How Innovative Language renews 250 contractor contracts in a few clicks

At Innovative Language Learning, we create language-learning platforms that help learners study over 30 languages through practical audio and video lessons. Our sites, including JapanesePod101, serve a global community of language learners.

We work with a lot of contractors. Content creators, teachers, on-camera talent. We're not a huge company, but at any given moment we have hundreds of contracts in flight. Twice a year, we send them all at once.

Before Portant, that meant a script someone had built in-house that emailed PDF contracts to every freelancer. They'd print the PDF, sign it, take a picture, and email it back. Then we'd file it, follow up with the people who hadn't responded, and update a spreadsheet by hand. It worked, but it ate everyone's time.

250 contracts in a single batch, twice a year

Our model has two seasons.

The first is the renewal cycle. We sometimes go quiet with a freelancer for weeks or even months between projects. Rather than send a new contract every time we want to bring them back in, we use a six-month framework agreement that sets out the kind of work and the rate we'd pay if we contact them. That way, when something comes up, we're already aligned.

Every six months, we renew everyone. That can be 250 contracts going out together at the peak. The second season is the one-by-one work, anytime we have a new contractor or a project that doesn't fit the standard agreement.

The PDF-based tools didn't feel right

When I went looking for a tool to make this faster, I had a few requirements. The biggest one was that I wanted to keep working from a Google Doc.

Most of the tools I found were built around PDFs. You take a PDF template, drop boxes onto it, and the tool fills them in. To me, it's a small detail, but it matters. You can see what's part of the template and what's been added. It's not pleasant to the eye. I wanted to be able to tweak the document until the very last moment, like I would in any normal Google Doc.

I also wanted to drive the whole thing from a Google Sheet. Tell the tool which template to use, what data to merge in, and see the status of every contract back in the same place. Some of the bigger names I looked at could do parts of it, but not all of it, and the price didn't match what we were willing to pay.

Portant had everything on my list, at a price that worked.

One Google Sheet, one template, two ways to send

The setup is pretty simple. I have a Google Sheet with all the contractor information. I have a Google Doc template for each type of contract. Portant pulls the data into the template and sends it out.

For renewals, I run it as a single batch. I check one contract carefully first to make sure everything looks right, then I turn off the human-in-the-loop step because I know nothing needs to be customised. From there, hundreds of contracts go out in a few clicks.

For the one-by-one cases, I keep the human-in-the-loop step on. That gives me a chance to add or remove a line, or rewrite something entirely if the project is unusual. The point is that I have the choice.

Portant also lets me set the folder where each signed contract lands, so the file ends up in the right place automatically. No more moving documents around after the fact.

From 1.5 minutes a contract to a few seconds per batch

Doing this manually used to take about a minute and a half per contract, just to prepare and send. With Portant on a one-by-one contract, I'm down to about 30 seconds. In batch mode for renewals, the per-contract time is basically zero. The only real time I spend is in the spreadsheet.

For a 250-contract renewal, that's a colossal amount of time saved when you factor in the follow-ups too. Before, a lot of contracts ended up unsigned because we just didn't have time to chase. Now we have no excuse not to be compliant. The contracts go out, the signed ones come back in, and the rest are easy to spot.

The team can check status without asking me

The other shift is mental load.

The Google Sheet I use for sending is the same one the rest of the team checks. I've set up conditional formatting on it. If a contract is sent and signed, the row turns green. If it's sent but pending, it's yellow. If it's white, I haven't sent it yet.

So when someone on the team wants to know whether a freelancer has signed, they don't have to ask me. They open the sheet, look at the colour, and decide whether to start working with that person. If I'm out of office, the work doesn't stop.

Everything is in one place, and no one has to chase a status update.

What I'd add next

If I had to give Portant a score today, I'd give it a nine out of ten. The one thing I'd add is automatic reminders. When a contract has been sent and is still pending after a week, I'd love Portant to send a reminder on its own, with the option to set how many reminders, when they go out, and what they say.

Right now I do that bit manually from the Google Sheet. It works, but I'd rather not have to think about it. With that feature added, I genuinely don't know what else I'd ask for.

For our use case, Portant is one of those tools where you set it up once and then forget about it. That's exactly what I wanted.

If you're sending a lot of contracts and the back and forth is eating your time, start for free at portant.co.