Independent consultants
A statement of work they sign.Not an email that says “approved”.
Build a priced proposal from your rates, send it as a branded page, and have the client sign in the same visit. What was agreed, for how much and when becomes a record rather than a memory.
No credit card required.
PROP-004
Letter of engagement 2026/27
Prepared for Okafor Design Ltd by Hartley & Co
One-off fees
charged once
| Service | Fee |
|---|---|
| Annual accounts and corporation tax | |
| Subtotal | |
| VAT | |
| Total |
Fees are shown per billing period. Amounts for different periods are listed separately and are not added together.
Ready to go ahead?
The documents you send
Proposals and statements of work, priced as projects or retainers and signed before the work starts.
The proposal, or the statement of work
Deliverables, timeline, assumptions, exclusions and price. Priced as a project, as a day rate or as a range, and the exclusions say on the signed copy exactly what they said when you sent it.
The retainer or the master services agreement
The ongoing monthly engagement, or the framework the individual statements of work hang off. Monthly, quarterly and annual are cadences in their own right rather than a project fee divided by twelve.
From discovery call to signed
Three steps, and the third one is the one most tools leave to you.
Price it the way you actually charge
A project fee and a monthly retainer are different things and are never merged into one number, because that is not a number the client ever pays. Each is shown on its own with its period attached, and a range is shown as a starting figure.
Send it as a page, not an attachment
Your name and colours on it, readable on a phone, with a date it is valid until so an old price cannot be accepted months later. You can see whether it was opened, so following up is informed rather than hopeful.
They accept by signing
Accepting creates a real signing document and takes the client straight into signing it, in the same visit. No separate signature errand afterwards, and no reply that says “approved” and has to be treated as a contract.
Price your next proposal in it and send it as a page.
Clear terms before the work starts
The case for getting the scope signed before you start is commercial. A project that starts on a reply saying “approved” starts on an unknown: which version, which price, which exclusions. When the brief moves and the invoice is queried, what settles it is a dated document both sides agreed to and neither has altered since, not a memory of a call. CecurSign’s part is the agreement itself, not the money that follows it.
What you sent is what they signed
Service lines are copied into the document when you create it, and once it has been sent it is frozen. Editing your template afterwards cannot reach a proposal that is already out, so your exclusions and assumptions cannot drift after the fact.
A record that resists editing
Sent, opened, signed: every event hashed and linked to the one before it, with the time and IP address inside the protected record. Re-checking the chain names the point where it broke rather than simply failing.
A certificate, and a public check
Every completed document gets a certificate listing the signatures, the times and a fingerprint of the document, with a QR code anyone can use to confirm it, with no account and without coming back to you.
Verify a document →- 1
Envelope sent
04/06/2026 09:14
- previous
- none
- this record
- 7b21e9
- 2
Opened by recipient
04/06/2026 10:47
- previous
- 7b21e9
- this record
- c40f83
- 3
Signed
04/06/2026 11:02
- previous
- c40f83
- this record
- 1de6a5
- 4
Completed
05/06/2026 16:41
- previous
- 1de6a5
- this record
- 9af02c
Each record carries the fingerprint of the record before it. Change event 2 and events 3 and 4 stop matching, so re-checking the chain reports which record broke rather than simply failing.
What you would actually be using
The parts of CecurSign that matter to Independent consultants, and what each one does here.
Templates
One statement of work that fits most engagements, so the next one is a change of scope and a change of fee rather than an evening.
Build a document once with its fields, its signers and its reminders, then send it as often as you need without rebuilding it.
Your service list
Your day rate, your project fees and your monthly retainer in one list, so a proposal takes twenty minutes and the numbers are the ones you meant.
Every service you sell with its fee, how often it is charged and its VAT treatment, held in one place rather than in three versions of a spreadsheet.
Priced documents
A statement of work the client signs rather than an email that says approved, sent as a page they can agree to on a phone without making an account.
Build a priced document from that list, send it as a branded page, and have the client agreeing to it be the signature on it.
Reminders
The proposal that went out and went quiet gets chased without you having to decide whether today is too soon to ask again.
Chases that go out on a set pattern while something is unsigned, a nudge you can send by hand, and a deadline you set yourself.
Certificate of completion
What was agreed and when, which matters most to a one-person business, because there is nobody else who remembers the call.
Produced when the last signature lands: every signature with its time, the person who made it and their IP address, and a fingerprint of each file.
Fair questions
Is a signed statement of work legally binding?
Can I change a statement of work after I have sent it?
Why not just use a free e-signature tool?
Can a client sign this on a phone?
More on how a priced document is built and what the client sees on the proposals page, or see the other sectors on the sector index.
The four things it does, in your documents
The product does the same four jobs for every firm. This is what each one looks like in yours, and each page describes the job in full.
Proposals and engagement letters
The proposal goes out as a page the client can accept on a phone the same evening, priced from your rates, and the work starts on a signature rather than a reply.
Proposals and engagement lettersClient onboarding
The client reads your terms and your ways of working beside the statement of work, with a record of what they opened before the engagement starts.
Client onboardingContracts and renewals
A retainer that carries an end date tells you ahead of it, and a change in scope is a new statement of work, signed again, with the old one kept as agreed.
Contracts and renewalsSelf sign
A declaration, a supplier form, or a document a client sends as a PDF for your signature alone: signed in one sitting, with a certificate behind it.
Signing something yourselfWhat to read next
The parts of the help centre this page assumes, in the order you would meet them.
- Proposals and engagement lettersWhat the proposals module is for, and how it differs from sending a document for signature.
- Building a proposalAdding services, writing the letter, and previewing what the client will get.
- Sending a proposal, and what the client seesWhat is fixed at the moment you send, and the page your client opens.
- When a client accepts or declinesWhat happens on acceptance, the signature it produces, and what to do next.
Everything else is in the help centre.
Send your next proposal through it
Price it properly, send it as a page, and see what a signed one looks like on the other side.
No credit card required.