There really is no sense trying to reinvent the wheel. Often we can get into a mindset in our home businesses that we are isolated and on our own and therefore we need to come up with all the answers and solve all the problems on our own. But, you might be surprised to discover that we can often find samples and examples of what we are trying to do and we don’t have to start from scratch all on our own.
I am not advocating stealing other’s ideas or not respecting copyright law—but you can usually find examples of all sorts of things—from business plans and budgets, to forms and invoices—and these can help you to come up with your own without having to invent it all by yourself. A trip to the local library can often turn up all sorts of examples that you can borrow from—including books of contracts, invoices, plans, etc.
Examples do not just have to be papers and forms either, if there is someone whom you respect or a small business operation that you think is doing things right, ask the owner to tell you about things; ask for examples of how he or she has dealt with problems and situations that are similar to your own business. There is a wealth of information out there—factual and anecdotal and instead of having to learn everything the hard way by ourselves as small home business owners, we can ask around to get examples and samples and safe ourselves a ton of work, as well as trial and error.
As mentioned earlier, be sure to give credit where credit is due and use either copyright free examples and samples, or get permission from whomever you might be working with. If you do use something that belongs to someone else, you may need to reference where you got it.