5 Reasons Your Service Agreement Isn't Working and How to Upgrade with Professional Contract Templates

In an increasingly connected and competitive professional world, service agreements templates are crucial for ensuring clarity, legal security, and efficiency in collaborations between entities or between professionals and their clients. A poorly structured contract model can lead to misunderstandings, legal disputes, and financial losses.

This article identifies five common reasons why your service agreement might not be effective and offers solutions for improvement.

1. Lack of Specificity in Service Definition and Scope of Work

Issue: A template service agreement vague about the services to be provided can lead to unrealistic expectations and conflicts between the parties involved.

Solution: Ensure you detail the services to be provided, including specific terms, deliverables, deadlines, and any other relevant details. This clarifies expectations for both parties and minimizes the possibility of misinterpretations or conflicts. Including performance standards that the provider must meet, either agreed upon through the service agreement or by referring to industry standards, can further clarify expectations. The service agreement template offered by Docs & Deeds is detailed, helping you list the complete characteristics of the services to be provided, as well as the criteria for evaluating their compliance.

2. Insufficient Flexibility for Project Changes

Issue: Rigid service agreements templates that do not allow adjustments to the scope or timelines of a project can lead to frustrations and additional costs when market conditions change or the business evolves.

Solution: Incorporate flexibility clauses in your contract template that allow for reviewing and adjusting terms in case of project evolution. Such contractual clauses can include procedures for requesting and approving changes to the contract object, schedule, or budget. They ensure the contract model remains relevant and practical for the dynamic realities of projects, minimizing disputes and facilitating adaptation to new requirements or opportunities for your business. These clauses foster a trusting relationship between parties, demonstrating both parties' commitment to work together in a flexible and adaptive manner. The service agreement template provided by Docs & Deeds contains clauses that allow for adapting the contract to potential changes during its execution. 

3. Template Contract Contains Inadequate Confidentiality Clauses

Issue: The protection of sensitive information exchanged between parties during the service agreement execution is not adequately ensured, allowing unauthorized disclosure of sensitive data.

Solution: Integrate complex confidentiality clauses that specify what information is considered confidential, the parties' obligations regarding protecting this information, and the consequences of violating these terms. The service agreement model we offer contains confidentiality protection clauses drafted and verified by professional lawyers, comprehensively defining the content of confidential information and permitted cases of disclosure. For breaching confidentiality obligations, our contract models contain provisions on liability allocation.

4. Template Contract Contains Unclear Payment Terms

Issue: Ambiguities related to payments, whether regarding the amount set or the calculation method, can cause delays in execution and serious misunderstandings between contractual partners.

Solution: Your service agreement template should detail the payment terms, including gross amounts or calculation methods, currency, agreed deadlines, and payment methods. Specify conditions for potential delays or non-conformities in the payment of delivered services, such as the popular delay penalties. Using the service agreement template from Docs & Deeds eliminates such issues as we have already included specific clauses regarding contractual price.

5. Template Contract is Non-Compliant with Current Legislation

Issue: The contract does not account for recent legislative changes, exposing the parties to legal risks.

Solution: Periodically review the service agreement templateyou use, in collaboration with a legal specialist, to ensure it is updated according to current legislation. Lawyers at Docs & Deeds are available online at your chosen time to address your issue promptly: we review the contract model you use and make improvements. Alternatively, you can start from the very beginning with a professional service agreement model that is adapted to the latest industry regulations. Along with it, you can use other professional contract templates for personal data protection, contract templates for labor law, eCommerce, or other relevant fields.

Conclusions

An effective service agreement is vital for the success of any professional collaboration. By addressing common issues and implementing the solutions suggested in this article, you can significantly improve your contracts, facilitating clear, efficient, and mutually beneficial collaboration with your contractual partners. Continuous improvement of contracts not only prevents legal problems but also builds a solid foundation for long-lasting and successful business relationships. Do not hesitate to use the professional contract templates provided by Docs & Deeds. They are drafted by lawyers with considerable professional experience, especially to facilitate their use by businesses of all sizes.