Relevant to anybody who subcontracts. A freelancer working on your client’s brand sees who your client is, which is somebody else’s information as well as yours.
What is recorded
| Field | What it means |
|---|---|
| Privacy accepted | The date they agreed to how their data is stored and processed. |
| Confidentiality signed | The date they signed not to disclose client names or project details. |
| Hide client names | A switch. This vendor does not see who the work is for. |
Both of the first two are dates, not tick boxes. A tick box says somebody once clicked something; a date says when, and can go stale visibly when your terms change.
Hide client names
Turn it on and the vendor sees the work without seeing whose it is. Use it for:
- freelancers and subcontractors who have no reason to know,
- anybody who also works for your competitors,
- work under an NDA your client made you sign,
- a vendor you are still getting the measure of.
Your own client contracts may require this. A confidentiality clause you signed usually binds the people you subcontract to as well — and “our supplier saw it” is not a defence anybody has ever won with.
Getting the paperwork in
- Send the confidentiality agreement before the first job, not with the first invoice.
- Record the date it came back.
- Keep the signed copy under Documents, so the date and the paper are in the same place.
- Re-paper when your terms change, and update the date.
Who needs which
| Vendor | Privacy | Confidentiality | Hide client names |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stationery supplier | Yes | No | No |
| Freelance designer on client work | Yes | Yes | Usually |
| Subcontractor on a client site | Yes | Yes | Depends |
| Agency that also serves a competitor | Yes | Yes | Yes |
The pattern: anybody who sees your client’s information rather than just yours needs the confidentiality agreement, and probably needs the names hidden as well.
Why dates and not tick boxes
A tick box records that somebody clicked something, once, and stays ticked for ever. A date records when, which is the question that actually gets asked:
- Did they sign the current version, or the one from before your terms changed?
- Did they sign before the job started, or after it went wrong?
- How long has it been?
None of those can be answered by a tick.
Record the date the signed copy came back, not the date you sent it. They are often weeks apart, and only one of them is a date the agreement was actually in force from.
Where to go next
Something missing or wrong here? Tell us. A question that needed asking usually means a page that needed writing.