> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.hitaji360.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Employment contract templates

> The document your employees and their employer-representative sign to confirm employment — built once per business, then used automatically every time a contract is created.

An employment contract template is the document your employees and their employer-representative **sign to confirm employment** — the wording, the merge variables (name, position, start date, pay currency…), and the signature blocks. Build it once per business, then Hitaji 360 uses it automatically every time a new employment record is created, whether that's from [accepting a job offer](/hr/user/recruitment/job-offers) or [adding an employment record directly](/hr/user/employees/employment-and-contracts#adding-an-employment-record).

This page covers creating and editing employment contract templates. For how a contract actually gets sent, signed, resent or voided, see [Employment records & contracts](/hr/user/employees/employment-and-contracts#the-e-signature-envelope). For choosing which template and signatory a business uses, see [HR settings](/hr/user/settings/hr-settings#employment-contracts).

**You'll find this at:** **HR → Employment Contracts → Templates** tab — `/hr/contracts?tab=templates`. Also reachable via the **"Manage templates"** link on the Employment Contracts card in [HR settings](/hr/user/settings/hr-settings).

> 📷 *Screenshot: The Employment Contracts page showing the Contracts and Templates tabs — to be added.*

***

## The one thing to understand first

**A template is a setting, not a starting point.** You never open a template and turn it into a contract for a particular person.

Instead, the contract is issued **from the employee's contract record**. When an employment record is created, Hitaji 360 takes the business's configured template, fills in that employee's details, addresses it to the two signers, and sends it. Your job here is only to get the template right — the wording, the variables, and where each party signs.

That's why the Templates tab offers **Preview** rather than "Use this template": there is nothing useful you could do with a one-off copy. A document created by hand from a template would be linked to no employee, would never appear in the Contracts tab, and would not be tracked against anybody's employment record.

> Contracts normally send themselves the moment an employment record is created. If one shows **"Not sent"**, go to **HR → Employees**, open the person's **Employment** section, and use **Generate & Send** on their contract. See [the e-signature envelope](/hr/user/employees/employment-and-contracts#the-e-signature-envelope).

***

## Before you start

* **Which business am I in?** Templates belong to the business selected in the switcher.
* This tab shows **Employment**-category templates only.

> Employment contract templates share their engine with the CRM Agreements module's document templates — the same editor, the same merge-variable and signature-block system. This tab is a purpose-built lens onto that shared library, filtered to the Employment category. It is not a separate system.

***

## Creating a template

Click **New Template**, then choose one of two starting points:

* **Blank Template** — an empty document, already set to the Employment category and to the correct signer roles. Opens straight in the editor.
* **Template Gallery** — pre-built, professionally-worded templates. On this tab the gallery is **pinned to Employment**, so you only see templates whose signature blocks are already tagged for the right signers. Hitaji 360 ships a seeded **"Employment Contract"** entry — position and duties, commencement, remuneration, work location, confidentiality, termination, governing law, and signature blocks for both parties — so most businesses can start there rather than writing one from scratch.

Selecting a gallery template creates **your own editable copy**; the original gallery entry is untouched.

> ⚠️ Don't create employment templates from the full CRM template library. A template copied out of a different category (an NDA, say) carries that category's signer roles, and its signature blocks are tagged with them — the contract would go out to your employee with nothing for them to sign. Always create them from this tab.

**Name the template as soon as you create it.** A blank template starts out called *Untitled Template*, and that name is what you and everyone else will see in the template picker in HR settings.

***

## The template editor

A rich-text document editor (bold/italic/underline/strikethrough, headings, lists, blockquote, links, undo/redo) with a side panel of three tabs.

### Fields

The signature blocks you drop into the document:

* **Signature** — the actual signature capture.
* **Initials**
* **Text Field** — e.g. the signer's full name or title.
* **Date** — when they signed.

Each field is assigned to a **signer role** via the "Assign to role" dropdown. For an employment contract those roles are always **Employee** and **Employer\_rep** — see [Signer roles are fixed](#signer-roles-are-fixed) below.

Use **Show all** to see every field type available.

### Variables

Merge variables are placeholders that get substituted with real values when a contract is generated — the employee's name, position, start date, the business name, pay currency, and so on. They appear in the document as highlighted chips and in the raw text as `{{custom.field_name}}` tokens.

* **Add custom variable** names a new variable and **inserts it at your cursor** in the document.
* The **⋯ menu** next to a variable removes it — from the panel *and* from everywhere it appears in the document.
* **Clicking a variable's name** scrolls the document to it.

Variables listed under **CRM Auto-filled** are populated from a linked record rather than typed in.

> In a template you are *naming* the variables that each contract will fill in — a template has no values of its own, so no value boxes are shown here. Values get filled per-contract when the envelope is generated.

### Settings

For an employment contract template, this tab holds the **Description** — a short note explaining what the template is for. It's what helps you tell two templates apart in the HR settings picker, so it's worth filling in.

The signer roles are listed here too, but read-only.

> Document Kind and Category aren't shown for employment templates. Both are fixed: the category is what keeps the template in this tab, and "Contract vs MOU" has no meaning for an employment contract.

### Saving

The top bar has **Save** (enabled once you've made a change) and an **Active** / inactive toggle. Only Active templates can be selected in HR settings.

***

## Signer roles are fixed

An employment contract is always addressed to exactly two signers, in this order:

1. **Employee** (`employee`) — signs first.
2. **Employer representative** (`employer_rep`) — the [signatory configured in HR settings](/hr/user/settings/hr-settings#employment-contracts) — signs second.

These role names are **not editable**, and there is no "Manage roles" action on an employment template.

The reason is mechanical: when a contract is sent, Hitaji 360 matches each signature block in the document to a recipient **by exact role name**. The sender always addresses the two recipients above. So a signature block tagged `client`, or `party_a`, or a renamed `Employee`, matches nobody — and the contract would go out looking complete while giving both parties **nothing to sign**.

This applies to **every** template you select — the default and each per-employment-type override alike.

### This is now checked for you

Hitaji 360 refuses to use a template whose signer roles aren't exactly `employee` and `employer_rep` (in either order):

* **When you select it.** Saving the Employment Contracts card with such a template is rejected, and the error names the roles the template actually has, e.g. *"Template "Untitled Template" has signer roles \[client] but an employment contract requires exactly \[employee, employer\_rep]."*
* **When a contract is sent.** If a template's roles are edited after it was selected — or the single-template fallback lands on a bad one — the envelope is **not sent**, and the contract shows "Not sent" with the same explanation, rather than sending an unsignable document.

> ⚠️ If an older contract arrived with no signature areas, this is almost always why. Open the template, check the Fields panel, and confirm every signature block is assigned to **Employee** or **Employer\_rep**.

***

## After creating a template

Go to [HR settings → Employment Contracts](/hr/user/settings/hr-settings#employment-contracts) and select your new template as the **default employment contract template**, along with the **employer-representative signatory**. Only Active, Employment-category templates appear in the dropdown.

Until **both** are set, new contracts are created with the envelope showing **"Not sent"** rather than actually going out — see [the e-signature section](/hr/user/employees/employment-and-contracts#the-e-signature-envelope) for what that looks like day to day.

### A different template per employment type

An intern agreement and a senior full-time contract usually differ in their **clauses**, not just their dates — so merge variables alone can't express the difference. Beneath the default, the same card offers **one optional template picker per employment type**: Full-Time, Part-Time, Contract, and Intern.

Set a type's picker to give that type its own document. Leave it on **"Same as default"** to fall through to the default template. You only need as many templates as you have genuinely different documents.

When a contract is generated, Hitaji 360 resolves the template in this order:

1. The **override** for that contract's employment type, if one is set.
2. The **default** template.
3. If neither is set: the tenant's single Active employment template, when there is exactly one.
4. Otherwise the envelope is **not sent**, and the contract shows "Not sent".

> If a business has exactly one Active employment template and nothing explicitly selected, Hitaji 360 falls back to that single template. This is a convenience, not a substitute for choosing one — an unnamed or half-finished template will be picked up silently. Select your template explicitly.

***

## Permissions

| Action                | Permission                                                          |
| --------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| View / list templates | `crm-agreement-templates:read`                                      |
| Create, edit          | `crm-agreement-templates:create` / `crm-agreement-templates:update` |
| Delete                | `crm-agreement-templates:delete`                                    |

***

## Related

* [Employment records & contracts](/hr/user/employees/employment-and-contracts) — where the e-signature envelope this template feeds actually gets sent, resent, voided and viewed
* [HR settings — Employment Contracts](/hr/user/settings/hr-settings#employment-contracts) — choose the template and signatory for a business
* [Job offers](/hr/user/recruitment/job-offers) — accepting an offer creates the contract that uses this template
* [Template Centre](/hr/user/employees/template-centre) — the hub for onboarding/recruitment/separation templates; employment contract templates are a separate, CRM-Agreements-backed system and aren't listed there