Writing Down What Was Agreed
Six lines in an email, sent the same day, are worth more than any contract nobody reads. What has to be in them.
Yourswho controls this stretch
Six lines in an email on the day of the conversation are worth more than a contract neither side opens again. They are what everybody refers back to, they are what a court would look at first, and they take four minutes.
The commercial boundary in “Writing Down What Was Agreed” is clearer when estimated work, recorded time and authorised scope can be compared. For teams researching how to know if remote employees are working, open the provider’s own guide can add that operational context, but purchase terms and payment obligations should remain in the signed agreement.
What has to be in them is short and specific.
As a separate reference point for “Writing Down What Was Agreed”, see Invoicely billing resources. Confirm current legal, tax and accounting requirements with a qualified adviser where necessary.
The six lines
What you are doing. What it costs. When payment is due and from what event. What is needed before you start. What is not included. What happens if the work grows.
The six lines, in the order they are useful to a stranger:
- What is being done, named so somebody outside the conversation recognises it.
- What it costs, and how tax is treated.
- When it is payable, counted from a stated event.
- What you need from them before starting.
- What is not included.
- What happens if the work grows.
Six facts. Most agreements fail on the fourth and the sixth.
What you are doing
In the customer's words, not yours. One sentence that they would recognise and repeat.
Disputes about scope are almost always disputes about a sentence that was never written.
What it costs, and when it is due
The figure, the terms, and the event the clock runs from: the invoice date, receipt, delivery, or acceptance.
"Thirty days" without the event is not a term.
What is needed before you start
An order number, a deposit, access, information, a decision. Whatever it is, listing it converts a later delay into something that was foreseen.
It also makes clear that the start date depends on them too.
What is not included
Shorter and more useful than what is. Three bullets of exclusions are read; a page of inclusions is not.
Exclusions also tell the customer what to come back and ask about, which is the point.
What happens if it grows
The single most valuable line. "Anything outside the above I will price before doing."
It converts every later addition from an argument into a routine message.
Why an email rather than a contract
Because it is read. A signed set of terms sits in a folder; an email with six lines sits in the thread both sides search when something goes wrong.
Having both is better. Having only the contract is worse than having only the email.
Getting it acknowledged
"Happy with the above?" at the end. A one-word reply makes it an agreement rather than an assertion.
Where no reply comes, a follow-up noting that you are proceeding on that basis does most of the same work.
Keeping it findable
One place per customer where the agreement, the order and any changes live. Not a mail folder.
The moment you need it is the moment you have least time to look for it.
When terms change later
Rewrite the relevant line and send it again. Two sentences.
Changes appended to a thread across four months are not an agreement; they are an archaeology problem.
What this cannot do
Make a customer pay. A perfect record does not produce money from an organisation that has none.
What it does is remove every argument that is not about money, which is most of them.
What this is worth months later
The six lines matter at a specific future moment: when somebody who was not present reads them. That person might be a new contact after yours has left, an approver querying a line, a collection agent deciding whether to take the case, or a court.
None of them will have the context you both had in the room. They will have the text.
Judged that way, the common failures become obvious. "The work as discussed" means nothing to a stranger. "Payment on completion" does not say completion of what. A figure with no mention of tax treatment invites a disagreement about whether it was included. Everything that was obvious in the conversation is exactly what has to be written down, because obviousness does not survive a change of personnel.
When they send their own instead
A buyer of any size will often respond to your six lines with a purchase order, a supplier agreement or a set of standard terms. Those documents normally prevail over your email, and the reasonable response is not to resist but to read them against what you wrote.
What matters is whether anything contradicts: a different figure, different stages, a retention you had not discussed, a different payment period.
Where there is a contradiction, one short email identifying it is worth more than any amount of care taken over the original note. Where there is none, you now have both sides of the arrangement recorded and agreeing, which is a stronger position than either document alone.
Filing the pair together, in the place described below, is the whole of the work.
The test
Six months later, could somebody who was not there read your email and say what was agreed?
If yes, nearly every dispute available to this relationship has been pre-empted.