Terms of Service

Welcome to Ember 🚀

In this section we outline how to subscribe to Ember’s services and describe the terms and conditions that apply to your use of those services.

1.     When referring to each other: When we say you or your, we mean both you and any entity, firm or partnership you’re authorised to represent. When we say Ember, we, our or us, we’re talking about Ember Digital Limited, the entity you contract with and pay fees to.

2.     What we provide: Our services consist of all the services we provide from time to time including our web and mobile (iOS/Android) accounting, tax and financial products. We will provide all our services with reasonable skill and care.

These services include:
- Aggregating your bank account feeds
- Generating accounting reports
- Sending invoices to clients
- Running staff payroll
- Tax estimation
- Filing of tax returns with HMRC
- Providing expert support, as specified in our service description

3.     Creating a subscription: When you create a subscription (whether free or paid) to use our services and accept these terms, you agree to do so on behalf of the entity, firm or partnership that you represent, and acknowledge and agree that you are able to bind them to become a subscriber.

4.     Those invited to use Ember: An invited user is a person other than the subscriber who has been invited to use our services through a subscription, such as an accountant or other advisor. You are responsible for ensuring that any people you invite to use our services comply with these terms.  

5.     User access and roles: As a user and paying subscriber inviting others into a subscription, you should understand the permissions you’re granting to invited users. In particular, if you’re a small business invited user and your advisor is the subscriber, you are inviting them to read and write access of your data. They are also therefore bound by these terms of service.

6.     When you can use our services: Whether you’re a subscriber or an invited user, we grant you the right to use our services (based on your subscription type, your user role and the level of access you’ve been granted) for as long as the subscription is active.

7.     Your role as a Subscriber: As the subscriber, you take responsibility for fully controlling how your subscription is managed and who can access it. For example:
- You can transfer a subscription
- You control login access to a subscription. You decide who’s invited to use our services you’ve subscribed to and what kind of access the invited user has. You can change or stop that access at any time
- You’re responsible for resolving any disputes with any invited users over access to your subscription
- You’re responsible for all your invited users’ activity

8.     What you are responsible for: You promise that you’ll keep the information associated with your subscription (including a current email address) up to date. You’re responsible for providing true, accurate and complete information and for verifying the accuracy of any information that you use from our services for your legal, tax and compliance obligations. You’re also responsible for protecting your username and password from getting stolen or misused. Our service has minimum password standards but you will ensure that passwords are very strong and not easily guessable. The stronger and more complex the password the better!

9.     When we release the cool new features: Since we are always developing new and exciting technology to best serve you, we regularly expand our services. For new or updated services, there might be additional terms. We’ll let you know what those terms are before you start using those services. If you don’t agree to those new terms, you can give notice to stop using our services. 

10.     What belongs to us: We own everything we’ve put into our services unless otherwise stated and excluding content owned by others. This includes rights in the design, compilation, and look and feel of our services. It also includes rights in all copyrighted works, trademarks, designs, inventions, and other intellectual property rights in the services. You agree not to copy, distribute, modify or make derivative works of any of our content or use any of our intellectual property rights in any way not expressly permitted by us. We promise that your use of our services in accordance with these terms will not infringe intellectual property rights belonging to any third parties.

Pricing 🤑

Unless you’re in a free trial or other offer period, you’ll need to pay for a subscription based on the pricing of your selected plan at that time.

11.     Try before you buy: When you first sign up, you may have the option to sign up for a free trial, based on the terms specified at that time. These terms may change occasionally and you will always be notified of this if you are affected. If you choose to continue using our services after the trial you’ll be billed automatically at the beginning of the new, paid for subscription period, when you add your billing details into our services. If you do not wish to continue using our services, you must cancel your subscription prior to the end of the free trial. We use Stripe for collection of payments and they will maintain your payment details for this use. If you choose not to continue using our services following a trial, you may request the deletion of your organisation.

12.     Ember pricing structure: Your use of our services generally requires you to pay a monthly subscription fee based on the subscription type that you sign up for. We will display details of the subscription fees (plus VAT where applicable), invoicing, payment, auto-renewal and cancellation terms applicable to the subscription at the time you sign up. We may update or amend the pricing plan from time to time on reasonable notice. If you do not accept the new pricing plan, you can choose to terminate your subscription.

13.     Taxes that come from use of our services: You’re responsible for paying all other external fees and taxes associated with your use of our services wherever levied. Your responsibility includes RTI reported via our payroll services. We may collect geographical location information to determine your location, which may be used for tax purposes. This means location information you give us must be accurate for tax residency purposes.

14.     Added services: Depending on your situation as a registered Company in the United Kingdom, you may be able to take advantage of additional services that Ember offers – like payroll. This might incur an additional fee and/or additional terms and, if so, we’ll let you know about when you sign up for that service. If you do not agree to any additional fee or terms, you can choose not to use the added services.

15.     Don’t forget to pay on time: In order to continue accessing and using our services, you need to make timely payments based on the pricing you selected. To avoid delayed or missed payments, please make sure we have accurate payment information. Updating your billing details can be done through the Settings> Billing section of the application. If we don’t receive timely payments, we may (at our discretion) (i) suspend access to your subscription until the payment is made, (ii) charge reasonable interest on late payments and/or (iii) terminate access to your subscription. 

Data use and privacy 🔐

16.     Privacy notice: Our privacy notice is an important part of these terms and describes in more detail how we process personal data (like your name,  email address and financial information) in connection with providing our services. By accepting these terms and using our services, you are agreeing that we may process your personal data in accordance with the privacy notice.

17.     How and why we use your data: When you enter or upload your data into our services, you grant us a licence to use, copy, transmit, store, analyse, and back up all data you submit to us through our services, including any personal data you enter into the services to: enable you to use our services; allow us to improve, develop and protect our services; create new services; communicate with you about your subscription; and send you information we think may be of interest to you based on your marketing preferences.

Confidential information 🤫

We will take reasonable precautions to protect your confidential information, and require you to do the same for ours.

18.     Maintaining confidentiality: While using our services, you may share confidential information with us, and you may become aware of confidential information about us. You and we both agree to take reasonable steps to protect the other party’s confidential information from being accessed by unauthorised individuals. You or we may share each other’s confidential information with legal or regulatory authorities if required to do so.

Security 👮‍♂️

We take security seriously and you should too! To help protect our services and your data, we offer added security features such as two-step authentication.

19.     Methods used to keep your account safe: We’ve invested in technical, physical and administrative safeguards to do our part to help keep your data safe and secure. While we’ve taken steps to help protect your data, no method of electronic storage is completely secure and we cannot guarantee absolute security. We will notify you if there appears to be unauthorised access to your account and we may also restrict access to certain parts of our services until you verify that access was by an authorised user.

20.     Additional security features: We may introduce security features to make your account more secure, such as two-step authentication. We may require you to adopt some of these features. Where we make the use of security features optional, you're responsible (meaning we’re not liable) for any consequences of not using those features. We strongly encourage you to use all optional security features.

21.     Your responsibility when it comes to protecting access to your data: You should do everything in your power to keep your login details secure, and not let any other person use them, and make sure you have strong security on your own systems. If you realise there’s been any unauthorised use of your password or any breach of security to your account or email address linked to your account, you need to let us know immediately. You also agree not to use free-form fields in any of Ember’s systems or services to store personal data, (unless it’s a field explicitly asking for personal data - like a first name or last name) credit card details, tax identifiers or bank account details.

Apps and third-party products 🧠

To help make your experience running your business as seamless as possible, our

ecosystem includes apps and other products and services made available by trusted partners.

22.     Our mobile apps: Some of our services, such as our mobile apps, are available through other companies’ services, such as The Apple App Store or The Google Play Store. These companies may have additional terms that apply to you, which you should also be aware of.

23.     TrueLayer and bank feeds: When you connect a bank account through our TrueLayer integration from within our services you are subject to separate TrueLayer terms. We also may choose to switch providers of these services which may lead to interruptions to your services. If we intend to do this, we will use reasonable endeavors to let you know in advance.

24.     Direct bank feeds: We may from time to time choose to do direct integrations with certain banks or credit unions within the United Kingdom in order to provide you with greater coverage and choice. Your access to these integrations may be subject to additional terms imposed by those institutions

25.     Staffology Payroll services: Staffology is a third party provider we use in order to provide a seamless payroll experience for you within our system. We feed the raw data you enter in to our user interface through a direct API that allows the Staffology software to complete the relevant calculations and submissions to the governing tax authorities. If you subscribe to our Payroll services be aware you are subject to the Staffology terms which can be found here and their privacy policy that can be found here. We are not responsible for the services provided by Staffology and do not accept any liability for any issues or errors that may be caused by your use of their services.

26.     Third-party products: Along with the use of our services, you may use data, services and apps from other companies (third-party products). Any third party providing a third-party product is a provider and is independent of us, so be aware that a provider may also charge you fees in addition to what you pay us.

27.     Third-party terms and descriptions: Third-party products are subject to terms and conditions and privacy notices set by their providers. These include how the provider will use your data that you make available to them. Be sure to read and make sure you agree to their terms and conditions and understand their approach on personal and non-personal data before you connect to them. The descriptions of third-party products that we publish, and any associated links, have been provided to us by the providers. While we make reasonable efforts to check the accuracy of the descriptions, the providers are solely responsible for any representations contained in those descriptions. We don’t endorse or assume any responsibility for third-party products.

28.     Payments made to Ember: Just so you know, some third-party providers may pay Ember a fee that may be related to: referrals from Ember; revenue made by the provider; or data that the providers access about you through our services with your consent. One example would be you applying for a loan with a third-party lender using your Ember data. Where required by law, we’ll let you know about any referral payments that are made.

Maintenance, downtime and data loss 🥴

Sometimes it’s necessary for us to have some downtime so we can keep building and releasing killer updates. We will however try to minimise this as much as possible so your experience isn’t affected. You may also have occasional access issues and may experience data loss that we can’t control, so it’s important you back up your data where you can.

29.     When you can access the system: We strive to maintain the availability of our services, 24 hours a day and provide email support, within the United Kingdom working hours of 09:30 to 17.30 UK time Monday to Friday (excluding Bank Holidays). On occasion, we need to perform maintenance on our services, and this may require a period of downtime. We try to minimise any such downtime. Where planned maintenance is being undertaken, we’ll attempt to notify you in advance but can’t guarantee it.

30.     Issues with getting in: Depending on where you’re located when using our services the internet can be fickle – occasionally you might not be able to access our services and your data. This might happen for any number of reasons, at any time and we can’t be responsible for any issues that occur because of problems with the internet.

31.     When things go wrong with your data: Data loss is an unavoidable risk when using any technology and we are not responsible for the consequences of any data loss, unless it is caused by our negligent failure to provide the services. We strongly recommend that you maintain copies of your data entered into our services.

32.     We’re here to help but not to advise: If you have any issues, we have awesome in application support chat via the message icon in the bottom right hand corner of the screen on web. If you can’t get on to us via chat (if you’re on the mobile for example) our support email is monitored frequently and you can reach us at [email protected]. Any information provided to you via chat or by any other means, shall not be construed as, and, subject to clause 46, is not intended as, professional advice. You should make your own judgement, or obtain professional advice, on the suitability of any submission you make to the relevant tax authorities through our system and obtain your own professional financial advice as you see fit. No representative of Ember is to be held liable personally and the company shall not be liable for any information provided during the course of providing support services.

33.     Home improvements: We frequently release new updates, modifications and enhancements to our services, and in some cases discontinue features, although we’ll use reasonable endeavors to ensure that any changes we make do not materially reduce the level of services below those offered at the time of your subscription. Where this occurs, we’ll endeavour to notify you where practical (for example, by email, on our blog, or within our services when you log in).

What you can and can’t do ✅ & ❌

A lot of this might sound like common sense but it’s really important to make sure we outline how you can (and can’t) use our services.

34.     Tell us how we are doing: We love your feedback and may use it without restriction including but not limited to on our website or across our marketing materials if we so choose.

35.     Use sensibly: We provide a lot of guidance and support to help you use our services. You agree to use our services only for lawful business purposes and in line with the instructions and guidance we provide.

36.     Discussions on Spectrum: We encourage you to participate in our community to learn from other Ember users and to share some of your knowledge with them as well. A couple of pointers when sharing the learns… Only share private information if you’re happy for others to know it, and don’t post anything you don’t have the right to share.

37.     Bleeding edge services: Occasionally we may offer a service at no charge, like a beta pilot for example, or a time-limited trial account. Because of the nature of these services, you use them at your own risk.

38.     While this list isn’t exhaustive, we do want to point out a few more examples of things you mustn’t ever do:
- Introduce or upload anything to our services that includes viruses or other malicious code.
- Undermine the security or integrity of our computing systems or networks.
- Access any system without permission.
- Use our services in any way that might impair functionality or interfere with other people’s use.
- Commit fraud or other illegal acts through our services.
- Repackage, resell, or sublicense any leads or data accessed through our services.
- Share anything that may be offensive, violates any law, or infringes on the rights of others.
- Act in a manner that is abusive or disrespectful to an Ember employee, partner, or other Ember customer. We will not tolerate any abuse or bullying of our Ember employees in any situation and that includes interaction with our support teams.
- Modify, copy, adapt, reproduce, disassemble, decompile, reverse engineer or extract the source code of any part of our services.
- Resell, lease or provide our services in any way not expressly permitted through our services.

Termination 😔

You can easily terminate your subscription by providing us one month’s notice either via the app (Settings > Manage subscription > Cancel subscription), by letting know via our chat functionality or by emailing us at [email protected]. We may terminate your subscription as well with the same notice. If you violate these terms, we may terminate your subscription immediately.

39.     Subscription period: Your subscription continues for the period covered by the subscription fee paid or payable. At the end of each billing period, these terms automatically continue for a further period of the same duration as the previous one, provided you continue to pay the subscription fee in accordance with the pricing plan. You may choose to terminate your subscription at any time by providing one month's notice in advance. You’ll still need to pay all relevant subscription fees up to and including the day of termination.

40.     When Ember may terminate: Ember may choose to terminate your subscription at any time by providing you with one month's written notice in advance. We may also terminate or suspend your subscription or access to all or any data immediately if:
- You breach any of these terms and do not remedy the breach within 14 days after receiving notice of the breach,
- You breach any of these terms and the breach cannot be remedied,
- You fail to pay subscription fees, or 
- You or your business become insolvent, your business goes into liquidation or has a receiver or manager appointed over any of its assets, you become insolvent or make any arrangement with your creditors, or become subject to any similar insolvency event in any jurisdiction.

41.     No money back: No refund is due to you if you terminate your subscription or Ember terminates it in accordance with these terms.

42.     Retention of your data: Once a subscription is terminated by you or us, it is archived and the data submitted or created by you is no longer available to you. We retain it for a period of time consistent with our data retention policy, during which, as a subscriber, you can reactivate your subscription and once again access your data by paying the subscription fees.

Indemnity and Liability 👀

This section is important as it outlines liability terms between us and both subscribers and invited users, so we urge you to read it closely and in full.

43.     You indemnify us: You indemnify us against all losses, costs (including legal costs), expenses, demands or liability that we incur arising out of, or in connection with, a third-party claim against us relating to your use of our services or any third- party product (except as far as we’re at fault).

44.     Disclaimer of warranties: Our services and all third-party products are made available to you on an “as is” basis and, except as set out in these terms, we expressly disclaim all warranties, express or implied, including any implied warranties of non-infringement, merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose.

45.     Limitation of liability: Other than liability that we can’t exclude or limit by law, our liability to you in connection with our services or these terms, in contract, tort (including negligence) or otherwise, is limited as follows:
We have no liability arising from:
- Your use of our services otherwise than in accordance with these terms, any data that you input via the services or provide to us in connection with the services and/or compliance with your instructions; or
- For any loss of revenue or profit, loss of goodwill, loss of customers, loss of capital, loss of anticipated savings, legal, tax or accounting compliance issues, damage to reputation, loss in connection with any other contract, or indirect, consequential, incidental, punitive, exemplary or special loss, damage or expense.

For loss or corruption of your data, our liability will be limited to taking reasonable steps to try and recover that data from our available backups.

Our total aggregate liability to you in any circumstances is limited to the total amount you paid us for your subscription in the 12 months immediately preceding the date on which the claim giving rise to the liability arose.

Disputes 👂

This section outlines how disputes may be resolved.

46.     Dispute resolution: Most of your concerns can be resolved quickly and to everyone’s satisfaction by contacting us through the live chat or by sending an email to [email protected]. If we’re unable to resolve your complaint to your satisfaction (or if we haven’t been able to resolve a dispute we have with you after attempting to do so informally), you and we agree to resolve those disputes through the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of England and Wales. These terms are governed by the laws of England and Wales. For disputes of a financial nature, if at any point you are unsatisfied with the response from Ember, you have the right to elevate this dispute to the Financial Ombudsman Service.

47.     Lodging a complaint: If we haven’t been able to resolve your issue and you would like to escalate your concern to raise a dispute or file a formal complaint with us, please see our complaints procedure outlined at this link here for further information on the process.

Important housekeeping☝️

Here we set out some additional terms. Take a read as they cover important issues.

48.     Professional support with integrity: We take pride in delivering quality professional support to our paying subscribers, as outlined in our service description. Our commitment is to offer this support with the utmost integrity and diligence. While we strive to provide accurate and valuable information, our guidance is not intended to replace specialised professional advice in certain areas, as specified in our service description. We encourage you to consult with a qualified professional for specific advice relevant to your circumstances in these cases. Our liability to you in relation to the use of our services and support is defined in clause 44. 

49.     Things we can’t control: We do our best to take care of what can be controlled. We are not liable to you for any failure or delay in performance of any of our obligations under these terms arising out of any event or circumstance beyond our reasonable control.

50.     Legal notices: Any notice you send to Ember must be sent to [email protected]. Any notices we send to you will be sent to the email address you’ve provided us through your subscription. Please make sure this email address is always up to date.

51.     Export limitations: You must not use our services in violation of any export or trade embargo laws that apply to you.

52.     Blocking your access, disabling your subscription, or refusing to process a payment: We may block your access, terminate your subscription, or refuse to comply with your instructions if we reasonably believe there’s a risk - like a potential breach of a law or regulation - associated with you, your company, your subscription, or a payment. Examples of where we might do this include transactions where the payment is from a sanctioned person or country; or where we reasonably believe there is a legal or regulatory risk or a risk of loss being suffered by us or our customers or partners. You promise that you’re not located in a sanctioned country and are not on a sanctioned persons list. We may also block users from a country if we can’t receive payments from that country. You should check what payment methods are available in your country for making payments. We may take any of these actions without notice.

53.     Relationship between Ember and you: Nothing in these terms is to be construed as constituting a partnership, joint venture, employment or agency relationship between you and us, or between you and any other subscriber or invited user. You’re solely responsible for resolving disputes between you and any other subscriber or invited user.

54.     Amendments to these terms: We sometimes will decide to change these terms of use. But don’t worry, changes won’t apply retrospectively and, if we make changes, we’ll make every effort to let you know. Generally, we endeavour to provide you with 30 days’ notice of material changes before they become effective, unless we need to make immediate changes. When we notify you, we’ll do it by email. If a change isn’t material, we may not notify you. If you find a modified term unacceptable, you may terminate your subscription by giving the standard advance notice to Ember.

55.     Your right to access the terms: During the term of the contract you will at all times hold the right to obtain a copy of the terms that you have agreed to.

56.     Enforcement of terms: If there’s any part of these terms that either one of us is unable to enforce, we’ll ignore that part but everything else will remain enforceable.

57.  Interpretation: Words like ‘include’ and ‘including’ are not words of limitation and where anything is within our discretion we mean our sole discretion.

58.  Contracting entity and governing law:

Location - United Kingdom

Registered name - Ember Digital Limited

Registered business address - 3rd Floor 86-90 Paul Street, London, England, EC2A 4NE

Company number - 11822163

Governing law - England and Wales

Promotions 💸

59.     Refer a friend and get £100 credit: For both the referee and the referrer to be eligible to receive the Ember promotional offer (the 'Offer'), the referee must pay their first month subscription. Following this, the £100 credit will be automatically applied to both the referee and the referrer's accounts and will come off their following months subscription fees.

60.     The reward: This reward is a credit against the Ember subscription fees of £100 in total, it is not a cash reward. If there is an amount left over in credit on the account, this credit will not be paid out in cash.

61.     Eligibility: In order for both the referee and the referrer to be eligible, the referee must use the link generated from within the app to sign up. This will then result in the automatic application of the credit, following the payment of the first month by the referee.

62.     Modification: Ember reserves the right to modify these terms and conditions or cancel the Offer at any time.

Notifications and contacting you 💬

63.     You agree that Ember may send you notices and reminders via email, SMS (UK mobile numbers only), regular mail or alerts within the Services.

64.     To ensure that you meet filing deadlines across a range of obligations you will be notified of these deadlines in advance by email, SMS (to UK mobile numbers only) or via messages in your Ember Software. We cannot be held responsible for any late filing fees or penalties.