Go to the Contacts tab and tap the add button. Fill in their name, email, and any other details you have. You don't need everything — a name and email is enough to get started.
Once they're in your contacts, they'll show up as an option in Step 2 of the contract wizard. You can always add more details to their profile later — phone, company, notes, LinkedIn — and it'll all be there every time you work with them again.
If you're going to be working with this client regularly, take a moment to fill in the Notes field too. Things like their preferred communication style, who approves payments, or any context about their business will save you time and awkwardness down the line.
Happ offers a range of aesthetic themes for your contract. Pick one that feels like your brand — clean and minimal if you're in design or strategy, something warmer if you're in photography or lifestyle, bolder if you're in entertainment or events.
This step matters more than it sounds. A contract that looks polished and intentional signals that you're a professional who takes their work seriously. Clients notice — even if they don't say it out loud.
You can always come back and change the theme for future contracts, so don't overthink it. Pick what feels right and move on.
You'll fill in:
Keep the subject line specific. Vague names like "Project" or "Services" make your dashboard messy and make it harder to reference later when you have multiple active contracts.
Option 1: Add from your saved services
If you've already set up reusable services in Settings → My Services, they'll appear here. One tap adds them to the contract with your preset pricing. This is the fastest path and the one you'll use most once you're set up properly.
Option 2: Add manually
Type in the service name, description, quantity, and price. Good for one-off items or custom scopes that don't fit your standard packages. Be specific — "Photography: 4-hour brand shoot, up to 3 looks, 50 edited images delivered within 7 days" is clearer and more professional than "Photoshoot."
Option 3: Use AI suggestions
Happ's AI can suggest services based on your profession and project type, with market-rate pricing ranges and fit scores to help you calibrate. This is especially useful if you're new to pricing a particular type of work, or if you want to sense-check whether your rates are in the right ballpark for your market.
You can mix all three — add a saved service, then add a custom line item, then let AI suggest something you might have forgotten to include.
Tip: After this contract is done, save any new custom services you added to My Services so they're ready to reuse next time. It's one of the fastest ways to make future contracts feel effortless.
Single Payment
The full amount is due at one point in time — either upfront, on delivery, or on a specific date. Good for short projects, clear deliverables, or clients you know well and trust.
Milestones
You split the total into multiple payments tied to stages of the project. For example: 50% on signing, 25% at first draft delivery, 25% on final delivery. This is the smarter default for anything that takes more than a week or has multiple phases, because it means you're never doing all the work before you've been paid anything.
For each payment you'll choose the method: Stripe (card payments processed directly in Happ), PayPal, Payoneer, Venmo, or Wire Transfer. Stripe is the only fully integrated method — meaning the client can pay with a card and the money lands directly in your Happ balance for withdrawal. The others are manual and you'll need to track them separately.
You can also add a note to each payment — useful for things like "Deposit due before shoot date" or "Final payment due within 5 business days of delivery."
A note on deposits: If you're not already asking for a deposit before starting work, start now. Even 25-30% upfront changes the client relationship — it signals commitment on their side and protects your time on yours. In Happ, just set the first milestone as your deposit and it's part of the signed agreement from day one.
Option 1: Use saved templates
If you've stored standard terms in Settings → Business Terms, you can pull them in here. This is the most efficient path once you've built a solid template.
Option 2: Add manually
Type or paste your terms directly. If you already have a standard set of T&Cs you've been using, this is the place to bring them in.
Option 3: Use AI suggestions
Happ's AI can generate relevant terms based on your project type and community data. This is a great starting point if you don't have established terms yet — review what's generated, edit anything that doesn't fit your work, and save it as a template for future use.
At minimum, your terms should cover: revision rounds and what happens after, late payment consequences, what happens if the project is cancelled, who owns the work after final payment, and whether you can show it in your portfolio. See our Essential Freelance Agreement guide for a full breakdown of what to include.
Once your terms are in, review the full contract, then send it to your client for signature. Happ handles the e-signature flow — your client gets a link, signs digitally, and you're both notified when it's done.
You can add them directly from the Contacts tab before starting the wizard — it only takes a name and email to get going. Once they're in your contacts they'll be selectable in Step 2 of the wizard, and you can fill in the rest of their profile details later.
If you're mid-wizard and realize you forgot to add them, you can save your contract as a draft, go add the contact, and come back to finish.
Yes. Contracts are saved as drafts automatically as you go through the wizard. If you need to stop and come back, your progress will be there. You'll see it listed on your dashboard with a Draft status badge until it's sent for signature.
A single payment is one lump sum — either upfront, on delivery, or on a specific date. Milestones break the total into multiple payments tied to project stages, so you get paid in portions as the work progresses.
Milestones are almost always the safer option for projects that take more than a few days. They protect your cash flow, reduce the risk of non-payment, and create natural checkpoints for both you and the client. If you're unsure which to use, start with two milestones: a deposit on signing, and the balance on delivery.
Once a contract is sent for signature, the terms are locked — that's what makes it a valid agreement. If something needs to change before they sign, contact your client and either resend a revised version or cancel the current one and start fresh.
If the contract is already signed and something changes mid-project (like scope), that's handled through a scope change request rather than editing the original contract. See our guide on handling scope creep for how to do that cleanly.
You'll get a notification that the contract is signed and it'll show a Signed status badge on your dashboard. From that point, any milestone payment buttons become active — either you or the client can initiate payment depending on how you've set things up.
The signed contract is stored in Happ and linked to your client's contact profile, so you always have a clean record of what was agreed, when, and what's been paid.
Ideally yes, but don't let that stop you. You can absolutely create your first contract by filling things in manually, and then save what you build as reusable templates afterward. The important thing is getting that first contract out.
Once you've done one, go to Settings → My Services and Settings → Business Terms and save your standard items. Your second contract will be noticeably faster, and by the third it'll feel completely automatic.
Happ is built so that creating a contract feels like filling in a form, not writing a legal document from scratch. Every step of the wizard is designed to make sure you cover the things that actually protect you — scope, payment, and terms — without needing to know what you’re doing beforehand.
The goal is that after your first contract, the second one takes half the time. And after a few, it becomes a normal, confident part of how you work.
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