Managing Templates & Clauses

Rentablez builds contracts from a modular library. You write Clauses (individual pieces of legal text) once, then combine them into Templates. When you generate a contract, Rentablez assembles the template’s clauses and swaps in real values, so your team never re-types terms or forgets a key clause.

Both live under Customers → Contracts as tabs: switch between the Clause Library and Templates tabs. The Contracts menu is available when contracts and e-signatures are included in your plan.

Creating and editing clauses and templates requires the contract.write permission. Read-only users can view the library but won’t see the create, edit, seed, or delete actions.

The Clause Library

Open the Clause Library tab. This is your master list of reusable clauses, shared across every template. It has two sub-tabs: Clauses and Custom Variables.

How to add a custom clause with variables to your clause library

Seed the defaults (first-time setup)

If your library is empty, click Seed Default Data (also shown as Seed Default Clauses in the empty state) to load a starter set of standard rental clauses and categories. You only need to do this once.

Seeded clauses and categories are marked System. System clauses and categories are locked — their edit, delete, and Required/Optional toggle are disabled. Use them as-is, or add your own custom clauses alongside them.

Add a custom clause

  1. Click + Add Custom Clause. The New Clause page opens.
  2. Clause Title (required) — e.g., “Agreement Acceptance” or “Equipment Modification Restrictions”.
  3. Clause Type (required) — choose Required or Optional. Required clauses are meant to always appear; optional ones can be switched off per template.
  4. Category (required) — e.g., General Terms, Payment & Fees, Liability & Insurance or Other, so clauses stay easy to search and filter.
  5. Clause Text (required) — write the body in the rich editor (headings, bold, lists, alignment, links). Use Insert Table for tabular layouts like vehicle particulars, and + Insert Variable to drop in placeholders such as {{customer_name}} or {{order_number}} — they’re replaced with real values when a contract is generated. Variables marked Order only (like order number and rental dates) are filled only on order contracts. Switch between Editor, Split and Preview to see how the clause will look.
  6. Click Save Clause — you’ll see “Clause created successfully”.

Find, edit, and organize clauses

  • Use the search box and the category dropdown at the top to filter the list.
  • Each clause card shows a Required / Optional toggle, an edit button, and a delete button. These are available on your own clauses only — system clauses are read-only.
  • Click Manage Categories to add, rename, or delete categories. System categories are locked; your own can be edited or removed.

Templates

Open the Templates tab. A template is an ordered collection of clauses plus PDF settings. When you generate a contract, Rentablez prints a copy of the chosen template with values filled in.

How to create a contract template, add clauses and set it as default

The list shows each template’s Clauses count (a warning icon means it has none yet and can’t generate a contract), how many agreements it’s Used In, and a Default toggle with its scope. Each row has Edit, Duplicate and Delete actions.

Create a template

  1. Click + Create Template.
  2. Template Name — e.g., “Corporate Video Rental Agreement”.
  3. Description — optional, to help your team pick the right one.
  4. Start From — choose Start from scratch, or Clone existing template and pick a template to copy. Cloning duplicates all of the source template’s clauses so you can tweak from a known-good starting point.
  5. Click Create Template.

Add and manage clauses on a template

Click Edit on a template card to open the editor. The right-hand Template Clauses panel is where you build the clause list:

  • Click + Add Clause to pick clauses from your library. Only clauses not already on the template appear in the picker.
  • Each clause shows its Required / Optional label and an enable/disable toggle — turn a clause off to drop it from generated contracts without removing it from the template.
  • Click the edit icon on a clause to open Clause Text Override. Text you enter here replaces the library wording for this template only (the card shows a “Custom text applied” badge). Leave it empty to inherit the library version.
  • Click the remove icon to take a clause off the template. This never affects contracts already generated.

The Summary panel tracks total, enabled, and disabled clause counts, plus how many agreements use the template.

There is no drag-to-reorder here. Clauses appear in the order they were added (labelled Clause 1, Clause 2, and so on). To change the sequence, remove and re-add clauses in the order you want.

Template settings (left panel)

In the editor’s Template Details panel you can set:

  • PDF Layout — Standard, Stamp Paper — First Page, or Stamp Paper — All Pages. The stamp-paper modes reserve space at the top of the page for a physical stamp or seal (First Page = page 1 only; All Pages = every page, for Indian stamp-paper compliance).
  • Page Margins (mm) — the blank space on each side of every page. 21 mm is standard; set a side to 0 to print flush to that edge (for example Top = 0 on pre-printed letterhead).
  • Page Footer — Default (contract type, number and page x of y), None, or Custom text such as your company name and GSTIN. Custom footers can use {{contract_number}}, {{contract_type}}, {{page}} and {{pages}}.
  • Use Custom Content Only — hides the system headings and ARTICLE numbering so only your clauses appear in the PDF.
  • Include Signature Block — adds the FOR THE LESSOR / FOR THE LESSEE signature section.
  • Include Witness Block — adds the WITNESSES section.
  • Set as Default — auto-selects this template when generating contracts. Turn it on to reveal the Default Scope options.

Click Save Template to apply.

Scoping a default template

When Set as Default is on, you can narrow when it applies with three optional filters — leave any blank for “all”:

  • Contract Type — all types, Order Contracts only, or Master Agreements only.
  • Asset Category — restrict to one category.
  • Branch / Location — restrict to one branch.

The most-specific match wins. For example, a default scoped to Vehicles + Branch A beats a global default for vehicle orders at Branch A, while the global default still applies everywhere else. The card’s Default badge shows the active scope.

Editing a library clause updates all future contracts generated from templates that use it. Contracts already signed or generated keep the wording they were created with. A per-template clause override always takes precedence over the library text for that template.