Contracts and signatures

A contract in ArchiveSend is one link carrying three things: what you agreed, a place to sign it, and the retainer owed to hold the date. Your client opens it on their phone and deals with all three at once.

Writing it

A new contract opens with the shape of an agreement already in it: coverage, retainer and payment, cancellation, image rights, delivery. Edit it down to what you actually offer.

It is a starting point and not legal advice. Have somebody qualified read your terms before you rely on them, once, and then you have them forever.

Sending it

Mark it ready to sign and you get a link. Send that however you already talk to clients. Anyone holding the link can open the contract, so send it to your client and not to a group chat.

How signing works

Your client types their name. We record the name, the date and time, their IP address, and a fingerprint of the exact wording they agreed to.

That last one is the part that matters. Once signed, the terms, the title and the retainer are frozen and cannot be edited. If the contract were ever changed afterwards, the fingerprint would no longer match and both of you could tell.

Typed-name signing with that record is the ordinary way agreements of this kind are signed online. If a particular client needs something heavier, use a dedicated e-signature service for that one.

If they do not sign

They can decline, which you will see on the contract. You can set an expiry date so an unanswered offer lapses by itself. You can void a contract at any point before it is signed, and the link stops working.

A signed contract cannot be voided, because by then it is evidence rather than a draft. Raise a new one if the job changes.