You may have just started your business and are so excited about taking things ahead. One of the main responsibilities of owning your own venture is that you need every activity you work through to be legally documented and if possible, signed on a contract. Here are some of the common legal documents that you would need to make a part of your business to keep it legitimate:
Partnership Agreement: If you have a partner working with you and contributing in some way toward your business, you need to make sure that there is a properly written and signed legal contract between two or more partners. In the contract, you need to specifically mention to what length each partner is chipping in, what is the capital input ratio and what percentage of the total profits and loss each partner will be taking home. Yes, today everything may seem fine and things may be going smoothly, but tomorrow you may never know what legalities might take place and it will be at that vital moment that you would need to bring forth the great Partnership Agreement for all the technicalities to be placed forth in black and white.
Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA): This is another important legal document that needs to be signed with every person that has access to your business information. Maybe you have come up with awesome software that could revolutionize your field or maybe you have a product or service that you know is going to make a difference in the world. Anyone beside you that in the knowledge of this vital information needs to legally state that they will not share it with anyone else or use it for any purpose apart from benefitting your enterprise. Without this important declaration, you cannot do anything to anyone who has leaked out your surprise to the world, at least not legally!
Contractual Agreements: You may have heard about this term from celebrities who enter into these agreements for a certain number of years and promise to do a certain amount of work. The same holds true for a corporate business that is run by you. In it you need to clearly note the duration of the work, what type of activity is being done and for how long and for what amount. The reason you need to do this is because you are busy running your business and you seriously cannot afford to have someone sue you or leave their work half completed. This legal document will bind them and obligate them to finish what they started and do it on time.
As per the business you run, there would be many other legal contracts that you might have to enter into. You might think you are running a small enterprise and nothing could go wrong. But if you grow exponentially later, you do not want to face legal issues just because you didn’t sign an official document about the work you are doing. Be smart and sign on the dotted line!
Liked this article? Have any suggestions to other business contracts that you would like to share? Comment below!
