Freelancer onboarding checklist for small studios

The short answer

Before the first day: a signed agreement with confidentiality, ownership and a portfolio clause, the rate, currency and payment terms, their invoice and tax details, and a check that they own the software and plug-ins the job needs. On the first day: access to the files for their piece only, your naming convention, one channel for questions and one person who gives notes. At the end: collect the source files, revoke every access, pay the invoice and write two lines about how it went.

How to brief, review and pay a freelancer day to day is in managing freelancers in a small 3D studio. This page is the admin around it.

Why a checklist at all

Small studios hire freelancers in a hurry. The job lands on Thursday, the artist starts on Monday, and the paperwork is "we will sort it out". Most of the time nothing happens. The time it does, it is expensive: a client asks for proof that everyone on the job signed their NDA, a freelancer posts the work on their portfolio before the product launch, a render comes back with a watermark from a plug-in trial, or an artist you stopped working with eight months ago still has the shared drive mounted.

A checklist takes twenty minutes per freelancer and removes all four. Run the same one every time, including for people you have worked with for years. The repeat freelancers are the ones whose paperwork is most likely to be out of date.

Before day one

1. Agreement signed. Scope of the piece, rate, rounds, deadline, and the clauses below. For a short job an email they reply to is enough; for anything longer or anything under a client NDA, a short contract signed online. The contract checklists list the clauses.
2. Confidentiality. If the client made you sign an NDA, the freelancer signs one at least as strict, before they see a file. Many client NDAs require it in writing.
3. Ownership. The work and the rights in it pass to you (and through you to the client) on payment. Without this, in many countries the freelancer owns what they made.
4. Portfolio clause. They may show the work only after the client has published it, and only if the client allows it. Say how they ask.
5. Rate and currency. Fixed price for the piece or a day rate with an estimate, in their currency if that is what they quote. Write the currency next to the number.
6. Payment terms. How many days after approval you pay, and how they invoice.
7. Invoice details. Their legal name, address, tax number if they have one, and bank details. Check the bank details by a second channel the first time; changed bank details by email are a common fraud.
8. Tax paperwork. Some countries require a form from foreign contractors, for example a W-8BEN or W-9 when a US business pays a freelancer. Ask your accountant which applies to you; do it once, then keep it on file.
9. Software and versions. Which application and version the files must open in. A scene saved in a newer version than yours cannot be opened, and that discovery always happens on the deadline.
10. Plug-ins and render engine. They need a licence for anything the scene depends on. A trial licence watermarks renders or expires mid-job.
11. Asset libraries. Models, textures and HDRIs bought under your studio licence may not be transferable to a freelancer. Check the licence terms, and if they cannot use your library, agree what they may use and who pays for it.
12. Render access. If they render on your farm account, give them a separate login or a budget, not your main credentials.

The day rate calculator is useful when you agree a day rate and want to know what it costs you per week.

Day one

1. Files for their piece only. A folder or link with the inputs for their work, not the whole studio drive and not the client's other projects. Apart from confidentiality, it stops them working off an old version they found somewhere.
2. Folder structure. Where incoming files are, where they deliver, and what not to touch.
3. Naming convention. Project code, asset, round, version: KTN_sofa_r2_v03.fbx. Send one example; people copy examples more reliably than rules.
4. Scale, units and orientation. Centimetres or metres, Y-up or Z-up, the pivot convention. This is the most common reason a model has to be fixed on import.
5. One channel for questions. Agree where they ask and where you answer, and that it is not your personal phone at 23:00.
6. Overlap hours. If they are in another time zone, write down the hours you are both online, and the time zone of every deadline.
7. Who gives notes. One person in the studio, by name. If the client gives notes in a call, that person writes them down for the freelancer.
8. First check date. A clay render or a draft after the first day or two, written as a date.

During the job

1. Notes in one list per round, on their piece of work, numbered.
2. Any change to scope, rate or deadline confirmed in writing the same day.
3. Their delivery one working day before your internal review.
4. Files they send by their own cloud link downloaded the same day. Those links expire.

Offboarding

This is the part studios forget, and it is where most of the risk sits.

1. Source files collected. Not only the renders: the scene files, textures, rigs and anything else you would need to change the work next year without them. Check that they open.
2. Access revoked. Shared drives, the project tool, the render farm login, any software seats you lent, chat groups. Make a list of what you granted on day one so you can undo it on the last day.
3. Final invoice received and checked against what was agreed, then paid on time.
4. Client files deleted on their side, if the NDA requires it. Ask for a one-line confirmation.
5. A note for next time. Two lines on the project: what went well, what did not, whether you would hire them again for this kind of piece. Six months later it is the only record.

A worked example

Kestrel Lane, a four-person archviz studio, hires a freelance modeller in Porto for the furniture set on a show apartment. The client is a developer who made Kestrel Lane sign an NDA with a clause that every subcontractor signs too.

Thursday: the freelancer quotes 1,400.00 EUR fixed for twenty pieces in two rounds. Kestrel Lane sends a short contract with confidentiality matching the developer's NDA, ownership on payment and no portfolio use before the developer's launch. It is signed online the same afternoon. The freelancer confirms they work in 3ds Max 2025 with the same render engine version, owns their licence, and will use only models they build or that the studio supplies.

Monday: the freelancer gets a link to one task with the brief, the finishes schedule, the floor plans and the naming example. Not the drive. The studio lead is named as the only person giving notes. Clay renders are due Wednesday at 16:00 Lisbon time.

Two weeks later: source files received and opened, access removed, invoice paid in EUR within seven days, the cost recorded on the client's project, and a note: "Fast, clean topology, needs explicit scale. Hire again."

Doing this in OIO

In OIO the freelancer's piece of work is a ticket on the client's project. You send them a link to that ticket; they open it in a browser with no account and no seat, read the brief and the checklist, download the files, upload their work (up to 25 MB a file), comment and set the ticket to done. They see only their ticket, not the rest of the project or the client's details, which covers most of the "files for their piece only" item without a separate folder.

The agreement can go out from the Legal app for signature online; it is a simple electronic signature, with an audit trail and the signed PDF sent to both of you. Their fee goes on the project as a cost in their currency at the day's rate, next to the client's quote and invoice. If you recruit freelancers regularly, a hiring form sends applicants into Team. OIO does not receive their invoice or pay them; you record the cost and pay as you do now. More on OIO for archviz studios, and the clauses themselves are in what to put in a freelance contract.

Questions