General Questions
Who writes the templates?
Our templates are written by a team of female Australian lawyers. Your templates are written by practising lawyers who deal with female founders running small businesses on a daily basis, and having been doing so for years.
Are you based in Australia?
Yes, we are based in NSW, Australia, but we deliver our services to businesses all over Australia.
Can I use the template if I don’t live in Australia?
No. We’re only Australian lawyers, so we don’t recommend that you use templates internationally. It’s best that you work with a lawyer in your location to ensure that you’re properly protected.
If you’re an Australian business owner who delivers goods or service online internationally, you can use our templates but keep in mind that you may also be covered by the law in the location of your clients or customers. If you’re unsure, feel free to book in a call with us.
Are you a law firm?
Yes, we are an Australian law firm based in NSW and registered with the NSW Law Society.
Do you give legal advice?
Our templates aren’t legal advice. They are a legal document that you purchase and take a do-it-yourself approach to. However, if you engage us for customisation of a legal template you buy, or book a call for legal advice with us, then that constitutes legal services.
We provide legal advice on our advice calls, but we don’t provide advice over the phone if you haven’t booked an advice call.
Legal Advice Calls
What is the difference between calling you and booking a legal advice call?
You’re welcome to call us with any questions or concerns you have. However, we can’t give legal advice on our usual phone calls or by email. We can talk to you about the features and benefits of our templates, how to make a purchase and use our templates, provide technical support and answer your general questions.
Legal advice calls are a dedicated legal service appointment where you’ll talk to one of our female lawyers about how the law applies to your business, and how our templates and services can help you. This is legal advice.
Do I need a legal advice call?
If you don’t know what you don’t know or have a specific legal question, then you should book in for an advice call to take advantage of our legal expertise and our experience working with hundreds of women in business. Some common topics we can address as part of our legal advice calls include:
- Helping you identify risks associated with your business
- Advice about which legal documents you need to protect your business
- Ideas about how to protect your intellectual property
- Guidance on how to safely grow a team
- Weighing up the pros and cons of different business structures
- Directing you to helpful websites, resources and providers
- Helping you to prioritise what you need to do to balance budget, time and risk
What we don’t help with on legal advice calls
- Leasing or property
- Complex disputes
- Complex structuring questions (for example, where multiple different businesses and people are involved)
- Buying or selling a business
- complex employment advice (for example employee disputes, unfair dismissal claims, etc)
- customising templates (book our customisation service for this)
Not sure if we can help? Contact us, tell us more about your problem, and we’ll either help you book an advice call or connect you with one of our talented, trusted colleagues who can help.
How much is a legal advice call?
Our legal advice calls are $350 + GST for a 20-minute phone call.
Document Questions
What format does my template come in?
When you place an order with us, you’ll be sent an email with an editable version of your template in Word format.
Can I edit the templates?
Yes, your template will be delivered in an editable Word format. There are specific instructions about how to edit your document as part of your template.
Can I re-use or share my template?
As you can appreciate, there’s a lot of effort, energy, time and money that goes into running a small business. For this reason, when you purchase a template with us, you’re purchasing a template for your business only. If you have several businesses, please contact us and we can discuss a discount with you.
You are also prohibited from sharing our templates with another third-party business or individual. Each business that wants to use our templates must purchase their own template.
You are not permitted to use parts of our legal templates to make a new document or attempt to create another agreement using our clauses.
If you’re at all unsure, please reach out to us to discuss your plans.
What do I do if I get stuck or need support?
If you need technical help completing your document, please email us at admin@thecontractscollective.com.au and we’ll respond as soon as possible. Please be sure to include your phone number in case we need to contact you to provide technical support. If you need a lawyer to help you understand how the agreement applies to your business, or how you can tweak it further to better suit your needs, book our template customisation service.
What if I need a document that you don’t have yet?
Please let us know – we’re always looking to expand our resource and template library based on what small business owners need. If it’s a type of document that we think is appropriate for small business, then we may create a new template for you to purchase, otherwise we’ll let you know what your options are to get the help you need.
Are the templates legally binding?
Yes. We’ve designed our templates to be legally binding. However, you need to follow our instructions about displaying and singing them in order to ensure that they are binding.
We provide these instructions as part of your template as instructions may change depending on the exact document. For example, some documents can be displayed on your website, while others need to be explicitly shown to your customers at a particular time.
Can I use your templates in any state or territory?
Yes. Our templates are designed to be used by businesses anywhere in Australia, but if you’re unsure if state or territory specific legislation impacts your agreements, make sure to add customisation so you can have a legal check.
How often are the templates updated?
We work with small business owners on a daily basis in our capacity as business lawyers. This means that we’re keeping abreast of changes and updates and we apply these regularly to our templates. If you’d like to know when a template was last updated, please contact us.
How do we sign the documents?
When you purchase a template from us, you’ll receive instructions with that template about how to execute (sign) the document. Where possible, we create documents that can be signed electronically, or can be accepted through conduct (e.g. by buying an item, you agree to the terms and conditions, etc). If you need your document to be signed in a particular way or work with a system, please reach out to us.
Do I need a witness to sign the contract?
Generally, you don’t need a witness to sign one of our templates. If you do require a witness signature, we’ll provide instructions about this in your template package.
Contract Customisation
Do I need contract customisation?
You are free to purchase a template and D-I-Y it yourself. However, some people may find that they need some slight adjustments to the agreement or want to add extra clauses, or similar. If you do need this level of customisation or need help making changes, we recommend that you purchase our customisation add-on package.
How does contract customisation work?
If you purchase our contract customisation package, you’ll be required to complete a questionnaire form to communicate the changes you require to us. If after reading your form, we require further information from you or need to chat it out, we’ll give you a call. Otherwise, we’ll get to work making the changes to your contract template and deliver the final version in Word by email to you.
Our contract customisation package constitutes a legal service. This means that you’ll be required to sign our costs agreement before we get started.
Do you customise other documents?
We can only offer document customisation on templates purchase through The Contracts Collective.
What happens if I need to make further changes?
Our contract customisation does not include a round of review. If you need further changes, please let us know what is required and these will be subject to additional fees. We’ll let you know what we think the cost will be before we get started.
What is your refund policy?
We offer refunds in accordance with our obligations under the Australian Consumer Law. Otherwise, due to the nature of our goods, we don’t offer refunds for change of mind.
If you believe that you’ve made an honest mistake, please reach out to us for help. If you’re unsure what templates you need for your business, we recommend you book an advice call with us before purchasing.
How much is contract customisation?
Our contract customisation packages start from $499 + GST. If you only need a minor change or are unsure about what you need, please reach out to us.
Orders
How can I pay for the templates?
We accept payment using the methods listed on our website at checkout. These may change from time to time but usually include credit or debit card payment through Stripe.
Is the payment one-off or recurring?
When you purchase one of our templates, this is a one-off payment. You then have lifetime access to the document.
If you have purchased a customisation add on for your template, this will be subject to additional fees.
When do I receive my template?
You will receive your template by email in Word format once your payment has been processed.
Are you a law firm?
Yes, we are an Australian law firm based in NSW and registered with the NSW Law Society.
What is your refund policy?
We offer refunds in accordance with our obligations under the Australian Consumer Law. Otherwise, due to the nature of our goods, we don’t offer refunds for change of mind.
If you believe that you’ve made an honest mistake, please reach out to us for help. If you’re unsure what templates you need for your business, we recommend you book an advice call with us before purchasing.