You’re interested in starting your own financial advising firm, but you’re not doing it alone. You have a friend who works in the same space, and the two of you have been talking about partnering up to open a firm together.
This can be a great idea and could be very lucrative, but you need to take steps upfront to protect the business and yourself. One way to do this is through a partnership agreement.
What goes in a partnership agreement?
The value of a partnership agreement is that contractually lays out in writing exactly what your partnership is going to look like. This can help to solve disputes that do arise, but it may also keep these disputes from happening in the first place because the agreement will provide necessary answers. For instance, a few things that may go into the partnership agreement include:
- How and when you should be paid
- What percentage of the business each will own
- How to resolve disputes that may happen
- What obligations and tasks you are each supposed to carry out
- The division of any other day-to-day labor
- The steps that need to be taken if one of you wants to break the partnership in the future
These are just a few of the things that you may put in your partnership agreement, but you can see how beneficial they are. Both of you need to know exactly where you stand so there’s no confusion, and having a plan in place for things like dissolving the partnership can make doing so much easier if it does eventually come to that. Be sure you carefully consider all the legal steps you need to take to get this agreement set up.