Sign the version the student actually read.

Every agency has a student agreement. Far fewer can answer the question that matters when it is disputed: what did the document this particular student signed say, on the day they signed it? The template has been edited since — a clause tightened after a bad experience, a refund term clarified, a fee line added. The signed copy is a scan in a folder, and the terms behind it are whatever the template says today.

That gap is where agreements stop being evidence and become decoration.

What versioning means in practice.

Three things, and none of them is complicated. The template is immutable once used — editing produces a new version rather than changing the old one. Each signature records which version was presented. And any version that has ever been signed is retained for as long as the obligations under it can be disputed, which is longer than most retention policies assume.

The result is that "what did this student agree to" has a single answer, retrievable without reconstructing anything from email.

The related records that must match.

• The fee schedule in force on the signing date, since the agreement usually references it rather than restating it.
• The refund terms as they stood then, which is the clause most often revised and most often disputed.
• The consent the student gave, including what they agreed you could share with institutions and with sub-agents.
• Any addendum, with its own date, rather than an edit folded silently into the original.

An agreement that points at "our current fee schedule" and a fee schedule that has changed twice since is a dispute waiting to be lost. Point at a specific version, or restate the amounts inside the agreement.

Presented, then signed.

The sequence is part of the evidence. A student should receive the agreement, have time to read it, and sign afterwards — and the record should show those as separate dated events rather than one. Where an agreement is signed in the office on the same visit it was first seen, note that too, honestly. It is a weaker position than one signed after a week's consideration, and knowing which of the two you are in is worth more than pretending they are the same.

The same applies to language. If the family is being counselled in Vietnamese, Portuguese or Korean, the version they signed should be the version in that language, and the record should say which language version was presented. An agreement signed in a language the signatory does not read comfortably is a document that will not survive being questioned, whatever it says.

When the terms change.

Existing students remain on the version they signed unless a new one is presented and accepted. That is both the legal position in most places and the fair one. It also means an agency that changes terms mid-cycle is running two or three versions at once, which is manageable only if each student's file says which one applies to them.

Where a change genuinely must apply to existing students — a regulatory requirement, a change of banking arrangements — present it as a new version and record the acceptance. Do not amend and hope.

Minors and third parties.

Where the student is under eighteen, or where a parent is paying, the person carrying the obligation may not be the person named as the student. Record who signed, in what capacity, and on what date, and make sure the paying party received the fee schedule directly. A parent who never saw the terms is not bound by them in any sense that matters, including the practical one.

The test to run this week.

Take one student who signed twelve months ago. Produce the exact document they signed, the fee schedule it referenced as it stood that day, the date they received both, and their acknowledgement. If that takes more than a minute, the problem is not the paperwork — it is that the record was never designed to answer the question anyone would actually ask.