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Marketing and creative agencies

What was in scope,settled by a document.

Build the scope of work from your own rate card, send it with your terms, and have the version the client actually agreed to, with the date they agreed it.

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Recipients

Everyone is asked at the same time.

  • R. HartleySignerr.hartley@hartleyandco.exampleSignedSigned 04/06/2026 11:02
  • J. OkaforSignerj.okafor@okafordesign.exampleViewedViewed 04/06/2026
  • Accounts, Okafor Design LtdCCaccounts@okafordesign.exampleSent
The sender's own view of a document out for signature. For a marketing or creative agency, that is the scope of work going to the client contact and whoever signs for the budget. Composed from a test document: one signer has signed, the others have not, and the reminder goes to only those who still owe a signature.

The three documents

Terms once, scope every time.

The general terms

Liability, intellectual property, termination, confidentiality. Agreed once with a client and reused across everything you do for them.

The scope of work

The deliverables, the fee against each, what is not included, and the assumptions the price depends on. This is the document every scope argument turns on, and the one most often sent as a slide deck nobody signs.

The retainer

A monthly or quarterly fee with a defined allocation. Quoted with its period attached and never added into project fees to produce a single number.

Freelancer and subcontractor terms go through the same mechanics if you want them to. They are not what this page is about.

Where this sits in the account

At the start, and again every time the brief moves.

Agencies do not lose money on the first scope. They lose it on the fourth change to it, agreed verbally in a status call, never written down, and remembered differently by each side four months later.

This sits in front of whatever runs your delivery, at the point where what was bought is settled. Projects, time, resource and invoicing stay where they are; what sits here is the general terms, the scope of work, the signature and the evidence around all three.

Price from your own rate card

Keep your deliverables and day rates in one list. Building a scope is picking from it, so what the client signs and what you quoted are the same figures.

Send terms and scope as one pack

General terms and the scope of work go out together and complete as a single record with one certificate. On the next project the terms are already agreed and only the scope changes.

Re-scope by reissuing, never by editing

When the brief changes, send a revised scope and get it agreed. The original stays exactly as the client first saw it, with its own date.

Send the next scope of work through it before the work starts.

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What you can prove when the account goes wrong

The argument for writing scopes down is commercial, and it comes due at one moment: when a client believes something was included and you believe it was added. What settles it is what can be produced. A dated document that neither side has altered since ends the conversation in a minute. An email thread with three attachments called scope_v2_FINAL does not, and the cost is the fortnight of work you absorb to protect the relationship.

The certificate

Produced automatically when the last signature lands. Each signature with its time, actor and IP address, a fingerprint of every document in the pack, and a QR code linking to an independent check.

Checkable without you

A client or their adviser can verify a completed document themselves, with no account and no login. It confirms the document, the signers and that the chain is intact, without disclosing what the document said.

Verify a document →

CecurSign

Certificate of Completion

Completed
Subject
Letter of engagement 2026/27
Created
04/06/2026 09:12 UTC
Sent
04/06/2026 09:14 UTC
Completed
05/06/2026 16:41 UTC

Documents

Engagement letter and schedules.pdf (7 pages)

SHA-256: a4f1c9e0b7d3

Signers and recipients

  • R. Hartley (Signer)Signed 04/06/2026 11:02 UTC
  • J. Okafor (Signer)Signed 05/06/2026 16:41 UTC

Scan to verify

Envelope ID

9c1f2a34-5b6d-4e71-8f90-2ad4c6e13b58

The certificate a completed scope of work produces. Shown with details from a test document.

What you would actually be using

The parts of CecurSign that matter to marketing and creative agencies, and what each one does here.

Templates

General terms agreed once with a client and reused on every piece of work after that, which is the split the industry's own framework agreements already use.

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

The scope is signed before the kick-off rather than approved in a reply, so the first day of work has a signed document behind it instead of a thread.

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 agreed to and what is currently in force, without going through an inbox to find out.

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

Reminders

A scope that went out on a Friday and went quiet is chased on its own, which is the week a project usually loses.

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

Which version of the scope the client agreed, and when. That is the entire argument when somebody says a deliverable was always included.

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.

What agencies ask before they buy

Short answers to the ones that come up first.

Is this a project management tool?
No, it sits beside one. Tasks, time tracking, resourcing and invoicing stay in whatever you use for them. What sits here is the document a client agrees to before the work starts, the signature on it, and the evidence around both.
Our clients never sign anything. They just reply "approved".
An email saying "approved" is evidence of something, but of what: which version, which attachment, and sent by someone with authority to agree it? A signed document answers all three. It takes the client one click on a phone, with no account to create.
Do retainers renew automatically?
No. Nothing here watches a date and reissues an agreement on its own. If the retainer carries an end date you are told ahead of it, and you reissue it from your template; reminders also go out for anything sent and still unsigned.

More detail on how a document is sent, signed and proved on the e-signature page, or see how other companies use it on the industries index.

See the document itself

The whole thing, section by section, with the priced schedule attached. Free to read, and nothing to sign up for.

These show structure rather than wording, and where your professional body publishes model wording you should use theirs. Every one we publish is in the specimen gallery.

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

A new client agrees your general terms once, and reads your ways of working and your rate card beside them, with a record of what they opened.

Sending for signature

Self sign

A pitch declaration, a supplier form a client sends as a PDF, or an internal sign-off: signed by you alone, in one sitting.

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.

Put your next scope of work through it

Build one from your own rate card, send it to a real client, and look at what comes back.

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