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Freelance Contract

Freelance Contract PDF Template

A freelance contract is an agreement between a company or hiring person and an individual but looks very similar to an independent contractor agreement. It allows for the work of the individual to be defined on a project or task basis and protects both parties from disputes.

You might need a freelance contract if you’re interested in doing work on the side, which will be paid through online payments. It may be prudent to get yourself a business license, learn what taxes you need to pay and set up online signature and payment systems. These tools can make the administrative part of being a freelancer much easier, and allow you to focus on the tasks at hand.

You’ll need to do all of the proper research and homework first, but this template will give you a head-start and a good framework. You should always consult a lawyer though before finalizing any contracts.

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Working as a freelancer can be incredibly rewarding, allowing you to travel almost anywhere and work from your laptop. You can do various job types, but the main difference is that your boss might change from day-to-day. As a freelancer, you can have various tasks and rewarding pay that varies depending on the hirer. Some tasks may take months, while others take just hours.

Regardless of the task’s scale, there are liabilities that you must account for as a freelancer. By accepting pay for the work, you are responsible for a certain amount of risk, which you should try to reduce if possible.

By creating a freelance contract, you can reduce the risk dramatically, not only for you but for the hiring party as well. Without a contract for your work, you can get into a dispute with the hiring party. The costs or time to complete might have varied from when initially starting the contract, and you need to have a way to adjust. Verbal agreements might also be unfair to the freelancer because there aren’t any rewards given for above-and-beyond performance.

Creating a freelance contract isn’t the only way to protect yourself from issues that come from verbal agreements. Verbal contracts might not be paid until the end of the contract, leaving freelancers vulnerable to unpaid work. Creating the contract might be more than the contract’s overall value, in the case of small agreements. In these examples, using an online platform that handles contracts might be an excellent way to go.

Online platforms like Fiverr and Upwork handle the hours tracking, contracting, exchange of fees, and even the communication between clients and freelancers. The contracts created are specific to the job but autogenerated for each accepted contract of work. The exchange of fees is handled through escrow.

Escrow is a method of exchanging fees where the client deposits the fee into a third-party account. The freelancer can then give the completed product, such as a digital file package to the escrow company. The escrow company previews the file to the client for quality assurance, then if it checks out, the funds and package are delivered to the freelancer and client, respectively.

Using an escrow, the freelancer can worry less that the client will withhold funds or refuse to pay, and the client knows that the freelancer provides work in good standing. The freelancers and clients can also be rated bi-directionally on these online platforms, enabling them to verify each other before agreeing to anything independently.

One major issue with platforms is the fee that they charge. Platforms often take 20% of contractor’s payments, plus additional fees for communication or promotion of their profiles. This 20% eventually gets baked-in to the freelancer’s prices, so clients will notice that the platform rates for a particular contractor are more expensive than their off-platform rates. These 20% fees become very expensive for more extensive work and can be avoided by contracting directly.

Direct contracting is much easier than you think. Freelancers can still have profiles on LinkedIn, other social media, or free listing websites, but when it comes to the nuts and bolts of freelancing, workers can create their own contracts. It’s also easy to deliver the contracts and have them signed electronically, with electronic signature services like DottedSign.

When freelancers need to be paid, there are many online payment systems available. Systems like PayPal allow freelancers to submit their own PDF invoices for the client to pay directly. Many payment systems also allow for escrow-like interaction, multiple payments spread over time, or payment by SMS or email.

Kdan’s Freelance Contract PDF Template is one of the most convenient ways to make a contract because you just need to fill in the blanks using Kdan PDF Reader and send the PDF with DottedSign to the client to sign. It’s just a couple of steps, and because it’s so quick and easy, you might be able to hire more freelancers or do more freelance work yourself.

The freelance contract includes many of the same clauses as the independent contractor contract but explicitly changes some things for freelancers. For example, there are sections for payment fees, which allow freelancers to select flexible terms. This flexibility level can enable jobs to be much more lucrative while lowering the client’s risk. The freelance contract is also personalized. Independent contractors can be people or businesses, but freelancers are always individual people.

As a freelancer, you can work anywhere in the world. You’ll want to look up the rules for the governing authorities in your country or city. It’s different everywhere, but most freelancers need to have a business license from the city they live in and the country’s government. Taxes are usually paid every quarter, and freelancers need to make sure that they withhold some of their income to pay taxes.

The fees for freelancers to not register are usually about the same as the taxes are worth, so it’s like paying double for taxes if you haven’t registered your company yet. As with anything legal, you should hire a tax attorney or tax advisor before starting any new job.

If you have received or desire to issue any legal document, you must consult a lawyer. Kdan Mobile provides this template for educational purposes only, and you are always responsible for the creation of any legal agreements you sign. By clicking "download," you agree to indemnify and hold harmless and inure Kdan Mobile for any damages incurred due to the use of the said template for commercial purposes.

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