Contract document PDF rendering

[clstaudt]

Summary

Tuttle manages contracts as structured business-term records (rate, dates, VAT, billing cycle, charges), but cannot render them as formatted agreement documents. Freelancers who want to send a contract to a client must create the document elsewhere.

Since the contract data is already in Tuttle, rendering it as a clean PDF is a natural next step.

Existing infrastructure

• The Contract model already captures: client, dates, rate/fixed price, currency, VAT, billing cycle, payment terms, and additional ContractCharge line items
• The User model includes a signature image and business details
• The Jinja2 + headless browser PDF pipeline is battle-tested for invoices
• Invoice templates already handle multi-currency, VAT categories, and line item tables

Goals

• Freelancers can export a contract as a professionally formatted PDF
• The document includes all relevant contract terms, charges, and both parties' details
• The freelancer's signature image can optionally be included
• Contract PDFs are stored locally alongside invoice PDFs

Possible approaches (to be discussed)

1. "Export as PDF" on the contract detail view — a new Jinja2 template that renders the existing Contract data as a formatted agreement, with an export button in the UI
2. Editable contract text — allow the user to add free-text clauses (preamble, terms & conditions, termination clause) beyond the structured fields, stored as a text field on the contract model
3. Contract templates — reusable boilerplate text that can be selected when creating a contract, similar to invoice note templates

Questions to refine

• Is a pure rendering of existing structured data sufficient, or do freelancers need free-text legal clauses?
• Should there be a "contract template" system for reusable boilerplate?
• How important is a signing workflow? (For v1, the freelancer's stored signature on the PDF may be enough — the client can countersign on paper or via their own process)
• Should the contract PDF include a place for the client's signature?

Feedback wanted

If you're a freelancer, we'd love to hear:

• Do you currently use formal written contracts? Or do you work on informal agreements / email confirmations?
• What sections does your typical contract include? (scope, payment terms, liability, IP rights, termination, …)
• Would a clean PDF of the structured contract data be useful as-is, or do you need to add custom legal text?