Sweet holy mother of all things ridiculous.  Please tell me that as a managed services provider you have your contracts ready to go and that EVERY client has a signed contract on file.  Don’t tell me about a credit card authorization form or a signed quote or a signed proposal.  YOU MUST HAVE CONTRACTS.

Let’s go over the basics.  A contract does some of the following:

1. Limits your liability (ie…liability for any provider caused issues will be limited to the amount paid to the provider)

2. Sets forth the payment terms and amount (ie…$2,000 for 36 months due on the 15th of each month)

3.  Describes early termination penalties (ie…client must provide thirty days written notice of intent to cancel.  Remainder of contract value will be prorated

4.  Non-hire/Non-solicitation WITH PENALTIES DESCRIBED (ie…we won’t hire your employees, don’t hire ours.   If you do hire our employees you agree to pay us a penalty equal to one year’s salary of hired employee)

5.  Sets the venue for disputes (ie….requires mediation…disputes will be handled in our state and county)

These are the basics of every contract.  Here are some common contracts you need to have at the ready:

1. Master services agreement (rates, after hours, response times, trip charges, emergency fees)

2. Managed services (what’s covered, what’s not covered, what devices/employees are covered,  service level agreement, response times, etc)

3. Riders to Managed services (anti spam, anti virus, hosted exchange, etc) Continue reading Managed Services Providers Please Tell Me You have Your CONTRACTS!!

Tags: contracts, josh peterson, liablility, managed services, msa