Terms of Service

By creating an account, checking an “I agree” box, subscribing, accessing or using the Service, you accept these Terms and our Privacy Policy. If you use the Service on behalf of a company, accounting firm or other organization, you represent that you are authorized to bind that organization, and “you” includes it. If you do not agree, do not use the Service.

These Terms are versioned (see the version at the top of this page). When we make material changes we will require you to review and re-accept before continuing to use the Service, and we keep a record of each acceptance (date, account and version) as evidence of agreement.

Steer the Books is business-records software for companies and accounting firms in Canada and the United States. Depending on your plan, it includes: fixed-asset registers and depreciation schedules (including Canadian Capital Cost Allowance computations and, where offered, U.S. depreciation methods); lease, loan and buyout amortization tools; reports and exports; reconciliation tools; document storage; a sales-tax estimation calculator; tax reference guides; collaboration, messaging and e-signature conveniences; multi-company management; and a portal for accounting firms to work with their clients.

The Service is a software tool. It records and computes from the data you enter; it does not audit, verify or file anything on your behalf, and it is not a substitute for professional judgment (see Section 5). Features vary by plan and jurisdiction and may change over time (see Section 20).

The Service is offered to businesses and professionals, not consumers, and is not directed to anyone under 18. You must provide accurate, current registration information (including your company’s country and province/state, which determines applicable features and data region) and keep it up to date.

You are responsible for all activity under your account and for safeguarding credentials and two-factor authentication devices. Notify us promptly at support@steerthebooks.com of any suspected unauthorized use. Administrators you designate can grant other users (including external accountants) access to your data; managing those grants is your responsibility.

Prices and currency. Subscriptions are billed monthly in advance in U.S. dollars via our payment processor, Stripe, to the payment method you provide. Listed prices exclude applicable taxes (GST/HST/PST/QST, sales tax, VAT or similar), which are your responsibility and may be added where required. Current pricing is shown on our pricing page; prices are subject to change with at least 30 days’ notice (effective on your next renewal after the notice period).

What is billed. Depending on what you purchase, charges may include: a company plan for each company (the primary company and each additional/secondary company is a separately billed subscription); one-time setup fees for API/concierge integrations as quoted at purchase; for accounting firms, a flat firm base subscription plus optional per-client asset-management subscriptions; and any volume discounts we advertise for per-client subscriptions, applied as described at purchase. Where the Service supports transferring a client profile or company between accounts, billing responsibility follows the transfer as described in the transfer flow.

Trials. Where a free trial is offered, access converts to a paid subscription (or is suspended) at the end of the trial. We may modify or withdraw trial offers at any time.

Renewal & cancellation. Subscriptions renew automatically each month until cancelled. You may cancel anytime from billing settings; cancellation takes effect at the end of the current paid period and is not pro-rated. Except where required by applicable law, payments are non-refundable.

Non-payment & suspension. If a charge fails, is declined, returned (NSF), reversed, charged back or otherwise remains unpaid, the affected subscription is in default. We may, immediately or after a grace period at our discretion, mark the affected company delinquent and suspend access to that company until all outstanding amounts are paid. Suspension is per company: other companies in good standing are unaffected; if every company on the account is unpaid, the entire account is locked. We may apply NSF/return fees and recover reasonable collection costs as permitted by law.

Data retention during suspension. While a company is suspended for non-payment its data is preserved for ninety (90) days from suspension. If the balance is not paid within that window we may permanently delete that company’s data, after which it cannot be recovered. Access is restored automatically once payment clears.

The Service provides software tools, calculators and general reference information only. It does NOT provide tax, accounting, bookkeeping, legal, financial, investment or other professional advice, and no output of the Service constitutes such advice.

Tax guides, Q&A content, calculators, suggested classifications (such as suggested CCA classes), depreciation schedules and reports are general information and computational aids. Tax law changes frequently and its application depends on your specific facts. Before relying on any figure or statement in the Service — and before filing, remitting, invoicing or making any financial decision — you must verify it with the Canada Revenue Agency, the U.S. Internal Revenue Service, your provincial/state authority, and/or a qualified professional (CPA, lawyer or licensed advisor) as applicable.

Using the Service does not create an accountant–client, advisor–client, fiduciary or professional relationship of any kind between you and the Operator. You remain solely responsible for your books, records, elections, filings, remittances and their accuracy and timeliness, including any penalties or interest arising from them.

This section incorporates the Tax Information Disclaimer, which you acknowledge each time you sign in: all tax content in the Service — guides, Q&A answers, statute citations, calculators and rate data — is informational only, and you must verify it with the cited statute, the relevant tax authority and your accountant before acting.

All computations in the Service — including CCA and other depreciation calculations (and U.S. methods such as MACRS where offered), amortization schedules, buyout and lease/loan figures, sales-tax estimates, reconciliations, consolidated views and every report or export — are estimates generated from the data you enter and the rates and rules configured in the Service at the time. Rates and rules change; local variations, transitional rules, elections and exceptions apply; and your inputs may be incomplete or incorrect. We do not warrant that any calculation, rate table, guide or classification is accurate, complete or current.

You are responsible for reviewing all outputs before use, for the accuracy of the data you enter (including any custom rates or classes you configure), and for all amounts you file or remit. Nothing in the Service is a representation about how a tax authority will assess your affairs.

Use the Service only for lawful business purposes. You must not:

• access or attempt to access another tenant’s data, or circumvent authentication, authorization or usage limits;
• use the Service to violate any law, to launder money, to evade tax, or to prepare fraudulent records or filings;
• upload malicious code, probe or scan the Service, or interfere with its operation or other users’ use;
• reverse-engineer, copy, scrape, resell, sublicense or provide the Service to third parties as a service bureau, except as expressly permitted (accounting-firm use with clients through the firm portal is permitted);
• send spam or unlawful communications through the Service’s email, messaging or signature-request features;
• upload content you have no right to upload, or content that is defamatory, infringing or unlawful;
• use the Service to build a competing product, or exceed plan limits through technical manipulation.

We may investigate suspected violations and may suspend or terminate accounts that violate this policy (Section 19).

You retain all rights to the business data, documents and other content you or your users upload (“Customer Data”). You grant us a limited, worldwide, non-exclusive licence to host, copy, process, transmit, back up and display Customer Data solely to provide and support the Service, comply with law, and as otherwise permitted by our Privacy Policy. You are responsible for the accuracy and legality of Customer Data and for having the necessary rights and consents to upload it (including personal information of your employees, customers and clients).

We perform routine backups and take commercially reasonable measures to protect Customer Data, but the Service is not an archival or system-of-record guarantee — maintain your own copies of source documents and export your records regularly. Export tools are available in the app; see Section 19 for export on termination.

For personal information contained in Customer Data, you are the controller (or a service provider to your own clients) and we act as your processor/service provider: we process it only on your documented instructions as embodied in the Service’s functionality, apply appropriate technical and organizational safeguards (encryption in transit and at rest, access controls, audit logging), impose confidentiality obligations on personnel, engage only subprocessors listed in our Privacy Policy under equivalent obligations, assist you with data-subject requests as reasonably needed, notify you without undue delay of a personal-data breach affecting your data as described in the Privacy Policy, and delete or return Customer Data as described in Section 19. This section is the parties’ data-processing agreement for the Service unless a separately executed DPA states otherwise.

Accounts are assigned a data region (Canada or United States) based on the jurisdiction selected at signup. Customer Data is currently hosted in the United States on Microsoft Azure infrastructure. A Canadian hosting region is planned; when it is live, accounts assigned the Canadian data region will have their data migrated to it automatically, as described in the Privacy Policy.

Accounting firms, accountants, bookkeepers and other professionals who use the Service — including firms you invite into your account and firms whose portal you join as a client — are independent third parties. They are not our employees, agents, partners or representatives, and we do not supervise, direct, endorse, certify or verify their qualifications, work, advice or conduct.

Any engagement between you and a firm or professional (scope, fees, deliverables, professional standards) is exclusively between you and them. The platform’s collaboration features — client invitations, annotations, queries, protocols, document exchange, client billing and invoicing tools — are facilitation only. To the maximum extent permitted by law, we are not responsible or liable for any act, omission, error, advice or work product of any firm or professional, or for disputes between firms and their clients; likewise, firms are not responsible for the operation of the platform itself.

If you register or use a firm account, the following also apply:

• You represent that your firm and its members hold all licences, registrations and insurance required for the professional services you provide, and that you will comply with applicable professional standards and confidentiality obligations.
• You are responsible for your members’ use of the Service, for the permissions you grant them over client data, and for obtaining each client’s authorization before accessing, entering or modifying that client’s records.
• Client relationships, engagement terms and any fees you charge clients (including invoices issued through the platform’s tools) are solely between you and your clients; we are not a party to them and provide the tooling as-is.
• Per-client subscriptions, allotments and transfers you manage from firm billing are your responsibility, including their cost and their effect on client access.
• You must not represent that we endorse, supervise or stand behind your professional work.

The Service includes electronic-signature conveniences (signature capture, document sign requests). These are provided as a convenience only. We do not warrant that a signature captured through the Service satisfies the formal requirements for any particular document or jurisdiction. You and your counterparties are responsible for determining whether electronic execution is permitted and enforceable for your documents — for example under the U.S. ESIGN Act and UETA, and in Canada under PIPEDA and provincial electronic-commerce/electronic- transactions legislation — and for any consent, retention or delivery formalities those laws require. Certain documents (e.g., wills, some real-property instruments) may be excluded from electronic signing by law.

The Service relies on third-party providers — including Stripe (payments), email delivery providers and cloud hosting — and may link to third-party resources (including government websites). Their services are governed by their own terms, and we are not responsible for their acts, omissions or availability. We never see or store your full card number; Stripe handles payment credentials under its own terms.

The Service, including its software, design, report formats, guides and content (excluding Customer Data), is owned by the Operator or its licensors and protected by intellectual-property laws. We grant you a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable right to use the Service for your internal business purposes during your subscription. No other rights are granted. If you send us feedback or suggestions, we may use them without restriction or compensation.

To the maximum extent permitted by law, the Service is provided “as is” and “as available”, with all faults and without warranty of any kind. We disclaim all warranties and conditions, express, implied or statutory — including merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, title, non-infringement, quiet enjoyment, and any warranty that the Service will be accurate, complete, current, reliable, uninterrupted, secure or error-free, that defects will be corrected, or that any calculation, rate, guide, report or suggestion is correct or suitable for your circumstances. No advice or information obtained from us or through the Service creates any warranty not expressly stated in these Terms. Some jurisdictions do not allow the exclusion of certain warranties; where such laws apply to you, exclusions apply to the fullest extent permitted.

To the maximum extent permitted by law: (a) in no event will the Operator, its owners, officers, employees, contractors or suppliers be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary or punitive damages, or for lost profits, lost revenue, lost savings, loss of business or goodwill, loss or corruption of data beyond our backup obligations, cost of substitute services, or for taxes, penalties, interest or assessments imposed by any tax authority, however caused and under any theory of liability, even if advised of the possibility; and (b) the Operator’s total aggregate liability for all claims arising out of or relating to the Service or these Terms will not exceed the amounts you actually paid us for the Service in the twelve (12) months preceding the event giving rise to the claim.

The exclusions and limits in this section apply regardless of the form of action (contract, tort, negligence, statute or otherwise) and even if a remedy fails of its essential purpose. They do not apply to liability that cannot be limited by law (such as liability for fraud, or wilful misconduct, or where consumer-protection law mandates otherwise). Each provision of Sections 15–17 is severable and allocates the risks between the parties that our pricing reflects.

You will defend, indemnify and hold harmless the Operator and its owners, officers, employees and contractors from and against any claims, damages, penalties, fines, costs and expenses (including reasonable legal fees) arising out of or related to: (a) Customer Data and your use of the Service; (b) your books, records, filings, remittances or tax positions; (c) your relationships and disputes with your clients, your accounting firm, or other third parties (including firm–client engagements conducted through the platform); (d) your violation of these Terms, the Acceptable Use Policy or applicable law; or (e) infringement of third-party rights by content you upload. We may participate in the defence with counsel of our choosing; you will not settle any claim that imposes obligations on us without our consent.

Neither party is liable for delay or failure to perform (other than payment obligations) caused by events beyond its reasonable control, including natural disasters, epidemics, war, terrorism, labour disputes, government action, utility or internet failures, or failures of third-party providers. We will use reasonable efforts to restore the Service after such an event.

These Terms apply for as long as you use the Service. You may stop using the Service and cancel your subscription at any time (Section 4). We may suspend or terminate your access: for non-payment (Section 4); for material breach of these Terms or the Acceptable Use Policy; where required by law; or where your use poses a security or legal risk. We may also discontinue the Service or any feature with reasonable notice — for a discontinuation of the entire paid Service, at least 30 days’ notice and a pro-rata refund of prepaid, unused fees.

Data export. For 30 days after cancellation or non-renewal in good standing (and during the 90-day retention window after payment of any suspension balance), you may export your records using the Service’s export tools or by written request to support@steerthebooks.com. After the applicable window we may delete Customer Data permanently. Sections that by their nature survive (including 5, 6, 10, 14–17, 21–23) survive termination.

We continuously improve the Service and may add, change or remove features. We may update these Terms; the current version and its date always appear on this page. For material changes we will notify you (email or in-app) and require re-acceptance before continued use; continued use after non-material changes constitutes acceptance. If you do not agree to updated Terms, stop using the Service and cancel your subscription.

These Terms are governed by the laws of [Operator’s governing jurisdiction — to be completed by the owner, e.g. the State of ____, USA], without regard to conflict-of-laws rules and excluding the UN Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods. If you are located in a jurisdiction whose mandatory consumer-protection or other laws grant you non-waivable rights (for example under Quebec’s Consumer Protection Act or a U.S. state consumer statute), nothing in these Terms limits those rights.

Informal resolution first. Before starting a formal proceeding, contact us at support@steerthebooks.com with a description of the dispute; the parties will attempt in good faith to resolve it within 60 days.

Binding arbitration. Except as set out below, any dispute arising out of or relating to the Service or these Terms that is not resolved informally will be finally resolved by binding, individual arbitration before a single arbitrator, conducted in English on a documents-only basis where possible (with remote hearings otherwise), administered by a recognized arbitration institution in the governing jurisdiction under its rules for commercial disputes. Judgment on the award may be entered in any court of competent jurisdiction.

Class-action waiver: to the maximum extent permitted by law, disputes will be arbitrated only on an individual basis. Neither party may participate in a class, collective, consolidated or representative action, and the arbitrator may not consolidate claims of more than one party.

Carve-outs. Either party may (i) bring an individual claim in small-claims court, or (ii) seek injunctive relief in court for intellectual-property infringement or unauthorized access. Where the law of your residence makes pre-dispute arbitration agreements or class-action waivers unenforceable against you (for example, for consumers under Quebec law or certain other Canadian provincial or U.S. state laws), this section applies only to the extent permitted, and the remainder of these Terms is unaffected. You may opt out of this arbitration section by emailing support@steerthebooks.com within 30 days of first accepting these Terms.

Entire agreement. These Terms, the Privacy Policy and any order/checkout terms are the entire agreement between you and us regarding the Service and supersede prior agreements on that subject. Severability. If any provision is held unenforceable, it will be modified to the minimum extent necessary and the rest remains in effect. No waiver. Failure to enforce a provision is not a waiver. Assignment. You may not assign these Terms without our consent; we may assign them in connection with a merger, acquisition or sale of assets. Notices. We may give notice by email to your account email or in-app; you may give notice to support@steerthebooks.com. Interpretation. “Including” means “including without limitation”; headings are for convenience only.

Piste Blanche Consulting LLC — [Operator Legal Address — to be completed by the owner].
Support: support@steerthebooks.com · Sales: sales@steerthebooks.com