent, or a large corporation, you need contracts in order to protect yourself from legal exposure while working with customers and business partners.

As a legally binding document, contracts can cover everything from the scope of work you perform to who ultimately owns the intellectual property rights of a specific work product.

Of course, things don’t have to get so complicated. Loan agreements and rental agreements are simple contracts that exchange money for something specific — such as a promise to repay a debt at a given interest rate or a place to live for the duration of the contract.

So where do contract templates come in?

By creating an effective template, business owners can save time and money when sending proposals, contracts, and agreements for review and consent from customers and partners.

Armed with a strong template, teams can spend less time worrying over the minutiae of the contract while having the peace of mind to know that the document they send has everything necessary for the business to continue operating smoothly.

What should my contract cover?

The contents of your contract will vary based on the type of contract you intended to create.

For example, a photography contract or a DJ contract might detail the deliverables and hours of coverage that a service provider will undertake for an event, as well as the period of time where specific goods will be reserved, licensed, or stored.

However, a construction contract or a painting contract may include a different set of stipulations. The same is true for very specific contracts like intellectual property sales agreements.

For your contract to accomplish its goal, you’ll first need to determine what your contract should do and then write the contract terms in a way that meets those needs and complies with local laws.

For this reason, it’s always best to seek legal advice to ensure that your contracts are considered to be binding legal documents.

What goes into a good contract template?

Transforming a standard contract into a basic contract template can be tricky, but you’ll find that most of the language you use when creating a normal contract should also be included in your template.

This will include:

• Standardized / boilerplate descriptions

• Marketing information

• Company contact information

• Payment details and billing information

• Indemnification and non-compete clauses

• Payment schedules and late payment penalties

• Confidential information and NDA clauses

As you can see, most of this information is well-suited to a contract template because it doesn’t change from document to document.

The marketing language that you use is likely to stay the same from one business proposal to the next. Your payment and contact information probably won’t to change on a regular basis.

On the other hand, you’ll have some information that may change regularly, such as:

• Customer details

• Scope of work documentation

• Cost estimates for specialized work

• Subcontracting authorizations

• Exceptions to your service agreement

• E-signature requirements

Information that changes frequently won’t be a good fit for your contract — but that doesn’t mean you should completely exclude it!

Outstanding contract templates use specialized features like custom variables, editable text fields, content libraries, and pricing tables to add these details in a fillable format.  This allows users to completely design and format their document while only adding the customizable information prior to sending out the document.

Using these tools, users can load a template and input all necessary information quickly before sending the template out to the appropriate parties.

Free business contract templates from PandaDoc

Whether you need an independent contractor agreement, a standard service contract, or a non-disclosure agreement, PandaDoc’s library of free business contracts has you covered.

Our contract templates are free as downloadable PDFs and are fully customizable when using the PandaDoc document editor.

Who keeps the original copy of a contract?

Both parties should keep a copy of any binding contract. PandaDoc makes this easy by helping you capture electronic signatures and by emailing copies of the signed documents to all parties.

Is a contract valid without a notary?

Yes. Contracts don’t need to be witnessed or notarized in order to gain effective legal status.

How can I create my own contract template?

The easiest way to create your own customized contract is to download one of the free contract templates from the PandaDoc template library and modify it inside your PandaDoc account.

Using all of the tools at your disposal, it’s easier than ever to create the legal contracts that you need and send them to customers at lightning speed.