Terms of Trade that are up to date, legally strong and fit for purpose.

Many businesses technically do. Much of the time, though, they are not actively in play. They go out as an attachment to a quote, or worse, with the invoice. Or even worse, they sit in a drawer somewhere, drafted years ago and never properly built into how work flows through the business.

So it is worth asking two questions. Who actually wrote your Terms of Trade? Did you do them yourself, copy someone else’s, use a template, or have them professionally prepared? And when were they last reviewed?

That second question matters because legislation changes all the time, the business climate changes all the time, and most businesses are organic. They grow, shift what they offer and change how they work. If your terms have not been revisited alongside those changes, there is a real chance they no longer reflect your business as it is now, or the protection you need today.

They are the operating rules of your business relationships. They sit underneath your deposits, progress payments, invoicing timing, dispute processes, recovery rights, credit decisions, security and guarantees. Think of them as the spine of your credit control system. Everything else hangs off them.

Without them you lose leverage, limit your recovery options and often cannot register security at all. And you are left trying to negotiate after the work is done, when your money is already out the door. At that point, power usually sits with the person holding the cash.

Good terms also take the awkwardness out of it. When the structure is clear, it is no longer about the relationship, it is about the process. Your best clients respect clear expectations. Your worst clients will take advantage of vagueness.

None of this guarantees you get paid. What strong terms do is put you in a better position legally, give you more leverage, and give you a structure to work from when something changes that neither of you planned.

Far too many business owners have Terms of Trade that feel like legal words. They are there, but nobody has ever shown them what those words mean in practice in their business.

That is what we specialise in. Having the right legal structures matters, and so does knowing what best-practice commercial terms look like. Just as important is understanding what your terms mean for your business. We go through your existing terms with you and show you where the financial risk is and where the gaps are, where the legal risk is and where the gaps are, what is missing, and what needs updating.

That commercial understanding is what turns your Terms of Trade into a living part of your credit control and cash flow infrastructure, and of how you protect your risk. A living, purposeful document, fit for purpose, that you understand, and know how to use and implement to get the most out of it.

Would you jump out of a plane with a parachute you made yourself, from plans you found on the internet or written by AI? Just like in your industry, writing Terms of Trade properly takes a specialist.

What a template cannot give you is commercial context. We bring nearly a decade of specialist credit control work: what goes wrong in practice, what gets businesses paid, and how your industry actually works. Your terms are built from that, from the legal principles that apply, and from the facts of your own business.

And your lawyer stays in the picture. Every draft comes with a briefing note written for your own solicitor, who signs off the final documents. What we provide is commercial and credit control insight, which is the part that is usually missing.

A building-sector business we worked with was about to take on a $350,000 project carrying significant risk, through a company they had known for years. As standard, they sent their Terms of Trade and client application. What came back had important protections crossed out, and the application was incomplete. The company had recently changed owners, and the credit check came back red.

Rather than proceed on history, pressure or hope, they declined under those conditions. That took the conversation to the people with real authority, who it turned out had never seen the terms. The full terms were agreed, security was put in place, and the top-tier project owner made a $125,000 prepayment towards materials. When the middle layer later became unstable, the business was paid directly.

Strong credit control is having the information, structure and confidence to say no before taking on unacceptable risk, and using that position to create safer terms on which to say yes.

Plenty of businesses come to us for their terms alone. Others do this alongside the Paid Right Capability Intensive, which shapes what the terms need to do, and the two can run side by side.

Either way, the documents are one piece of the puzzle. Even the best terms only protect a business when the decisions and processes around them line up.