As a business owner, you may be aware that you want to offer contracts to some of your employees, perhaps to increase the odds that you will retain them or because you want to very carefully define their roles. But, if you run this business with a partner, it’s not just your employees who need a contract. You and your business partner should have one as well.
This is often called a partnership agreement. It can be very beneficial to get this in place when you start the business.
What all is included?
You can include a lot of different things in a partnership agreement, but the main thing is to think of it as a way to define your relationship. You may want to ask the following questions:
- What roles are you both going to have?
- What percentage of the business do you own?
- What financial responsibilities do you have?
- How much will you each earn?
- Who gets to make important decisions for the business?
- What happens if the two of you can’t agree on a key point?
- What do you do if someone wants to leave the company?
- How do you address bringing on other partners in the future?
These are certainly not all the questions to ask, but they can help you get this process started. Once you begin to answer these questions, then you can take legal steps to put these answers into the contract. This helps to protect you and your business, along with your business partner, no matter what happens in the future. Just make sure you know how to put everything together in advance so that it’s ready when you need it, and how to use it to resolve any disputes.