Hiring/paying an independent contractor

Molly Hickok Updated by Molly Hickok

Sign a contract

Often, independent contractors will have their own forms of agreement. Occasionally, you will be the one providing the agreement format. In either case, it's best to have your contracts reviewed by a lawyer. It's also useful also to review the IRS guidelines on whether to categorize a worker as an employee or an independent contractor to make sure you stay on the right side of the law. If you would like ArtsPool to process the contract for digital signature through DocuSign, share the un-signed version of the contract through the ArtsPool app by creating a new task with the title: Contract for DocuSign Processing - [Contractor's Name]. Make sure to include the contractor's email address. Select Bookkeeping as the Category for this task when submitting via the online form.

As of May 15, 2017, NYC's Freelance Isn't Free act requires that anyone hiring freelance contractors must provide the contractor with a written contract if they earn more than $800 in aggregate in a rolling 120-day window. Because this is hard to track, it's a good idea to have a contract with every contractor. Learn more about the contract requirements or download a sample contract.

Provide the contract to ArtsPool

If ArtsPool has processed the contract through DocuSign, you have already done this step, and we will automatically proceed once the contract is signed by all parties. If you did not process the contract through ArtsPool/DocuSign, create a new task in the ArtsPool app with the title: New Contract - [Contractor's Name]. Make sure to include the contractor's email address so that we can request a W-9 if necessary.

Communicate with the contractor about W-9 collection

If ArtsPool does not already have a W-9 on file for the contractor, we will request one through Track 1099, a web tool that we are using to collect W-9 information from contractors. Please let the contractor know to expect this email and complete the information in a timely fashion. Once we have received the contractor's W-9 information, we can process any relevant payments. See the article Requesting payment for a bill for more information on that part of the process.

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