Engagement agreements for consultants, drawn from your scoping conversations.

How consulting engagements are usually agreed

Independent consultants and small firms tend to agree work in stages. The client describes a problem, you suggest an approach, and the scope is narrowed over several messages: two workshops instead of four, a written report instead of a slide deck, a day rate rather than a fixed fee. The final scope is rarely written in one place.

Scope creep usually begins in exactly that gap. When a client later asks for "just one more session", it helps both of you to point at a record of what the original engagement included.

Points consultants should check are actually agreed

1. The deliverables, and the form they take — a report, a set of workshops, hours of advisory time.
2. Whether you are charging a day rate, an hourly rate or a fixed fee, and how expenses are handled.
3. When invoices are issued and how long the client has to pay.
4. What happens to the fee if the client postpones or cancels sessions.
5. Who owns any materials, frameworks or reports you create, and whether you can reuse your own methods.
6. Any confidentiality expectations, which can be covered separately with an NDA.

Turning a scoping thread into an engagement record

Paste the emails or messages where the engagement was discussed. If the conversation includes more than one piece of work — say, an initial review and a possible follow-on project — OfClause separates them and asks which one you want to record.

Each term is shown with its source message. OfClause treats a suggestion the client never answered as unclear, and it does not fill in terms such as payment instalments or a project brief that nobody wrote down. If the scope depends on a call that was never summarised, you will be asked to settle that term yourself before a draft is produced.

After you confirm the terms, OfClause produces a plain engagement record from them. You can send it to the client to review and sign via a guest link.

Before the engagement starts

If you need to see confidential information before scoping is finished, you can create a free NDA draft first. For larger engagements, or where liability, regulated advice or substantial intellectual property is involved, have the final terms reviewed by a solicitor.

Frequently asked questions

Can OfClause handle a day-rate engagement?

Yes, if the day rate and the expected number of days were stated in the conversation. OfClause records what was agreed; it does not estimate days for you.

What if we agreed the scope on a call?

OfClause cannot read calls. Paste a written summary, ideally one the client replied to, or confirm that term yourself before drafting.

Does OfClause add intellectual property clauses automatically?

No. Only terms that were agreed and that you confirm appear in the record.