---
title: Agreements and waivers
slug: agreements-and-waivers
category: Client & Pet Management
url: https://alaga.io/help/article/agreements-and-waivers
audiences: business_owner, manager
updated: 2026-08-18
source: Alaga Help Center
---

# Agreements and waivers
Sidebar: **Business Settings → Agreement Templates**.

Clients sign electronically, the signed copy is stored against their record, and you can require an agreement before a client is allowed to book.

## Building a template

A template has a name and its body text, and three settings that matter more than the wording:

- **Required for booking.** Clients cannot complete an online booking until this is signed. Use it for your core liability waiver and little else — every required agreement is another obstacle between a client and a booking.
- **Per pet.** Signed once for each animal rather than once for the client. Correct for anything about a specific pet's health, temperament or handling; wrong for your general terms, which the person signs once.
- **Validity period.** How long a signature lasts before it needs renewing. Leave it open-ended for general terms; set a period for anything asserting a pet's current condition — an annual health declaration means nothing if it was signed four years ago.

Write the text yourself or take it from your existing paper form. **Have anything with legal weight checked by someone qualified in your jurisdiction.** Alaga stores and presents your agreement; it does not supply legal wording, and nothing here is legal advice.

## Getting them signed

- **At booking**, for anything marked required for booking.
- **By request**, sent to a client to sign in their own time.
- **In person**, signed on your device at drop-off.

Once signed, Alaga records who signed, when, and the exact text they agreed to. That last part matters: the signed copy keeps a snapshot of the wording at the time, so editing a template later does not rewrite what somebody already agreed to.

## Expiry

Agreements with a validity period expire. Alaga checks daily and flags those coming up, so renewals are visible before a client arrives with lapsed paperwork rather than after.

## Where signed copies live

On the client's record, and on the pet's record for per-pet agreements. A signed agreement is available as a PDF, which is what you send if a client, an insurer or a solicitor ever asks.

## Practical advice

- **Start with one required agreement.** Your liability waiver. Add others only when you have a reason.
- **Keep it readable.** An agreement clients scroll past unread protects you less than a short one they actually take in.
- **Deactivate rather than delete.** Deactivating stops a template being sent while keeping every signature already collected under it.
- **Expect a bump when you first turn on a required agreement.** Existing clients hit it at their next booking. Warn them by email first, or you will spend a week explaining it on the phone.