How to Build Your Record Before the Consulting Fee Is Written

You are leaving. The organization wants to keep you on as a consultant.

That is a pricing decision. The counterparty is the buyer: the person who signs the consulting agreement.

The consulting terms can be written before your last day. In the public record below, the terms were filed before the consulting period was set to start.

The agreement will carry two terms that matter here. A fee. A term, with a start and an end.

When you finish this, you will hold one dated page. It states the baseline of what you carried. It names which outcomes the consulting work continues.

Translation: the buyer already holds your record. The question is whose version of it is on the table when the fee is drafted.

That may read as your situation, described exactly. Name it, then block 65 minutes before the draft arrives.

The belief that stops you

"My wins belong to my employer."

The organization owns the work product. You own the fact that you produced it. The consulting agreement is priced on that fact.

A second assumption travels with it. The fee will be your salary, restated monthly. In the public record below, the fee and the term were each written down as their own terms. A fee drafted from salary prices the job, not the record.

And the data? It exists. It is unassembled.

None of this is a personal failing. Nobody teaches it. Assemble the record before the buyer drafts.

The steps

Each inline example is an illustration, not a client.

Step 1. Find the dates. (10 minutes)
Your last day as an employee. The proposed consulting start. The date the buyer will draft or send the agreement. Any separation signing date.
Example: "Last day: March 31. Draft expected: February 15."

Step 2. Name the two terms. (5 minutes)
Fee. Term, start and end. Write "blank" beside each until the buyer drafts it. You do not fill in the fee.

Step 3. Document the baseline period. (20 minutes)
Choose a period you can document. List what the role carried, by function, with the month each began.
Example: "Program operations, carried since January 2024. Vendor contracts, added June 2025."

See the difference? A job description says what the role was hired to do. A baseline says what it actually carried, and since when.

Step 4. Attach a receipt to each outcome. (15 minutes)
An email. A report. A dashboard. A memo that names you. Record the type, the date, and where it lives.
Do not move confidential files off company systems. Your record points to the evidence. It does not have to hold it.

Step 5. Mark what moves into the consulting work. (10 minutes)
One word per outcome: continues, or stays. Continues means the consulting work carries it forward. Stays means it goes to the successor.
Example: "Vendor contracts: continues. Program operations: stays."

Step 6. File and date the page. (5 minutes)
Somewhere you control. Not on a company drive.

The example: the fee and the term, filed before the start

Atlantic Union Bankshares filed a Form 8-K. Exhibit 10.4 is a Transition and Consulting Agreement with a departing executive.

The successor's agreement is effective April 13, 2026.

The one-year consulting period is set to run October 1, 2026 through September 30, 2027.

The consulting fee is $600,000. It is payable in twelve monthly installments of one-twelfth each.

The filing predates the consulting period. It cannot show whether that period began.

What it shows is structure. The fee and the term were filed before the consulting period was set to start.

Translation: the fee and the term were on paper before the consulting work was scheduled to begin. The record behind a fee has to exist before that paper does.

Your template

Copy this. Fill it in before the buyer drafts.

CONSULTING BASELINE RECORD  |  Dated: ________
Buyer (the person who signs): ____________
Last day as an employee: ____________
Proposed consulting start: ____________
Date the buyer drafts or sends the agreement: ________

Fee: blank until the buyer drafts it
Term: start ________ / end ________

Baseline period: from ________ to ________

Function 1: ______________  Month it began: ________
Outcome: _________________________________
Receipt (type, date, location): ___________
Continues into consulting: yes / no

Function 2: ______________  Month it began: ________
Outcome: _________________________________
Receipt (type, date, location): ___________
Continues into consulting: yes / no

Function 3: ______________  Month it began: ________
Outcome: _________________________________
Receipt (type, date, location): ___________
Continues into consulting: yes / no

The page computes nothing. No fee. No percentage of salary. No hours. No term length.

What the record does not do

This page shows what you carried and what the consulting work continues.

It does not produce the fee.

A fee the buyer drafts from your salary is the buyer's number. A well-documented career is just a well-organized donation. The number you can defend comes only from valuing the documented record this baseline holds.

The agreement can be drafted and signed before your last day. The valuation belongs before the buyer drafts.

Before the buyer drafts the consulting agreement, hold your own baseline, and have that record valued before the fee is written for you.