A contract checklist for small teams

Fifteen things to check before you send any contract: from the right legal names to termination, payment, ownership and who signs in what order. A practical list you can reuse every time.

By The DocuBunny Team · Guides

Most contract problems are not caused by exotic legal traps. They come from ordinary things that were left out, left vague, or never noticed because nobody was checking. A short, repeatable checklist catches the majority of them. Use this one before sending any agreement.

Before you send

The basics

  1. Who exactly is agreeing? Use full legal names, including the company form (Ltd, LLC, SRL), and the right address. “Acme” is not a party; “Acme Trading Ltd” is.
  2. Who is signing, and can they sign? For a company, check that the signer has the authority to commit it.
  3. What is the date, and when does the agreement start and end?

The deal

  1. Scope. What is being delivered, in specific terms? Include what is not covered if there is likely to be confusion.
  2. Deliverables and deadlines. Dates beat phrases like “as soon as possible”.
  3. Price and payment terms. How much, when it is due, how it is invoiced, and what happens with late payment.
  4. Changes. How are extra requests handled, and who approves extra cost?

The risk

  1. Ownership of work. Who owns what is created, and from when? A common pattern is that ownership passes on full payment.
  2. Confidentiality. What must be kept private, and for how long?
  3. Liability. Is there a cap on what either side can owe the other? This is one of the clauses worth having a lawyer look at.
  4. Ending the contract. How can each side leave, with how much notice, and what is paid for work already done?
  5. Governing law and disputes. Which country’s law applies, and where are disagreements settled?

The paperwork

  1. Signature blocks. Is there a place for every party, including printed name and date?
  2. Signing order. Who signs first? In DocuBunny you can set the order so the contract moves on only when the previous signer has finished.
  3. Expiry. If the other side does not sign in a reasonable time, should the offer lapse? An expiry date avoids stale offers being accepted months later.

After it is signed

  • Everyone gets the fully signed copy, along with the audit trail.
  • Put key dates in your calendar: renewal, notice periods, payment milestones.
  • Store it where the team can find it. A contract nobody can locate is as good as no contract.

Make the checklist automatic

Checklists work best when you do not have to remember them. That is the point of templates: if the right clauses are already in the template, you can only forget them by deleting them. Read how reusable templates save hours for a way to turn this list into a starting point you reuse for every new client or hire.

The AI Co-Pilot can also act as a second pair of eyes. Ask it to summarise a contract and flag unusual clauses, and compare the result with the checklist above. We describe how in how the AI Co-Pilot reads the fine print.

A last word on lawyers

A checklist is not a substitute for legal advice. For contracts that involve large sums, long commitments, intellectual property or anything unusual, paying a lawyer to review the document once, and then turning it into a template, is usually money well spent.

This article is general information, not legal advice.