Agreement templates
Professionally designed agreements are a key ingredient in any business relationship. Whether you’re a freelancer, a large corporation, or something in between, our agreement templates can help you protect your legal rights while saving time during document creation. Download any template today to get started.
What is an agreement between two parties?
A legal agreement between two parties takes place when both parties have reached a mutual position and have exchanged something of value — called “consideration” — between one another.
Here are a few common examples of legal contract agreements:
Service agreements
Confidentiality agreements
Agency agreements
Rental agreements
Loan agreements
Lease agreements
Non-compete agreements
Non-disclosure agreements
Freelance / independent contractor agreements
In each case, the listed agreement protects both parties from legal recourse while allowing parties to share resources or information in exchange for something else.
For example, in the case of a service contract agreement, a company may outline the rate of pay in exchange for the services provided by the other party. This makes sense when intangible services like cleaning or technical support need to be rendered.
On the other hand, something like a rental agreement might outline the payment for specific items like room and board or certain terms of the agreement like the ability to sublet a living space.
Other kinds of agreements protect confidential information or allow freelancers and independent contractors to use a company’s intellectual property while ensuring that they can’t take credit for it.
The best agreement templates for business
A variety of agreements are common in the business world, but which contracts your company needs comes down to the type of work you do, the individuals you hire, the service or product you produce, and the scope of work that your organization is required to complete.
You may need written documents, like an employment contract or purchase agreement, in order to hire workers or sell products in bulk. In fact, you may already have many of these business contracts and legal agreements in place.
Take a close look at every function of your business and see if you need to produce any additional legal documents. Do your employees and freelancers need to sign a non-disclosure agreement (NDA)? Have your business partners signed their partnership agreements?
Staying on top of these documents can be tedious, but they are essential to protect your company and its intellectual property from legal jeopardy.
Better legal agreements with PandaDoc
Creating effective legal contracts is only one part of the equation.
Many of these documents are so commonplace that they can be reduced to a standard company boilerplate, but it varies from industry to industry. Healthcare companies may have patient intake forms while lenders require loan agreements with a set payment schedule.
Once you’ve created an initial draft of your business agreement, you can save time by creating an agreement template within PandaDoc.
Templates allow you to generate documents much faster than you would when using tools like Microsoft Word. Plus, by sending those contracts through a secure digital platform, you can gather and store all relevant information and get to work quickly.
Frequently asked questions
What is an agreement in legal terms?
From a legal standpoint, an “agreement” is a mutual understanding between two or more persons. That agreement is not legally binding.
A great example of this would be a letter of intent, where both parties want to ensure a proper understanding before they commit to a contract.
To make an agreement legally binding, something of value — called consideration — must be exchanged as part of the agreement. If no consideration is provided, then an agreement is not legally binding.
However, it’s important to note that contracts are often called agreements. In the business world, signing an “agreement” is often considered common parlance for signing a contract.
Is every agreement a contract?
No, but contracts are often called agreements. An agreement becomes a contract when:
It offers terms with unconditional acceptance
Involves parties with the legal capacity to understand the terms and obligations of the agreement
Exchanges something of value
It indicates that the agreement is legally binding
When those terms are met, the agreement is a contract. From a business perspective, it is generally assumed that both parties intended to enter into a contract.
Keep in mind that the item of value (consideration) being exchanged is often reflected by a change in the original position of either party before entering into the contract.
While consideration can be something as simple as an exchange of money for goods, consideration might also be intangible.
For example:
If your small business promises to deliver 20 hours of work to a subcontractor per week for a set period of time — thereby requiring the subcontractor to commit to 20 hours of exclusive work for your organization each week for the duration of the contract — that guarantee of work would be deemed “consideration” in the eyes of a court.
Assuming that your agreement doesn’t include clauses about variable hours, you may be responsible for paying the subcontractor for 20 hours worth of work each week whether or not you have the work to deliver to them.
If you’re ever unsure about what may or may not be considered a contract, it’s always best to seek legal advice before entering into any kind of agreement with an outside party.
Do my agreements require a signature?
While it’s a common misconception, neither contracts nor agreements require a signature in order to become legally binding.
In fact, legally binding contracts don’t even need to be written down, as evidenced by handshake deals and oral contracts!
However, it’s always best (and safer) to get everything in writing in order to prevent misunderstandings or miscommunication. Take the time to collect the right contact information, define the terms of an agreement, and create delivery and payment schedules that make sense before signing anything.
Creating a high-quality legal document could save both parties thousands in legal fees later on.
PandaDoc makes this easy by allowing parties to create contracts, negotiate terms, and sign documents using legally binding electronic signatures all inside the same platform.
Whether you can get by with a one-page service agreement or you need a vetted legal document with contingencies at every step, PandaDoc has you covered.
Is an agreement binding?
Once something of value is exchanged between knowing parties, an agreement becomes binding. This item of value is called consideration, and this practice is true even outside the business world.
Real estate operates on housing contracts, room rental agreements, sublease agreements, roommate agreements, and more. When renters sign a lease, often for a 12-month rental, they are entering into a binding agreement by consenting to pay something of value (money) for the right to live in a space for a set period of time.
Binding agreements are prevalent in every aspect of societal life. Even child custody and separation agreements are considered a type of contract based on the laws of the state.
How do I write an agreement?
In order to write an effective agreement, you’ll need to determine if you intend it to be legally binding and what you plan to offer.
In the case of real estate, the offer is straightforward. However, for many business operations, that offer may not be as clear. Sales agreements or payment agreements often can’t be written as a boilerplate and require negotiation. This is why proposals and quotes are common before a contract is created.
No matter what kind of agreement you want to create, the PandaDoc template library has hundreds of examples to help you get started. Browse through our library of contract templates and find one that suits your needs.
After you finish your draft, we recommend that you consult legal experts to help you finalize more sensitive contracts.
Once you’ve created an effective agreement, you can upload it to the PandaDoc editor and use our software to insert custom variables and fields for electronic signatures before sending your documents to your service providers and employees.
What kind of templates can I create with PandaDoc?
The possibilities are limitless. Because any document in PandaDoc can become a template, you can create templates from simple invoices to complex services agreements.
This can include:
Confidentiality agreement templates
Rental agreement templates
Invoice templates
Purchase agreement templates
Standard agency agreement template
NDA and confidentiality templates
And more
To expedite services further, you can even save modified versions of our documents inside your PandaDoc library as personal contract templates.
Creating complex legal agreement templates or consulting agreement templates can save hours of time when onboarding new clients.
Can I use your agreement templates in Word?
Yes and no. While you can download our templates in a PDF format and import them into Microsoft Word, they won’t be fully editable as they would be in PandaDoc.
Using the PandaDoc document editor, you can write out your contract details, format the document in a way that represents your business, and even use specialized tools to set pricing and collect payment details.
By editing our templates in Word, you may find yourself limited in terms of document creation.
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