Service and trade agreement document templates

What these agreements have in common

Each one is written for a single job between a supplier and a customer, and each sets out the same six things: who the parties are, exactly what work is included and excluded, what it costs and when that is payable, how long it runs and how either side ends it, who carries the risk and holds the insurance, and where the two parties sign. The scope section is the one that varies most, because a weekly cleaning run, a fixed price roof replacement and a monthly IT retainer describe their work in completely different shapes. The rest of the structure stays close to constant.

Choosing the closest starting point

Match the billing shape before you match the trade. Recurring work billed monthly, such as cleaning, lawn mowing, pest control, HVAC maintenance, IT support or personal training, wants a service schedule, a visit frequency and a rolling term. Fixed price project work, such as electrical, plumbing, roofing, painting, landscaping, web design or software development, wants milestones, a variation process and a defined completion. Event and creative work such as catering, videography, a DJ set or graphic design sits between the two, with a deposit, a date that cannot move and a cancellation scale. The agreement closest to your billing shape needs the least rewriting.

What to check before you use one

Licensing and insurance details are written as content on these pages and are illustrative, so replace every licence number, ABN and policy limit with your own before sending anything. Where a trade is regulated, the agreement names the relevant regulator rather than inventing a rule, and the Australian examples say so in their copy. Clause by clause wording for the payment, liability, termination and intellectual property sections lives in the clause collections, which go further into the variants and the negotiation points than a finished agreement can.

Every page in this collection

• Bookkeeping services agreement with a monthly scope table

  Bookkeeping goes wrong when nobody wrote down which tasks are monthly, which are weekly, and who has to hand over what before a statement can be lodged. This agreement settles all three in a scope table and a lodgement calendar, then prices the whole year so the cafe can see what it is committing to.

• Catering contract template with a menu table and a guest numbers lock

  Catering is priced per head and delivered per plate, which is why the two clauses that matter most are the one that locks the number and the one that says who gets what. This contract prices six courses per head, freezes numbers 14 days out, and puts every dietary requirement in a matrix with the main and the dessert each guest is served.

• Cleaning services agreement template with a room by room scope table

  Almost every argument about commercial cleaning is an argument about what was in the scope, so this agreement puts the scope in a table with a room, a task list and a frequency on every line. It then settles what a dental practice worries about: who holds the keys, who has been police checked, and what the consumables cost.

• DJ contract template with set times, power and an overtime rate

  A DJ booking is made on a phone call and remembered differently by everyone. This agreement writes the night down as six timed segments, says exactly what power and space the venue has to supply, and prices the hour after midnight before anyone is asking for it at midnight.

• Electrical contractor agreement with a licence clause and staged payments

  Electrical work is the one trade where the paperwork at the end matters as much as the work, because without the certificate the installation is not signed off. This agreement ties the last payment stage to that certificate and sets the progress claim deadlines the payment legislation actually uses.

• Event planning contract with a vendor table and a spending limit

  Most event disputes are really one of two arguments: who was actually contracted to the caterer, and who approved the extra $3,000. This contract answers both on the first two pages, with a vendor table that names the contracting party on every line and a spending limit the planner cannot quietly exceed.

• Graphic design contract template with concepts, rounds and usage rights

  Two things end design relationships: an endless run of revisions nobody priced, and a client who does not know whether they can put the logo on a shirt they sell. This contract counts the concepts and rounds for every deliverable and sets out the usage rights medium by medium.

• Handyman services agreement with an hourly rate and a job list

  Handyman work is bought by the hour but decided by the list, and the list is usually a conversation at the front door that nobody wrote down. This agreement turns the walkthrough into six numbered jobs with estimates, and then names the work a handyman is not allowed to do at all.

• HVAC maintenance agreement with a visit checklist and a parts cap

  Planned maintenance contracts usually fail in the gap between the scheduled visit and the breakdown nobody priced. This one fixes the checklist for both visits, sets a 48 hour response, and gives the contractor a $300 ceiling to fix small things on the spot instead of booking a second trip.

• IT support services agreement with response times by priority

  Managed support is sold on a monthly fee and judged on how fast the phone gets answered when nobody can work. This agreement grades every ticket into four priorities with a published response and resolution target, credits the fee when the target is missed, and writes down exactly what the provider hands back on the way out.

• Landscaping contract template with a plant schedule and an establishment period

  A garden build is two jobs in one: construction that is finished when it is finished, and planting that is only finished three months later. This contract prices the construction in four stages, lists every plant with its pot size and quantity, and holds the landscaper to a 90 day establishment period for anything that dies.

• Lawn mowing service agreement for a fortnightly strata round

  A mowing round only goes wrong in two places: the week it rains and the week a gate is locked. This agreement prices the whole year as a schedule, says what happens to a visit lost to weather, and puts the gate and the dog in a clause rather than in a text message.

• Marketing agency agreement with a channel scope and ad spend held apart

  The two things that break an agency relationship are a scope nobody can point at and a fee that quietly includes the advertising budget. This retainer puts the work in a table with the hours and the reported metric for each channel, then keeps every dollar of ad spend in the accounts of the client where it belongs.

• Painting contract template with a colour schedule and a coats standard

  Most painting disputes are really arguments about how many coats went on and what counts as preparation. This contract writes both down before the first drop sheet comes out, puts every room, colour and finish in a schedule, and leaves a touch up window open for 30 days after the furniture goes back.

• Personal training agreement with session packs and a health screen

  Personal training is sold in packs and argued about in cancellations, and the screening step that should come first is usually a form nobody kept. This agreement prices three pack sizes with expiry dates, requires the pre exercise screening before the first session, and says exactly when unused sessions are refunded.

• Pest control service agreement with a treatment table and re-entry times

  A restaurant does not buy pest control, it buys the record that proves pest control happened. This agreement puts the product and the re-entry time against every pest, keeps the safety data sheets in a site folder, and commits the technician to a seven year service history an auditor can ask for.

• Plumbing works contract with a fixture scope table and a compliance certificate

  A bathroom job goes over budget in the hour the floor comes up and somebody finds old cast iron drainage. This contract prices every fixture separately, holds a named allowance for what nobody could see, and makes the final payment wait for the compliance certificate.

• Removalist agreement template with an inventory and access terms

  A removalist quote is built from an inventory and an access survey, so the agreement should carry both rather than a price alone. This one lists the job room by room, records what the crew found at each address, and prices the two things that blow out a move: waiting time and a truck that cannot park.

• Roofing contract template with a materials table and a weather rule

  A roof replacement is the one job where the house is open to the sky at the end of the day, so the clause that matters most is the one about closing it. This contract limits how much roof can be stripped at once, names every product with its warranty years, and says who pays when water gets in.

• Security services agreement with a roster table and licence checks

  A guarding contract is really two promises: that the hours are filled and that the licence behind every hour is current. This agreement puts 154 hours a week in a roster table, credits unfilled shifts rather than invoicing them, and requires an incident report within two hours of the incident ending.

• Software development agreement with sprints and an acceptance test

  Custom software goes wrong in the space between delivered and accepted, where one side thinks a sprint is finished and the other is still writing a list. This agreement fixes a ten business day acceptance window against criteria written before the sprint started, and assigns the intellectual property sprint by sprint as each invoice is paid.

• Translation services agreement with word rates and turnaround bands

  Translation is priced by the word and judged by the deadline, so an agreement that names neither is just a handshake. This one puts five language pairs and two rates in a table, bands the turnaround by word count, and says exactly what a certified translation is before anyone argues about whether the authority will accept it.

• Tutoring agreement template with weekly sessions and progress notes

  Parents pay for tutoring and then wait months to find out whether it is working. This agreement puts a written progress note every four weeks, prices the whole school year term by term, and carries the tutor's working with children check number so a parent can verify it in a minute.

• Videography contract template with shoot days and a delivery table

  Video work is quoted in days and judged in files, and the two rarely match up in writing. This contract sets out the crew hours for each shoot day, lists nine deliverables with a length, a format and a date, and answers the two questions clients ask last: who gets the raw footage, and can the music be used in an ad.

• Web design contract template with milestones and revision rounds

  Website projects rarely fail on design. They stall because the content never arrives and nobody wrote down what happens next. This contract dates every milestone on both sides, deems a stage approved if the client goes quiet, and moves the launch by a day for every day the copy is late.