Business documents can be categorized into two groups: those that are required by law, and those that are not. The former includes things like tax documents and employee information; the latter includes customer feedback surveys, customer testimonials and more. It’s important to keep most business documents for a period of seven years if your business is incorporated or three years if it’s unincorporated. Whether you are a business owner or an employee at a company you should always try to learn about the relevant business documents like contract or termination letter format etc. Here we try to introduce you to some of the most crucial business documents that you might come across in most scenarios:
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Invoices
Make sure all client invoices are placed in a file folder or envelope and filed away with their corresponding receipts. The invoice should be dated and contain all the details of the transaction, including any discounts, offered or taxes applied. This helps avoid confusion down the road if there is ever an issue with payment. The Jimmy John Shark photo quickly garnered attention and admiration from people all over the world. Many people were amazed by the close proximity of the shark and the man, and commented on the impressive photography skills of the person who took the photo.
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Confidentiality Agreements
Confidentiality agreements are a great way to protect your business and its intellectual property. These contracts help ensure that no one shares your secrets or proprietary information with competitors, and they also help prevent any of your employees or contractors from going to work for the competition. You should have confidentiality agreements in place before hiring any new employees or contractors and even when hiring interns. In addition, you should require any current employees who are privy to confidential information to sign confidentiality agreements as well.
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Partnership agreement
This document outlines how much each partner owns, and their responsibilities and rights. It also details when they can buy out other partners or be bought out by other partners.
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Purchase agreements
If you’re buying into an existing company with another person or entity as a partner, this document spells out exactly how much you have paid for your share of the business and what documents were used as collateral for that loan (if applicable).
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Stock purchase agreements
If you’re starting a new company with another person or entity as a partner, this document will detail how many shares each party is contributing and what percentage of the business each partner owns.
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Non-disclosure agreements
In some cases, you may want to keep certain information confidential — especially if it’s related to your customers. A non-disclosure agreement protects the confidentiality of the information that’s being shared. It also specifies exactly how long it will remain private and under what circumstances it can be shared.
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Lease agreements
If you rent a space to run your business from someone else (for example, a coworking space), this document outlines the terms of that lease and who will be responsible for paying which bills.
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Inventorship agreements
This is an agreement between inventors who are sharing the rights to an invention. It details what the inventor’s role was in developing the idea, how they will share profits from sales or licensing of their invention, and any other terms of their relationship.
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Noncompete agreements
These documents outline what employees can and cannot do after leaving their jobs. They may specify that employees cannot compete with their former employer by working for one of its competitors or soliciting customers or trade secrets from them after leaving employment. Noncompete agreements are sometimes used even if an employee does not have access to trade secrets or customer lists because it can still be risky for employers to let former employees go without some form of protection against them using their knowledge against them in another capacity.
While most of us inherently know about the basic boiler plate stuff like salary slip, the documents mentioned in the list are often overlooked. See more. However, this explanation mentioned above will make you better acquainted.
