#119 EOFY Review + Update
As the end of the financial year approaches, it's the perfect time to review your existing documents, agreements, processes, and systems to ensure that your business is set up for success in the new financial year.
One of the most common questions I get asked is when is the best time to update legal documents and my answer is always the same. The best time is whenever something changes, such as a new hire or a new service offering, or to review your documents annually to ensure that everything is up to date.
In this episode, I talk about the common updates I do for my clients to ensure their legal documents are continuing to protect their businesses as they evolve. I share why updating the Business Ts & Cs is the most common, along with Website Ts & Cs, particularly if you are offering lead magnets, PDF freebies, podcasts, online courses, or masterclasses. Each of these offerings has its nuanced terms and conditions that need to be captured properly in your legal documents.
I also talk about updating contractor and employment agreements to reflect new conditions, new arrangements, or changes in workplace conditions. This is an excellent opportunity to ensure that everyone is clear on what they're doing moving forward and to help set you up for a great next financial year.
If you haven’t already, make sure you download a copy of my Annual Legal Checklist to help you review your legal documents and ensure that they are up to date and current.
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[00:00:00] Tracey: Hello everyone. Welcome back to the Rise Up in Business Podcast. It is that time of year, isn't it? I love the beginning of anything new. I love a new week, a new day, a new month. So you can imagine how much I look forward to the beginning of the new financial year. I really do, and I take this as an opportunity or always to talk to clients around reviewing existing documents, agreements, processes, systems. take the opportunity to make sure everything in your business is doing what it needs to be doing, and that you've got everything set up in the right places.
[00:00:56] So a question I get asked a lot as you know is, Tracy, when should I update my legal documents? When should I update my processes and systems? And to that I say either when something changes and you need to like a new hire or a new service offering, or review them annually to cast your eye over and make sure everything's up to date and current, it's where it needs to be and it's doing what it needs to do, and then you know you're good to go.
[00:01:25] I have, if you haven't already downloaded a copy of your annual legal checklist, then you can grab a copy over on the website and it's designed for this reason. It's designed to be a comprehensive legal checklist that you can keep as a resource, cast your eye over it once a year, and make sure that everything on there, if it applies to you, is up to date and current. So you cast your eye over it and you may not have employees, which means reference to employment agreements don't apply. But you have offerings, therefore, you have service agreements in place. You have a website, and you need to make sure that all those documents you've got in place are a current reflection of where it is that you are in your business.
[00:02:09] One of the most common things that I update with clients at this time of year is client service agreements or business Ts and cs, because often offerings evolve, packages change, pricing changes, the way you like to do business changes. You might be offering different services. For example, if you are an interior designer, you may have chosen not to offer custom purchases as a part of your services, but then later things have evolved and now you do. Well it's really important that your documents are updated to reflect that for example. The way you work with your clients, non-refundable deposits, timeframes, turnarounds, those types of things inevitably change in a business over time because as we know, businesses grow and evolve and our documents need to grow and evolve with us.
[00:02:56] So the most common update that I'm doing this time of year with clients is the service agreement or the business Ts and Cs, and then it's the website Ts and Cs. Not so much privacy. If we've already done one of those very rare, then I need to update it. But the website, Ts and Cs change because, a traditional service-based business, things like lead magnets or PDF freebies might be now on offer, or there might be a podcast that's now part of your suite, or you might now be offering an online course, or you might be offering masterclass to purchase.
[00:03:31] All of those things have their nuanced Ts and Cs that they need, and so making sure all of those inclusions and all of those offerings are captured properly in the existing documents is part of what we do.
[00:03:43] And then the third thing that I focus a lot on this time of year is updating contractor agreements and employment agreements for clients because team members have changed, roles have changed, people have been promoted, workplace conditions have changed. All of those things tend to change and again, it's a really nice opportunity at the beginning of a new financial year to sit down and take stock of those things and make sure everybody's clear on what they're doing going forward, we're setting ourselves up for success for the next financial year, and we've got all the things in place.
[00:04:16] So agreements are updated to reflect new conditions, new arrangements, whatever it is, it's a nice chance to do it all. So those client service terms or business, Ts and Cs, your website, Ts and Cs, and your online offerings and your agreements with your team, contractors and employees are really great places to start when we are thinking about reviewing what we've got in place.
[00:04:40] Now, just on processes and systems, this is something that if done well, if your processes and systems are set up well, they will serve you forever, my friend, until you decide to change something. But if you don't set them up well, If they're sort of bootstrapped on the fly, it'll be right, we'll get to it later. If you don't set them up well, and you do that on the fly, chances are if you haven't already experienced it, things will fall through the cracks and the business will suffer as a result. And more often than not, that relates to cash flow. Clients not paying, invoices not going out, not having proper processes and systems in place to deal with late payments or recurring payments that have defaulted, all of those things can cause real headaches for business owners, but they don't have to. And this is one of the things I dive into in my course, which is available on the website, getting paid made easy, because it should be like that. Getting paid in your business really should be easy.
[00:05:42] And this short course is something that I prepared quite some time ago because clients were reaching out frequently, asking the same questions with the same pain points. So I've recorded this course with tons of inclusions and downloadables. There's a lot of stuff in there to address this pain point that I see so often for business owners. You know, is really relevant this time of year when we're talking about financial reports and tax returns and, and looking at the business projections for the next financial year.
[00:06:08] Making sure that those systems and processes that you've got in place really are solid and they are serving you going forward is really important. So to me, it's a no-brainer if you don't have those set up properly, perhaps take this as your sign or your message today to jump over to my website and have a look at that offering, getting paid made easy, because that just might be the best thing you do for yourself at this time of year to set yourself up and your business up for success moving forward.
[00:06:33] So two things for today, the annual legal checklist. Please, if you don't have a copy, grab a copy on the website link in the show notes because that's a resource that I've designed for you to keep and getting paid made easy because if you just have any question marks or you're not quite sure about anything when it comes to how and when and what you do to get paid and what to do when you're not being paid, the answers will be in there.
[00:06:56] And again, you can track that down on the website as well. I hope you're enjoying the end of financial year as much as I am, and I hope you are just as enthusiastic as me heading into a new financial year. I love it. Thank you so much for listening. This has been a short and sharp one, but it's super important and I know that you'll get so much value out of the resources that I've mentioned.
[00:07:14] As always, please reach out if you've got questions and if I can help in any way because that is what I'm here for. Thanks for listening. Catch you next time.
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