Send a contract to sign

Every mare booking has a Contracts card. From there you make the contract, sign it, send the mare owner a link, and see when she's signed.

Two ways to start

Open the booking and find the Contracts card.

• New writes a stallion service agreement from the booking: the stallion, the mare, the mare owner, the stallion fee and deposit, the guarantee and the breeding method. You pick the contract type as you make it (a new contract, or a donated or auction contract), and the agreement carries only that one. (A contract made in an older version of the iPhone app lists both; delete the one that doesn't apply before you sign it.) If you've saved a season template for that stallion, the new contract starts from it.
• My contract uses the contract you already send. The first time, tap Set up your contract and upload your PDF (a Word file works too: save it as a PDF first). HorseBook finds the blanks, you check where each one landed, and you approve it once. After that, every booking fills it in for you and asks only for what the booking doesn't already know. As you check each blank, you also say who fills it: You fill, Mare owner fills (her address, say, or a registration number you don't have yet), or Leave blank. A Mare owner fills blank is still filled from the booking when the booking knows the answer; she's asked only for what it doesn't.

HorseBook isn't a law firm. The built-in agreement is a starting point: read every clause, change anything that doesn't match how you do business, and have your attorney look it over before you use it.

1. Fix it while it's a draft

A new contract starts as a Draft. Tap Edit to change any clause. Read it through: anything the booking didn't know is left as a blank for you to fill in.

Sign & send won't go through while any of these is true. It tells you which one and, where there's something to edit, takes you to the editor:

• The stallion fee is blank on a contract that charges one. Set the fee on the booking and generate the contract again, so the fee fills in from the booking (a donated or auction contract doesn't need one). Don't type it into the Stallion Fee section: HorseBook can't check a fee typed there against the invoice, so it asks you to check it yourself before it goes.
• A required section is empty: About This Document, Counterparts and Electronic Signatures, or Signatures. Type it back in, or make a new contract from the booking to start from the standard text.
• The governing state is blank. The agreement names the state whose law it falls under, taken from the address on your profile. If your profile has no state, type it into the Governing Law section of this contract. Adding a state to your profile in Settings fills it in on the contracts you make after that, not on one you've already made.
• The agreement lists both contract types. That happens on a contract made in an older version of the iPhone app, or if both were typed back in while editing. Delete the one that doesn't apply.
• The booking is cancelled. Reopen the booking first, or void the contract.
• Your own contract's file can't be verified. Make the contract again from your approved contract, then send the new one.
• Your Contract details aren't set up yet. They're the name you sign as, so Sign & send asks for them first.
• The contract names someone else. A draft made before you set up or changed your Contract details still names the old Stallion Owner. Update the parties rewrites the lines that name the Stallion Owner (in the opening paragraph, the parties, the payment line and the signatures) from your current details. If you edited one of those lines yourself, it asks first, because your edit there is replaced. The rest of your draft stays as it is. On your own uploaded contract, use Redo instead.

Other blanks (a registration number she hasn't given you yet, say) don't stop it. Sign & send lists them and lets you go ahead.

2. Sign & send, then share the link

Sign & send is where you sign the agreement as the Stallion Owner. It shows the name you're signing as, from your Contract details (your legal name, or your registered business "by" you); tick the box and tap Sign & send. HorseBook records your name, the date and time, and where you signed from. The agreement she opens already shows your signature: the page says you signed it electronically and when, and on your own contract your name and the date are also filled into your signature and date lines wherever your approved contract marks them. If you haven't set up your Contract details yet, they come first.

Signing also locks the text. From then on the contract can't be edited, so what she signs is exactly what you signed.

HorseBook then creates the link and copies it for you, ready to paste into a text or email, the way you'd normally reach her. Copy link gets the same link again later. (On iPhone, Share link opens the share sheet instead.) If the link couldn't be made right then, the contract says link not created yet and Create link makes it.

3. She signs on her phone

The link opens the agreement in her web browser. If it's your own contract, she sees your PDF with an Open the agreement (PDF) button to view it full size. To sign, she:

• fills in any blank your contract leaves to her: one marked Mare owner fills that the booking couldn't answer (her answers are printed into the signed copy),
• types her name and her email address (her copy goes to that address),
• says whether she's the mare owner named on the agreement, or signing for them as their authorized agent,
• confirms she's 18 or older, or the owner's parent or guardian,
• ticks the two consent boxes, and taps Sign agreement.

HorseBook records all of that, the date and time, and where she signed from.

Then you each get a copy:

• Her copy goes to the email she typed: the full agreement, or your PDF with her signature on it (and yours, wherever your approved contract marks your lines) and a last page recording how and when she signed. The page also tells her to save her own copy, and if we can't email her (an address that bounced before, for example), it says so and asks her to save or print it right then.
• Your copy comes to you by email with the news that it's signed. If she signed as someone's agent, or typed a different name from the mare owner on the booking, the email says so. You can open it again any time from the contract's Signed record.
• The booking shows Signed with her name and the date.

The contract covers the agreement. Anything else the deal needs (registration papers, a mare's health records) still goes between you the way it always has.

After she signs, the page offers her HorseBook to track her mare's breeding. It's her choice and doesn't change anything about the agreement.

If plans change

• Revoke link turns the link off. The mare owner keeps any copy they saved or got by email. Making a new link needs the Business plan.
• If your plan lapses, contracts you've sent or had signed stay readable, signed records included, and you can still Revoke link, Void a contract or delete a draft. Making a contract, sending one, or creating a new link waits until you're on the Business plan again.
• Void cancels a contract nobody has signed yet. A signed contract can't be voided or edited. To change one, replace it (below).
• Cancelled the booking? Its agreement goes on hold: the link still opens and says so, but she can't sign until the booking is back on. A draft for a cancelled booking can't be signed and sent either.
• Deleting a booking with a contract that's been sent or signed isn't possible. Void a sent contract first; a signed one stays as a permanent record.
• Already signed on paper? See Prefer paper? below.
• To keep every signed contract at once, use Download all signed contracts (.zip) in Settings on the web: each agreement signed online with its signing record, each one signed on paper as the copy you filed, plus an index. (The iPhone app's Account has the same button; contracts signed on paper are in its download from the latest update.) It's also the first step of Delete Account, because deleting your account deletes your contracts.

Prefer paper?

Some deals still get signed in ink. HorseBook handles those too:

1. Make the contract as usual, then tap Print for signing on the draft. The built-in agreement prints with blank signature, printed-name and date lines for you and the mare owner. Your own contract prints as its filled-in PDF.
2. Once it's signed, tap Signed on paper on that contract and add the signed pages: a PDF, or a photo of each page (several photos become one PDF). On iPhone you can scan the pages with the camera, pick photos, or choose a file.

The contract then shows Signed on paper with the date you filed it, and the scan stays with the booking. The booking counts as signed everywhere a signed contract does: the season list, the fee and guarantee checks (which use what the contract says), and your daily email no longer lists it as waiting on a signature. If you'd already sent a link, Signed on paper turns it off first, and the contract can't be sent for an e-signature after that. Signed on paper by mistake? Delete the signed copy and the contract goes back to how it was (make a new link if you need one).

No HorseBook contract at all? Upload signed copy on the Contracts card files your own signed agreement with the booking, and the booking shows Signed on paper the same way.

Change a signed contract

A signed contract can't be edited. When the terms change after she signs (a different mare, a new fee, fresh to frozen, the wrong owner on it), you make a new agreement that replaces it:

1. On the signed contract, tap Replace this agreement, then pick the built-in contract or My contract.
2. The new contract starts from the booking as it is now, so update the booking first if the fee or the mare changed. A built-in contract gets a Replaces Earlier Agreement section right after the opening paragraph, naming who signed the first one and when. You can reword that section, but you can't send the contract with it empty or removed. With your own contract, the page HorseBook adds at the end of her signed copy says which agreement it replaces.
3. Sign & send it and share the link, as usual.

Until she signs, the first contract stays in force and shows Replacement sent with the date. Once she signs, the new one shows Signed, the first one shows Replaced with the date, and the fee and guarantee checks use the new one. Nothing is deleted: her old link still opens her signed copy, marked as replaced by a newer agreement, and each Signed record links to the other. Her receipt and your copy of the new one both say which agreement it replaces.

Only the contract in force can be replaced, so if you replace it twice, replace the newest one.

On iPhone

On iPhone, the booking's Contracts card does the same: New contract for the built-in agreement, or My contract to fill in your own once it's approved, then Edit (on your own contract, Redo), and Sign & send to sign it and share the link from your phone. You can revoke the link, void a contract, and see when she's signed. On an older version of the app the button says Mark sent, and a contract sent that way goes out without your signature. It can't be shared as a link or signed online: void it, then make a new one and use Sign & send, on the web or in the updated app. Setting up your own contract (uploading it and checking where the blanks landed) is done on the web. In the updated app you can also replace a signed contract with Replace this agreement, as above. If Sign & send then says the Replaces Earlier Agreement section is empty, delete that draft and tap Replace this agreement again, or replace it on the web. An older version of the app doesn't have that button: replace it on the web, and that version shows both contracts as Signed.