Where to Find Sample Small Business Agreements

In the course of running a small business, you will inevitably encounter situations in which you would need to enter into small business agreements. Whether it’s a sales contract, a consultancy contract, or perhaps even a non-disclosure agreement, it is usually for the protection of all parties involved if the terms of a partnership, sale or agreement are formalized and written in black and white.

Big businesses might have corporate lawyers on their payroll, but for an entrepreneur, you would usually have to rely on yourself and a few online resources where you can obtain sample agreements. After all, dealing with fellow small businesses won’t necessarily mean having to enter into expensive, expertly-crafted contracts. You can use sample agreements found online as a template. Here are some sources.

FindLaw

FindLaw’s Small Business Center is a rich resource of forms, templates and other legal resources relating to small businesses. One of the more popular resources on this site are those on incorporation, taxes and intellectual property. FindLaw does have sample agreements of all kinds. For example, the site has sample sales contracts, lease agreements, service agreements, real property agreements, and even sample government contracts.

MoreBusiness

MoreBusiness is another resources for sample business-oriented documents. These include non-disclosure agreements, lease agreements, press releases, and business status reports. These sample agreements are directly presented online and one can simply copy and paste these onto a Document file.

Small Business Notes

Small Business Notes offers various resources for small business owners. Some examples of these are sample partnership agreements, sample consulting agreements, lease agreements and the like. It’s not as organized as FindLaw and MoreBusiness, though, but the text of the sample agreements is still usable as a template for business agreements.

SmallBusiness.com

SmallBusiness.com is a wiki dedicated to small business information. Being a wiki, users and readers can contribute their own edits and additions to the site, as they deem necessary—much like how WikiPedia works.

With these resources, some of the essential sample forms and agreements you may need include:

• Lease Agreements – These are useful when you are leasing or renting office space, equipment, and other facilities that may be important to running your business.
• Consultancy Agreements – These are useful if you are contracting out or outsourcing some work to another company, consultant or freelancer.
• Buy / Sell Agreements – These are useful if you are entering into a contract to supply another firm with products or services, or if you are securing products or services from them.

As with any other contract or agreement, these should only be used as templates and the pro-forma wordings should be altered to suit your needs. For instance, legal terms might be different from state to state or country to country. Also, remember that when entering into business agreements with contractors or other small businesses, it’s always a good idea to cover all your bases—read the wordings carefully to make sure there are no loopholes that can be exploited later on. And for the protection of parties concerned, legal documents should be properly notarized.