Agreements

Write an agreement — or bring in one you already have — send it to the people who need to sign, and keep the signed copy. They sign on their phone from a link. They do not need a QSME account.

A subcontract, an NDA, a variation, site rules: anything two or more people need to put their name to. Agreements is in the sidebar for both sides, because a tradie is sent agreements as often as a builder sends them.

Once an agreement has been sent, its wording is locked. Nobody signs something that can change underneath them. To change it, withdraw it and send a new one — both stay on the record.

Agreements is free on every plan. The AI actions use AI credits, like every other AI action in QSME.

AI here helps you write. It does not read your own agreement back to you — it is already in front of you.

Starting one

New agreement gives you four ways in.

Want AI to write it? Start with a blank page and press Write it with AI — AI works inside the document, where the words are. See Writing with AI.

QSME's templates are a starting point, not legal advice. Anything that has to be filled in is left in [square brackets] so it is obvious on the page. Read every term, and on a large or unusual job have a lawyer check it.

Bringing in a document

Where the words are

What is it about?

Before you choose how it is used, you can tell QSME who it is with — one of your contacts — and what it is for: a contract, a tender, an SOQ, a job on the schedule. This is optional, and it is the single thing that makes the biggest difference.

Say it, and the agreement comes out with the real name, the real company, the real site and the real contract sum in it. Leave it out, and the same agreement comes out with [Subcontractor], [site address] and $[amount] for you to fill in afterwards.

Saying who it is with also puts that person on the signing line straight away, so all that is left is to read it and press Send. Nothing is sent until you do.

How it is used

One question decides everything that follows, so it is asked outright.

Keep every word is the usual one. It needs a document that HAS words in it — pasted text, a Word file, or a PDF that was written rather than scanned. A photo has no words to keep, only a picture of them, and QSME says so and offers to have AI read it instead.

Blanks somebody left to fill in by hand — $________, a dotted line — come through as [blank], so the page can count them and Fill them in with AI can find them. The signature lines at the bottom of a paper contract are replaced by QSME's own signing area, so the signed copy does not end up with two.

If you paste a page rather than a document — a chat window, a search result, an article — QSME says so before it makes anything, because laying that out word for word gives you a wall of text with a signing area under it. You then choose: have it written up as an agreement, or keep it exactly as it is if you meant it.

Write it up as a proper agreement is the one to use when what you have is not a document yet: a few lines about the deal, an e-mail thread, a quote with the terms buried in it. You can add a sentence of your own — "a subcontract for the plumbing, they supply everything, we pay on the 20th" — and it is written into the document. Because the wording that comes out is new, you read it and tick that it says what you agreed before it can be sent, the same as anything else AI touched.

If you choose Let AI read it, AI can misread a scan, skip a line or split a term in two. So before it can be sent you open the original beside it, read the two together, and tick "I have read this against the original, and it says the same thing." Change the wording afterwards and the tick comes off again — it was a promise about the old words. Nothing read a document brought in with Keep every word, so there is nothing to tick: it goes out like any agreement you wrote yourself.

Either way the original stays attached — the file you brought in, or the words you pasted — so anybody can see where the terms came from.

Writing it

An agreement is a list of pieces, not a blank page. Each piece says what it is, and the page looks after how it prints.

Terms number themselves, so adding one at the top never means renumbering the rest. Press Enter at the end of a term to start the next one. The ⋯ on each piece moves it, removes it, or turns it into a different kind of piece.

It saves as you type. While there are blanks left in [square brackets], the page tells you how many.

Writing with AI

AI sits inside the document, in three places. Every one shows you what it wrote first — nothing on the page changes until you accept it.

AI never makes up an amount, a date or a name. Anything it was not given stays a [blank] for you.

What it is given comes from your own records — who is signing, the project, and whatever the agreement is linked to:

Fill them in with AI can only change what is inside the square brackets: QSME swaps the value in itself, so the words around a blank cannot move. If nothing in your records answers the blanks, it says so and uses no credit.

How it prints

The printed copy is headed by the agreement's own name, on your letterhead. The top right corner carries only its reference and whether it has been signed.

Want a word up there — Subcontract, Letter of intent, Site rules? Type it in Top right of the printed copy, under the agreement's name. It is empty to begin with, and it locks with the wording when you send.

A document alongside

Drawings, a schedule of rates, the original the terms were typed up from: Attach a PDF puts it beside the terms.

PDF only, up to 20 MB, and only while the agreement is a draft. A Word original can be kept, but only you can see it.

If you want people to sign the original itself, with nothing re-typed, bring it in with Sign it as it is instead.

Who signs

Add people from your contacts, or type in a name and an e-mail address for someone who is not in them yet. Give each person the part they are signing as — Head contractor, Subcontractor, Client.

You sign your own agreement too. That is switched on to begin with; switch it off for the rare document only the other side signs.

Several people can sign, in any order. It is finished when the last one signs.

Sending it

Send for signing locks the wording and e-mails each person their own link. The e-mail says who it is from and what it is called. It is headed with your business name and logo when you have set them in your profile, with QSME in the footer.

What the other person sees

In the order they ask the questions: who this is from, the whole agreement, who else is signing, and only then — sign or decline.

To sign, they type their full name, can draw their signature with a finger or a mouse, and tick "I have read this agreement and I agree to sign it electronically." Drawing is optional; the typed name and the tick are not.

If they do not agree, they say so and are asked why — and you are told what they said. One person declining stops the agreement, rather than leaving it half-signed.

They can download a copy before and after signing. They see the names of the other people signing and how far along it is; they are never shown anybody's e-mail address.

You sign yours in QSME, with Sign it yourself.

The signed copy

When the last person signs, QSME makes the signed PDF on your letterhead: the agreement, each signature, and a certificate page behind them.

If the agreement belongs to a project, the signed copy is filed in that project's Documents, in an Agreements folder. It is always downloadable from the agreement itself — and what you download is that filed copy, so its fingerprint matches the one on record.

A document you brought in to be signed as it is is never re-typed: the signed copy is your original, untouched, with the signature and certificate pages added after it.

What an agreement is about

An agreement can belong to one project, several, or none — an NDA sent before there is a project is an ordinary case. The Agreements list shows all of them; one tap narrows it to the project you are on.

An awarded job, as an agreement

An awarded job is already an agreement in every sense except that nobody ever signed anything: both sides know the sum, the dates and the stages. QSME printed a contract with a blank signature block on it and left the signing to paper.

Agreements now shows those jobs at the top of the page — "2 awarded jobs have nothing signed for them" — and Make the agreement writes the real thing in one tap:

• the job's own figures as the wording: the agreed sum with its GST wording, the dates, the retention, the scope, and the payment stages in order
• both parties already on the signing line
• the contract QSME issued attached to it, shown to whoever signs and bound into the signed copy
• the job linked, so the job's page finds the agreement and the agreement finds the job

It is a draft. Read it, change what you want, then either send it to be signed or leave it on file. An agreement nobody was asked to sign is still the record of what was agreed, kept where the rest of the paperwork is.

New agreement on an awarded job's own page does the same thing, so it does not matter which side of the platform you start from.

Your signature, kept

Signing asks for two things: your name, and your signature. Once you have drawn it, Keep this signature for next time stores it against your QSME account, and every agreement after that offers it back with Draw a different one beside it. Forget it throws the picture away, and nothing already signed changes.

It is kept per account, never in a browser. Somebody signing from a magic link with no QSME account draws theirs, or just types their name, exactly as before — a signature is never left in the storage of whatever device opened a link.

What is reused is the picture, and a picture proves nothing on its own. What a signature is evidence of is recorded against each agreement separately: your typed name, your consent, the moment, your IP address, and a fingerprint of the exact wording you signed.

Bringing the job's own details into the wording

Bring in from this job sits beside Add a term everywhere a piece can be added, and on the empty page. It writes what QSME already holds straight into the document, so nothing has to be typed twice.

Tick as many as you need, across all four kinds, and bring them in together. An agreement for a landscaping package is usually the SOQ's work, the contract's sum and a couple of dates off the programme, and that is one thought rather than four trips. They land in the order you ticked them, up to ten at a time. If one of them cannot be read, none of them go in — half an agreement filled in is worse than none of it.

No AI and no credit: the pieces are built from the record itself, so the page says what the record says. Bringing something in also links it, which is what makes Fill them in with AI work afterwards and what lets the job's own page find this agreement.

Why prices only come from a contract. An SOQ and a tender hold your estimate. This document goes to the other side, so those figures stay where they are. A contract's agreed sum is a figure both sides already shook hands on, so it comes across in full, always with the GST wording beside it. Where the contract does not say which basis it is on, that is left in [square brackets] rather than guessed.

The new pieces land at the end of the wording, above the signing area, or straight after whichever piece you pressed Bring in on. Edit them like anything else afterwards.

Linking it to a contact, a tender, a contract, an SOQ, a task or a sheet

Under What it is about, Link something ties the agreement to what it concerns — as many as it needs, of any kind.

A link is also where AI gets its facts. Fill them in with AI can only fill in the contract sum once the agreement knows which contract, and it can only put the other side's name and company in once the agreement knows who it is with. You can say both when you bring a document in, before anything is written, which is why an agreement made that way comes out filled in rather than blank.

On a tender

In a tender's Bids, the person running it can choose An agreement for the winner. When the tender is awarded, QSME makes that agreement for whoever won and fills in what an award knows — who the two parties are, and the site.

QSME never fills in the money. The awarded figure has a GST basis, and a contract sum stated on the wrong one is a dispute, not a convenience. Every QSME template has blanks, so those always wait for you; your own finished terms send themselves.

Awarding works exactly the same with or without an agreement. Nothing is held up by one.

On a job

Each job in Active Work has an Agreements card that both sides see. The client sees what they sent and whether it is signed, can start a New agreement with both parties already on it, or Link one they already have. The tradie sees what they have been asked to sign.

On a task

A task's page on the Schedule has an Agreements section. Whoever runs the programme can Link one; anybody named on a linked agreement sees it there.

AI, and what it will not do

Each one uses one AI credit, and gives it back if it fails. If your credits are used up, every one of these has a way to carry on by hand, and the message says what it is.

AI does not summarise your agreement or tell you what it says, and it never says whether a term is fair or legal. None of this is legal advice.

Signing electronically

In New Zealand an electronic signature is valid when it identifies the person, shows they approved the document, and is as reliable as the purpose needs. That is what the link, the typed name, the tick and the certificate are for.

A few documents cannot be signed electronically — wills, affidavits and a handful of others. The signing page says so.

What it does not do yet

Words you will see

More on the words: the glossary.

If something looks wrong

Still stuck? hello@qsme.co.nz, or +64 27 338 8500.