Simple employment agreement or offer letter template
A short employment contract: position, hours, pay, probation, leave as the law requires, termination under local law. A sample contract you can read in full, edit in QuoteBill and sign online with a secure link.
Sample — review with a lawyer · Simple electronic signature with an audit trail
Who it is for
For a small employer hiring a first employee who wants the position, start date, place, hours, pay and notice set out plainly, with local law and advice filling in what the law requires.
Employment law is mandatory and differs by country, a written contract or written statement of terms may be legally required, and local advice is needed before you use this.
What it covers
15 clauses, in this order. Each one is in the sample text below, and you can edit, remove or add clauses before you send.
1. Purpose
What the agreement is for: the main terms of the employment, kept short, with the law of the country where the work is done applying as well and possibly giving more rights.
2. Position and duties
Blanks for the job title, who the Employee reports to and the main duties. The Employer may adjust duties within the Employee’s skills and what the law allows.
3. Start date and term
Employment starts on the effective date and is open-ended or fixed-term (you choose). Where the law limits fixed terms, the clause applies only as far as the law allows.
4. Place of work
A blank for the place of work and one for remote work, travel and changes of place.
5. Working hours
Blanks for the weekly hours and the working days and times. Overtime, breaks, rest days and night or weekend work follow the law.
6. Pay and expenses
Pay comes from the price schedule or a blank, with a blank for bonus or commission. The Employer withholds tax and social contributions as the law requires and repays approved expenses against receipts.
7. Probation
A blank for a probation period, or none. It applies only where the law allows it and never longer than the law allows.
8. Leave and absence
Annual leave, public holidays, sick leave and other leave are as the law requires, with a blank for extra leave. The Employee reports absence at once and gives the evidence required.
9. Confidentiality
The Employee keeps the Employer’s confidential business information secret during and after the job. General skills, public information and what the law allows or requires, such as reporting wrongdoing, are excepted.
10. Work product
What the Employee creates in the job belongs to the Employer as the law provides, or the Employee grants an exclusive right of use where it does not. A blank lists the Employee’s earlier materials, which stay theirs.
11. Company property and personal data
The Employee looks after and returns the Employer’s equipment, accounts and materials and follows its reasonable security rules. The Employer handles personal data as the law requires and says how.
12. Termination
Either side may end the employment only as the law of the country where the work is done allows, with its notice periods, form, reasons and dismissal protection. A blank sets a longer notice period where the law lets the parties agree one.
13. Mandatory law and written terms
The local law gives rights this agreement cannot reduce, and applies if the agreement gives less. Where the law asks for a written contract or written terms, this agreement and an attachment supply them and the parties add the rest.
14. Changes and notices
This contract is the whole agreement apart from rights the law gives. Changes need both sides’ written or electronic agreement where the law allows that form, and notices go to the addresses stated.
15. Governing law and disputes
The law you name applies. The sides first try to settle a dispute in good faith, and otherwise the courts you name decide.
A price schedule is optional: add one if you want the amounts in a table, or write the agreed amount into the payment clause.
The sample text
The whole sample, as QuoteBill starts it. Text in double square brackets, like [[10]], is a blank to fill in or check, and QuoteBill does not let you send a contract while one is left. The clause text is written in English, Korean, Japanese and German; in other languages a contract starts in English for you to translate.
Read the sample text
Employment Agreement
Parties: Employer · Employee
1. Purpose
This agreement sets out the main terms on which the Employer employs the Employee. It is meant to be short and plain. The law of the country where the work is done also applies and may give the Employee more rights than are written here.
2. Position and duties
The Employee is employed as [[Job title]] and reports to [[Manager or role]]. The main duties are: [[Main duties]]
The Employer may change the duties within what suits the Employee’s skills and what the law allows.
3. Start date and term
Employment starts on the effective date and is [[open-ended / for a fixed term ending on the end date]]. Where the law restricts fixed-term employment, this clause applies only as far as the law allows.
4. Place of work
The Employee works at [[Place of work, e.g. the office address]]. Remote work, travel and any change of the place of work: [[none / the arrangement]]
5. Working hours
The normal working hours are [[Hours per week]] per week, as follows: [[Working days and times]]
Overtime, rest breaks, rest days and night or weekend work follow the law that applies to the work. Further terms: [[none / the arrangement agreed]]
6. Pay and expenses
The Employer pays the Employee the pay shown in the price schedule of this contract or, if there is none, [[Pay amount, currency and period, e.g. per month before tax]], on the payment terms stated in this contract. Other pay, such as a bonus or commission: [[none / the arrangement]]
The Employer deducts and pays the tax and social contributions that the law requires. Reasonable business expenses that the Employer approved in advance are reimbursed against receipts.
7. Probation
Probation period: [[none / the length of the probation period]]
A probation period applies only where the law allows it and never for longer than the law allows. During it, the rules the law sets for probation apply.
8. Leave and absence
Annual leave, public holidays, sick leave, family leave and other leave are as required by law. Additional leave: [[none / the additional leave]]
If the Employee cannot work because of illness or another reason, they tell the Employer as soon as possible and give the evidence that the law or the Employer’s reasonable rules require.
9. Confidentiality
The Employee keeps the Employer’s confidential business information secret during and after the employment and uses it only for the Employer’s work. This does not apply to information that is public without the Employee’s breach, to the Employee’s own skills and general experience, or to what the law allows or requires the Employee to disclose, including reporting wrongdoing to an authority and speaking about their own pay and conditions where the law protects this.
10. Work product
Work the Employee creates in the course of the employment, such as documents, designs, software and inventions, belongs to the Employer as the law provides. Where the law does not give the Employer these rights automatically, the Employee grants the Employer the exclusive right to use the work for its business, to the extent the law allows. Materials the Employee created before the employment stay the Employee’s: [[none / list of materials]]
11. Company property and personal data
The Employee looks after the equipment, accounts and materials the Employer provides, uses them for work, follows the Employer’s reasonable security and data protection rules and returns them when the employment ends. The Employer processes the Employee’s personal data to manage the employment and as the law requires, and tells the Employee how it does so.
12. Termination
Either party may end the employment only as the law of the country where the work is done allows, including its rules on notice periods, form, reasons and protection against dismissal. Notice period: [[as required by law / the longer period agreed, where the law allows it]]
When the employment ends, the Employee returns the Employer’s property and the Employer pays what is due as the law requires.
13. Mandatory law and written terms
The law of the country where the work is done gives the Employee rights that this agreement cannot reduce. If anything in this agreement gives the Employee less than that law requires, that law applies instead. Where that law requires a written contract or written information on the main terms, such as hours, pay and leave, this agreement and the document attached here supply it: [[Attachment, or none]] The parties add whatever is still missing.
14. Changes and notices
This contract, including its price schedule, is the entire agreement on the employment, apart from the rights the law gives. Changes are valid only if both parties agree to them in writing or in electronic form, where the law allows that form. Notices are given to the addresses stated for the parties, or to another address a party has notified.
15. Governing law and disputes
This agreement is governed by the law stated under Governing law. The parties will first try to settle any dispute in good faith. Otherwise the courts stated under Jurisdiction decide, unless mandatory law provides otherwise.
Payment terms
The pay is paid [[monthly in arrears, on the last working day of the month]] into the bank account the Employee names, after the deductions the law requires.
Governing law
[[Country or state whose law applies]]
Jurisdiction
[[Courts that decide disputes, e.g. the courts of your city]]
How to use it
Choose the template
Press the button to use this template. If you are not signed in, you first sign in or sign up for free and then come straight back to it.
Start a draft
The new-contract page opens with this template marked. Press its card to create a draft. Your company details fill in Party A, and you fill in the blanks, the other party and, where the template has one, the price schedule.
Send it for signature
You sign first, then send each signer a secure link and, by another route, an access code. Signers need no account.
Next steps
Your client opens the link on any device and needs no account. See what the signing looks like on the E-Contracts page, and read which kind of electronic signature is enough for which document.
Already signed? Make the invoice from the signed contract: the parties and the price lines carry over, in full or for a deposit. The guide on turning a quotation into an invoice shows how to review the new draft, its dates and the PDF.
What it is, and what it is not
QuoteBill creates a simple electronic signature with an audit trail. In the EU, the UK, the US and Korea a signature is not denied legal effect only because it is electronic, and in Japan most contracts need no particular form at all. What a simple electronic signature proves in a dispute depends on the evidence behind it, and some documents need another form.
It is not a qualified or advanced electronic signature, and QuoteBill does not verify who the signers are. It records the use of the link and access code you delivered, so anyone who has both can sign. The signature certificate lists every link issued and, for each action by the sender or a signer, its IP address and browser where they could be read.
Some documents need another form. Wills, many real-estate transfers, guarantees and some employment documents must, in some countries, be handwritten, notarised or signed with a qualified signature. The templates are samples, not legal advice: review them with a lawyer.
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