Well, the reason she’s likely upset is that she’s legally self-employed, which means you aren’t technically her employer. For that reason, you don’t have the right to dictate her pricing or tell her how to do her work. I’d recommend reading the articles I’m linking below and deciding whether employing her might lead to a better arrangement. If you have any questions, you can book a consulting appointment with me here, but the posts I’m linking should hopefully make everything clear.
Know Your Rights
Independent Contractor Defined

Okay, so first of all, I miss you. While I don’t miss Facebook at all, you’re one of five people whose faces I miss seeing every day. <3

Secondly, you did the right thing. The last thing any employer wants to deal with is a disgruntled ex-employee pursuing them for trying to prevent them from getting hired.

I never told any of her reference checkers why she was no longer employed with me, only the dates she worked for me, and I think my lack of detail was enough to let them know that she might not be the best person for the job.

The problem with “honest” references is that you are restricted to saying only what you can verify, otherwise you’re committing defamation and can be sued. So while you can be honest, it doesn’t benefit anyone to attempt to keep an ex-employee from being able to find work. If you feel it’s appropriate, highlight the ex-employee’s positive qualities in the letter and save the negative stuff for the phone call you get from the next person to interview them. When you get that call, stick to those things you can prove with tangible evidence. If she’s chronically late, you can verify that with records. If she’s slow on service times, you can verify that as well. If she received a lot of negative reviews from clients, they’re available for anyone to see online. If she had to be repeatedly disciplined for handbook violations, you should have evidence from your progressive disciplinary records.

Anything negative aside from things that can be proven should be omitted.

That said, nothing in your letter of recommendation should put your reputation at risk, so long as everything contained therein is also true.

It depends on your lease terms. Since you lack one, you’ll have to check to see if the state of Iowa has any commercial landlord/tenant laws. Most states do not. The majority of the time, courts rely on contractual agreements to settle disputes in these instances.

It is a service pricing guide, not a payroll guide, so there are boxes to account for and estimate annual state and federal payroll taxes that are then automatically accounted for in the pricing, but because employees each claim different exemptions and have different tax rates, there’s no way to calculate those broad variations in this spreadsheet. (For that, you’ll need a payroll accountant. I’m not willing to take on that liability and since it so far exceeds the scope of the toolkit, it’s not a functionality I’ll be adding.) I also only briefly touch on taxes, since this kit is meant to be internationally compatible. For specific tax guidance, I advise everyone to speak with tax professionals who know the laws and regulations in their state/city/country, because the variations between each are insanely different and change often.