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Independent consultants

A statement of work they sign.Not an email that says “approved”.

Send the statement of work for signature and have it signed in the same visit, on a phone. What was agreed, for how much and when becomes a record rather than a memory.

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Hartley & Co

Letter of engagement 2026/27

From: R. Hartley, Hartley & Co

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The signing page's header, with one required field still to fill. For a consultant, that is the statement of work, signed in the same visit. Composed from a test document; Finish stays disabled until every required field is filled, and the document itself is below the frame.

The documents you send

Statements of work and retainers, signed before the work starts rather than approved in a reply.

The statement of work

Deliverables, timeline, assumptions, exclusions and price. The exclusions say on the signed copy exactly what they said when you sent it, which is the half of the document an argument is usually about.

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.

Build it once and reuse it

Keep the statement of work as a template with your assumptions, your exclusions and the signature blocks already in it. The next one is a change of scope and a change of fee rather than an evening spent rebuilding a document.

Send it with your name on it

Your name and colours on the email and the signing page, readable on a phone, with a deadline so an old price cannot be signed months later. You can see whether it was opened, so following up is informed rather than hopeful.

They sign it, in the same visit

They open a link and sign on whatever they have to hand, with no account to create and nothing to install. No reply that says “approved” and has to be treated as a contract afterwards.

Send your next statement of work through it.

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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

The document is fixed at the moment you send it. Editing your template afterwards cannot reach a statement of work 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. 1

    Envelope sent

    04/06/2026 09:14

    previous
    none
    this record
    7b21e9
  2. 2

    Opened by recipient

    04/06/2026 10:47

    previous
    7b21e9
    this record
    c40f83
  3. 3

    Signed

    04/06/2026 11:02

    previous
    c40f83
    this record
    1de6a5
  4. 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.

Sending for signature

A statement of work the client signs rather than an email that says approved, on a phone, without making an account or finding a printer.

One person or several, in a set order or all at once, with a deadline and a copy to whoever else needs one.

Client records

What each client has signed and what is still outstanding, in one place, which for a one-person business is the difference between knowing and hoping.

Your clients, and every document you have sent each of them, with its date, its status and its certificate.

Reminders

The statement of work 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?
A consultancy agreement or statement of work is a simple contract, which is the form this suits. What decides a dispute is evidence of what was agreed and when, which is what the audit trail, the certificate and the public verification page produce. Some documents carry extra formality requirements, wills and certain deeds among them, and those want your own advice.
Can I change a statement of work after I have sent it?
No, and that is deliberate. Once it has gone out the wording, the deliverables and the prices are frozen, so later edits to your template cannot reach something a client has already been asked to sign. If the scope changes, send a new one; that is what a change order is.
Why not just use a free e-signature tool?
For a plain PDF that needs a name on it, a free tool will put a name on it. What it will not give you is the record afterwards: who opened it, when, from where, and a certificate and an audit trail you can hand to somebody who was not there. That is the part that matters when a scope is disputed a year later, and it is the part this is built around.
Can a client sign this on a phone?
Yes. They open a link from the email and sign on a phone, a tablet or a laptop, with nothing to install and no account to create.

More detail on how a document is sent, signed and proved on the e-signature page, or see the other sectors on the sector index.

How it fits your documents

Send a document for signature, or sign one yourself. This is what each looks like in your line of work.

E-signature

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.

Sending for signature

Self 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 yourself

What to read next

The parts of the help centre this page assumes, in the order you would meet them.

Everything else is in the help centre.

Send your next statement of work through it

Send it, watch it come back signed, and see what the record looks like on the other side.

Start 14-day free trial

No credit card required.