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Square

Introducing Build your Contract with Square

Hi Community Friends!

 

Over the last few months I’ve been working closely with sellers who want to learn more about how to accept credit card payments while ensuring their business is protected. A key pain point for sellers when they make the decision to accept credit card payments is the threat or occurrence of a chargeback.  While we do everything we can to monitor your account for potential fraud, Square wants to do more to help you understand what you need to do in order to best protect your business from non-fraud disputes and ensure you get paid for the work you do.

 

One of the best ways to avoid misunderstandings or late payment is to have a contract in place with your customer, particularly for larger pieces of work where your customers have very specific preferences. You may be thinking that sounds like overkill -- and it probably is for certain types of businesses like coffee shops or restaurants. But for freelancers or business owners who work on a project basis or in wholesale, a contract is a key step you can take upfront that can help you through a difficult scenario down the road.

 

So, starting today, we’re excited to announce that you can now build your contract with Square!* To start, here are two contract templates that you can use to prepare a contract that fits your needs.

 

  1. Service Based Contract Template
  2. Sale of Goods Contract Template

 

Here’s how it works:

 

  1. Choose the template that best suits your business (sale of goods or provision of services)
  2. Download the template with the link above
  3. Follow the instructions to prepare the contract
  4. Save your contract and send it to your customer (remember to get a signature upon agreement!)

 

We know that there are plenty of businesses out there that may be looking for additional detail or different templates. Don’t worry, we’re just getting started. We would LOVE your feedback on what works for you and what you would like to see in the future.

 

Do any of you already have a contract service that you use for your business? What has been most helpful for you to manage and track all of your sales and customers? Feel free to comment below with any questions or feedback, thanks!

 

*Square is not a law firm, an attorney or a professional advisor in any industry. Square provides this template to individuals who choose to prepare their own contractual documents and does not constitute legal advice.

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Super Seller Alumni

Best Answer

Love love love Square. Always thinking of better ways to help.

View Best Answer >

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Super Seller Alumni

Best Answer

Love love love Square. Always thinking of better ways to help.

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Square

Thanks Ron! 

 

We're also always looking for your feedback to help us improve the tools we're creating for our sellers. If you have any suggestions or recommendations regarding the first iteration of the template (besides the file format...we know Word is not ideal, we're just getting started), then we'd love to hear them!

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I'm loving Square Contracts! The only issues I'm having are marking a contract signed if I have emailed it first and then had to print it for them to sign in person instead and deleting a contract after it has been sent in the event that the client opts not to move forward. If I could get those two features (and maybe accessing the contracts in my regular dashboard) that would be amazing!

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Thanks for the feedback @sewfittingllc ! We are actively working on improving the product experience as this is still a new product, so your feedback is super helpful. On the 'mark as signed' comment, if you had the ability to mark 'emailed' contracts as signed would you want to be able to re-upload a copy of the signed contract you received in person for your records? 

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Being able to upload a signed copy would be great!

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Awesome, thanks for the feedback! This is super valuable - I'll bring this back to the product team. 

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I'd love to see a way for the contracts to be digitially signed by clients. Possibly something like Agree. We can pay per contract, or what not. I currently pay seperately for a contract manager -- I'd love to have a one stop place for contracts and invoices!

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Thanks for sharing your feedback Ashley! We're definitely looking into different ways to add new features such as digital signatures for our sellers. So we can continue to do research, we'd love to hear a bit more about what you specifically find value in with your current contract manager solution. Do you pay to use Agree per contract generated and then attach the contract to your Square Invoice for your customers?

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Absolutely! I love square, I use it almost execlusively for every other service (marketing, booking, client management, all that jazz). 

 

The one key factor I’m missing is — contract management. At that point, I feel like we’d be giving them a run for their money!

 

I love that I can visually see each contract in a digital filing cabinet, the amount and the date, and if the client has viewed it/signed it. I also have a template since I normally use it for weddings — I can easily draft a new contract without having to retype anything. 

 

It’s 2018, I can tell you right now. No one wants to call to make an appointment, no one wants to mail a contract. They want it all digital and easy to use on mobile devices. I’d love to see something quick and painless and easy to keep up with. 

 

I know honeybook offers it and a lot of people in the wedding industry use it. As it’s the same cost as square. I personally wouldn’t mind paying a little extra for access to contract management all in one spot. 

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Thanks Ashley, that's great insight into what you're looking for in contract management. Completely agree with you regarding the move/desire from most to maintain a digital platform for all things business! Do you have a variety of templates you typically cycle through and edit per client or do you typically only use the wedding template and then modify the customer facing details per event?

 

What are you looking for most out of a contract? In other words, is the organization and tracking of payment what you value you most, is it ensuring your customer has all of the details infront of them about the event so you're both on the same page, or something else completely?

 

Thanks again for your feedback, it's incredibly helpful especially as we continue our research and development of the product!

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Hi Kfeks,

 

We use square to sell custom wedding cakes, so the contract helps give customer confidence that all the details of their cake are correct, as well as a way for us to clearly lay out expectations for the customer (e.g. that there's safe place to deliver the cake, that they won't put the cake in direct sunlight, etc.) We generally sign the contract prior to sending an invoice for the deposit (the contract is attached to the invoice). Currently we send the customer a pdf file, but they often take a long time to send it back (I've had customers sign the contract immediately, but wait 5 days to scan it and send it back to us). Customers generally do not understand how to digitally sign contracts via Adobe Acrobat or other tools, even if I suggest it as an option.

 

The basic requirements we need are:

 

- The contract should have a title and date

- We should be able to define sections of the contract (e.g. disclaimers)

- We should be able to embed images (e.g. pictures of a cake), or at least reference images within the contract

- We should be able to list itemized costs near the end of the contract

- We should be able to digitally sign the contract

- We should be able to link to the contract and/or send it to a customer's email

 

Until we have a solution in Square, we've been looking for other options online (e.g. Google forms), but would prefer to have it all on a common platform. 

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Thanks @ericr the feedback is incredibly helpful. We've designed 9 initial templates to gather feedback from sellers to see when or why they would use a contract with Square and what they're looking for from a contract service. Based on your description, would you mind taking a look at our Catering Service Agreement and let us know what you think? 

 

I recognize that we don't currently have an easy solution for embedding an image nor do we currently support e-signature integrations (all things we're looking into building in future iterations) but as far as content included, we would love to hear your thoughts.

 

To take a look at the other templates we currently have available, also please visit our Support Article and let us know what you think!

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I second this motion! We have a bike rental and repair shop, and have our customers sign a rental agreement or service agreement for each transaction. It would be great if we could have them sign each agreement on the POS or when we send them the invoice. We currently have the ability to attach a PDF file to the invoices but that's it. 

Ideally, when the customer comes in to the shop to rent a bike they could sign the agreement, pay for the bike, and receive a copy of both the agreement and reciept for payment in whichever method they select at checkout.

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Me too!  Looking for an esign capability for contracts so I can easily send a link to my contractors and they can sign and it's automatically in the system!   

 

Any word on when this may be a thing?

 

 

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Beta Member

I’m really hoping so. I use square for most stuff. Glad they just made appointments free. Even though it happened literally two weeks after I switch because of the cost. 😂 still looking for this. But I’ve adapted to using the current method for contract and it’s working okay!

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Also, I just request brides use mark up on iPhone. It’s been working so far. 

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Thanks Ashley! 

 

That's a great workaround, thanks for sharing that. As a quick follow up, we're doing additional insight work into how our sellers are finding the utility / value proposition of the product to date. You've been incredibly helpful so far, would you have time to speak further (15-20 minutes) on a call?

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I’d love to have a convo with you about how square works, and what I feel are some of the shortcomings with the system. Do you have time on Friday to chat?!

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Hi! I also completely agree with Ashlee, if there is a way to create the contract templates so they can be digitally signed that would be awesome. My client is a hairdresser who already uses Square and she would like to create a contract stating if they don’t like the color they chose they still have to pay for what they don’t like and correction or if they miss too many appointments they have to pay a fee. 

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Hi Telflein, 

 

Thanks for the feedback! We're definitely looking into different ways we can integrate with a digital signature functionality. Does your client use the Square Appointments application or are they using the reader to process payments through Square?

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