Always create receipts. If you are a business owner, operate a business in any way, or own commercial or residential property that you lease, you should always create a paper trail of your transactions and each part to the transaction.
A great place to start is to have a written contract. A written contract is essentially a receipt that proves the existence of a deal or transaction with a third party and what the terms of that deal are/were. If you have a verbal agreement (and don’t have a standard form contract or a lawyer to help you draft it) spend some time to get the basics, at minimum, on paper and signed. In order to prove that a deal was made in the first place you’re going to need a written contract. It goes without saying that you should always keep a copy of any written contract you execute. If you enter into contracts often, you should also create a storage space (online file, etc.) where all of your contracts can be kept for easy access. A lot of my clients actually send me a copy of their contracts (without asking for any work) so that we can store it in the client portal and help supervise deadlines relating to that contract.
When your contract requires performance (the doing of some act), such as payment of money, transferring title to some item or product, or performing a service, a receipt should be created for each step of the way to prove that you have successfully “checked off” your required performance. Here are some examples:
Commercial/Residential Leases:
Payments of security deposits, payments of rent due each month should be paid and record maintained via receipt. A receipt in this context can be a copy of a check, proof of deposit of that check, bank statement showing amount withdrawn and the merchant paid to, a signed document from the recipient of money that states the particular sum of money received, the date received, who paid the money, and the recipient’s signature. All of this creates a receipt to prove that performance was fulfilled when performance was due. If you don’t remember to create a receipt you could end up double-paying.
Delivery of keys to access the commercial or residential property should be given and receipt created for delivery. A problem that is difficult to foresee is the move-in date of the commercial or residential tenant. When it comes down to it, it can be very difficult to prove when the transfer of possession actually occurred. However, if the landlord creates a record that states when the keys for access to the property were delivered to the tenant, it can be proven. Another great way to do this is to create a sheet of all items given to tenant and have the tenant sign a document stating each item and the date of transfer.
Construction:
A contractor and homeowner contract for the performance of construction related services to a kitchen. The contractor needs to buy materials. The contractor should place due care to make sure that the receipt for the purchase of those materials is kept, even if the homeowner is not the party paying for the materials. If the homeowner later cancels the contracting agreement early on in the term of the contract, you may want to prove the amount of money you spent to procure the requisite materials for the job.
The contractor, or perhaps even the homeowner, should create a daily log of work performed at the home.
Facebook Terms of Service/Use:
I have no advice on this one. Considering this is an adhesion contract and your options are either: agree to the terms or don’t use Facebook. There’s really no need to keep receipts. But, consider the importance of creating receipts, Facebook maintains an activity log that retains the activity of its users and the data posted. For example, if a Facebook user comes after Facebook for disseminating private information, Facebook is going to check its activity logs in hopes to show that the user is actually the one who sent it to the wrong person. If Facebook creates receipts.
Professional Athletes:
When performing their jobs on the field, the league retains statistics of players’ activity, such as passing yards, goals scored, runs batted in, penalty kill minutes. These statistics not only provide a great potential for analytics but also create receipts for the performance of the players during each game. If the player needs to prove that they’ve hit 14 touchdowns in order to get the bonus under their contract, those receipts will help prove they’re entitled to it.
Creating receipts helps you track each step of the transaction and also helps to prove what you believe you’re owed or what you believe has already been accomplished. Creating a paper trail is critical to litigation. You can hire the ‘best’ lawyer to help with your case, but if you don’t have the papers to prove your arguments, it can get very difficult to create a winning case.
Shaunt Oozoonian
Oozoonian Law Corporation
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