Setting up Your Business Tool Box (How to become a self-employed Pharmacist – Part 6)

What business documents do you need to interact with your clients? Well, at minimum you need two documents.

If you’ve caught this coaching series in the middle, please take the time to start at the beginning of the coaching series and get yourself caught up!

Last week, I talked about How You Profit by Becoming a Contract Pharmacist.

So you now have an idea of how you benefit from offering your services this way. It’s time to get the some of the tools to do this. This week’s lesson is important. But can be dull and boring. I’ll do my best to make it a little fun and to keep your attention from waning.

This lesson as is titled “Setting up Your Business Tool Box “.

I hope by now you have a great idea how much you stand to gain out of this. So sit close. Pay attention. Try not to blink. It’s time to begin.

What to Put in Your Bag of Tricks

So what do you need anyways? How do you benefit from doing this? Well, there are two very important documents you need in your arsenal.

Service Agreement

Before you conduct business with a pharmacy, you need to protect yourself and your potential client with a contract called a Service Agreement.

A Service Agreement is a contract that is signed by 2 parties that identifies the services required by the Contracting Officer (your client) and the service expected by the Contractor (you).

The laws may be a little different depending on what state or country you’re in. What I recommend you put in your service agreement I’ve broken down into three parts.

Step 1

Make sure to include

- Company logo

- Company Name

- Your name

It’s ok to use your letterhead to take care of these items.

Step 2

- The title “Consultant Service Agreement” on the top.

- The first line should read, “This agreement is entered into this (today’s date) between (your company) and (the pharmacy).

Step 3

- Add the line “A description of service to be rendered as follows:”

Describe the services you will be providing. As a pharmacist, you will write something along these lines.

“Provide pharmacy relief on agreed scheduled days”. We usually write this in bold.

Step 4

- Add “This service shall be for a fee of (your fee) per hour.”

- Add “Payment to be made upon acceptance of work performed an upon receipt of itemized invoice(s).:

- Add “If services are unacceptable, the requestor will notify our office within three days of the work performed, otherwise services will be considered acceptable.

Step 5

- Add cancellation consequences

- Add “If (your business name) is not notified of a cancellation of scheduled days with at least (number of days notice you need). (Your Client) will be charged a cancellation fee of (whatever dollar amount penalty you think is reasonable) per scheduled day.”

Step 5

- Add an area for your signature

- Add an area for your clients signature

Also, the smaller the business the simpler you want your service agreement to be. If you are contracting with a small independent then a one-page service agreement will do. We’ve found the more technical the service agreement the more likely owners will get scared off. The bigger the client the more comprehensive you’ll want your service agreement.

Invoice

Another important component you need in your toolkit is your invoice. This is what you will use to bill your client.

Step 1

Page one should consist of:

- Company logo

- Company Name

- Your name

Again, It’s ok to to use your letterhead to take care of these items.

Step 2

- The title “Invoice” on the top.

- The first line should read, “This agreement is entered into this (today’s date) between (your company) and (the pharmacy).

Step 3

Create a table with four columns.

The columns will be ‘No of Hours”, “Description”, “rate”, “total”

Enter the number of hours you served in one column

and your rate in another column.

Under description, enter “Pharmacy services”.

Total is (No of Hours * rate)

Step 4

Pick an area on the invoice for the name of person (to receive the invoice), name of company and address (street, city, state and zip)

Step 5

In Word, Excel and/or Access or even any invoice program you need to keep track of your invoices by assigning an invoice number to each move. Include your payment terms, such as “payment due upon receipt of invoice,” “net 10″, “due in 15 days upon receipt” or other terms, according to the contract or agreement. The more details the better.

Step 6

Add a “Thank You” somewhere on the invoice. Example: “Thank you for your business”

So there you have it. Detailed information on the two very important documents you’ll need use with your clients.

Next Week’s Lesson – What is Your Target Market

We looked into useful tools necessary to do business with a pharmacy client in order to protect yourself and your client.

Next week, we’ll cover your target market, what kind of pharmacies you will be targeting and why.

This concludes this week’s lesson. Make sure to have these tools ready for when you need them.

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