Setting up your contract templates
How to edit your fixed-fee and retainer contract templates, insert variables, set your standard contract values, and when a project picks up your changes.
Settings → Contracts holds the templates and standard values Billow drafts each project’s contract from. Everyone in the workspace can view the page, but only admins and owners can edit it.
Fixed-fee and retainer templates
The Default Templates card has two tabs, Fixed-fee and Retainer, with one template each. The payment terms of the two kinds of work differ, so each has its own wording.
Every new project’s contract starts from the Fixed-fee template. To use the Retainer template on a project, choose Load template… → Retainer in the project’s contract editor. See Contracts and signatures.
Edit a template
Go to Settings → Contracts.
In the Default Templates card, open the Fixed-fee or Retainer tab.
Edit the text in the editor.
Click Save templates.
Billow shows “Contract settings updated successfully.”
Insert a variable
A variable is a placeholder that Billow replaces with the project’s data, such as the account’s name, the project name or your payment terms.
Type { where the variable should go.
Choose a variable from the list, or keep typing to filter it.
The list groups variables under Project, for data that comes from the project and its offer, and Settings, for the standard values further down this page.
Secondary Tax Rate only has a value when the project’s offer has a second tax rate.
Reset a template to the default
Open the tab of the template you want to reset.
Click Reset to default, next to the tabs.
Click Reset in the dialog.
Reset template? Resetting will replace your current edits with the default template. This cannot be undone.
Only the template on the open tab is reset. Resetting the Fixed-fee template leaves the Retainer template untouched.
Resetting fills the editor without saving. Click Save templates to keep the result. If you leave the page instead, the reset is discarded.
Standard values
The cards below the templates hold the values your templates refer to. Each card has its own Save button. None of the fields are required, so fill in the ones your templates use.
Card | Fields | Default |
|---|---|---|
Performance of Services | Communication tool, response time in hours, phone number, notification threshold in hours | None |
Remuneration and Invoicing | Hourly rate, monthly hours, payment terms in days | Payment terms: 30 days |
Confidentiality | Confidentiality period in months | 6 months |
Non-Compete Clause | Non-compete period in months | None |
Termination | Termination notice in weeks | 4 weeks |
Jurisdiction | City and country whose law applies | None |
When changes reach a project
A project takes its own copy of the template text when its offer is created. From then on, editing the template in Settings → Contracts does not change that project’s contract. To change the wording of an existing project’s contract, edit it on the project itself.
Your standard values keep updating on a project’s contract until you sign it. After that, the contract stays as signed, except that its deliverables and totals still drop any add-on your client declines.
