Site Offering Service With Contract Billing
The Website Terms and Policies Reports – Part 3
Hello,
Whether you decide to offer professional services, either by starting a small business or part-time by carrying out bill-based contracts, displaying your talents on a website will surely be necessary in the future.
When we start displaying our services in the virtual world, we must equip ourselves with good digital tools, including a website with the legal concepts to be disclosed. This paper on professional site policies with contractual invoicing will help you.
This report features:
Understand why terms and conditions are essential to protect your online business.
Learn how to create a clear and reassuring shipping policy for your customers.
Get practical tips to write simple, effective policies tailored to your business.
MusicScore: This article on business legal aspects was composed while listening to the AC/DC album High Voltage. I suggest you listen for your reading: It’s a Long Way to the Top!
Listen to the MusicScore complete list on YouTube! Enjoy the Music At Work!
This article offers you an example of a website policy for companies located in Quebec with a Professional website service with contract billing.
Businesses in Québec: Please note that the website policy examples in these reports are intended for businesses operating in Québec, Canada, as of April 1, 2024. If your company’s head office isn’t in Québec, I advise you to check your government website to verify the laws on e-commerce in your region or country, and that of confidentiality and your responsibilities as a website publisher. This report will be edited in the event of a change in the law on web policies.
Find the Right Documentation
Before starting to produce a Terms and Conditions policy, or a Privacy Act, I suggest checking the appropriate laws. I always go back to read the posting rules for businesses by the Commission d’accès à l’information du Québec to learn about confidentiality, the merchant section of the website of the Office de la protection du consommateur and Légis Québec to check for online commerce responsibilities, and finally in terms of documentation, I love the site of LawDepot.
There are several examples of policies on the web and many paid services are offered to carry out this task for businesses. However, I like to know these rules as a webmaster who has the responsibility of putting truthful content on the web, and as an entrepreneur.
Invoicing
Once our beautiful website is online and our services are put forward, we must proceed with our first invoicing.
In Quebec, according to the government linguistic Office de la Langue française, regarding administrative and commercial forms: the invoice is an accounting document established by the supplier which indicates the nature, quantity and price of the goods sold or services rendered as well as the discounts granted and the payment conditions.
There is no template and each business mostly asks for the elements required of a merchant with taxes. The document must be titled or marked Invoice and demonstrate the essentials: the name of the supplier and the name of the customer, the date of the invoice, an identifying description of the good(s) or service(s), and indications of the total invoice amount, the number of applicable taxes, the payment terms and the supplier’s registration numbers for GST and QST.
Of course, to this we add our customer numbers, invoices and other administrative information and our images, colours and logo.
A customer must always be able to obtain their invoice whether the products or services are physical or virtual.
Administration of customer data
Information collected from our forms and order forms must be managed and protected according to good business practices.
In case of service, it’s usually customary to sign a confidentiality agreement between the parties. The Law Dépot website explains what this document should include: https://www.lawdepot.ca/contracts/accord-de-confidentialite/.
It’s also imperative, since the fall of 2023 and the implementation of Bill 25, to specify the data collected, the reasons for this collection of information and the means of protection in our company of this confidential data.
You will find more details on the composition of your first policy and the privacy policy in the article of Web Policies – Part 1 – Display Websites and Blogs.
An online store = instruction and laws to respect
Yes, we all have business obligations to meet. The Consumer Protection Office website has recently put online a section helping us to formulate our legal obligations according to the our business. This helps us produce a purchasing policy adapted to our products and services, without superfluous text, to put on a website. The link is: https://www.opc.gouv.qc.ca/enligne/#:~:text=Quand%20vous%20concluez%20un%20contrat,pour%20l’envoyer%20par%20courriel.
Commercial obligations relate to what is displayed before the transaction, during the payment process and after the conclusion of the transaction, and delivery, exchanges and refunds, and others.
The serie of reports to explain the policies for several websites structures
Posting website and blogging: an article or page display site with the visitor's comment option.
Posting website and blogging with subscription by a third-party MailChimp service with a contact form.
Professional website service with contract billing: using products and services with contract billing.
All articles will be available under the web policies tag.
The Contact Form for a Service and Data Collection
It’s essential to display and highlight business contact details. A contact menu is usually permanently on the website, at the top and bottom of the page (header and footer of the website).
The Contact Form
Besides allowing professionals and entrepreneurs not to enter personal information on their website, putting a form online is a good way to allow initial contact with a prospect, while guiding the initial conversation with questions, such as asking to specify the area of activity, budget or other important details to know and to develop and advise your products and services effectively. In other words, like any good procedure, the form is supposed to remove work, not create it.
An effective form should avoid recurring questions and invite action, while being easy to complete and, above all, easy to understand.
Policies required from a contact form
Regardless, adding a form involves an important responsibility to be disclosed in website policies and terms of use. It’s essential to list the information collected from our forms and disclose who has access to this data, where it’s stored and who takes care of its security and confidentiality. Also, the reason for the collection and the duration of the need for custody must be specified. The article on email distribution subscriptions and the contact form explains the policies on this subject.
Conclusion
I hope this article on web policies was useful and you will have nice terms of use and company policies to display for your visitors.
I must admit I always feel better when I know my web policies are in order. I review them yearly during my web audits. We sometimes forget to adjust the policies when integrating a new toll on our sites. You know the little detail that comes to mind at the end of the evening we forgot to do at work!
I leave the links and sources at the bottom of the article to help you in your approach.
Looking forward,
Jeff
Sources : https://www.avocat.qc.ca/affaires/iipagewww.htm Les implications légales de son site Web, from Me Saverio Coppola, avocat, Rimôn Québec, Montréal.
https://www.canada.ca/fr/agence-revenu/services/impot/entreprises/sujets/commerce-electronique/commerce-electronique.html e-commerce from the Gouvernement du Canada.
https://www.ccmm.ca/fr/nouvelles/blog_quelques-aspects-legaux-du-commerce-electronique/ Quelques aspects légaux du commerce électronique, by Maude Fréchette for the Chambre de commerce du Montréal métropolitain.
https://www.lawdepot.ca/contracts/conditions-generales-d-un-site-web, LawDepot, General conditions of websites.
Linguistic resource for commercial administrative documentation in Quebec (article in French):https://vitrinelinguistique.oqlf.gouv.qc.ca/22875/la-redaction-et-la-communication/redaction-administrative-et-commerciale/formulaires-administratifs-et-commerciaux/presentation-de-la-facture
Image Cr : W+M Services
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Websites - creation, management and design
I edit the content of existing sites via CMS in addition to creating sites with WordPress and Squarespace. I have been producing website content as a webmaster since 1998.
I help companies get their first website up and I improve the performance of existing sites.
Yes, I’m Mr. Analytics and my reaction time to new digital marketing is daily, which allows my clients to have optional and trend-cutting tools.
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