sundaridevi - 7:41 am on Sep 2, 2011 (gmt 0)

That was a pretty good summary of the project requirements rocknbil, but the OP asked for a contract template. You did also cover those issues a bit. It's really important to define the project requirements and scope of work, but there's a lot more that needs to go in there too. Normally the proposal comes from the developer and the contract comes from the client. the client could attach the proposal (or parts of it - e.g. milestones) as an Appendix.

In my experience, two of the key points that you need in a contract that may not be obvious to many people:

- Work for hire: The job is work for hire. Then you own everything and if the guy helps you build the next facebook, he can't come back two years later claiming he owns a % of the company. This is essential.

- Termination: whenever a job goes bad, this is the first thing you will look at. The termination clause describes under what circumstances the job can be terminated and how (monetary, time delay, who gets what, etc).