Terms & Conditions

Welcome! To officially join our Simple Startup family, you must read and agree to our Terms and Conditions.

Don’t worry, we’ve stayed true to brand and made them as simple as possible 🙂

They will tell you:

  • What you can expect from us
  • What we will expect from you! (Unfortunately there are a few things that we need your input on – without it we are unable to provide you with an awesome service.)
  • About our referral program – we’d love to help your friends too and we’ll reward both of you for making that happen!
  • About our fair use policy
  • Our full Terms and Conditions

Obviously it isn’t exhaustive. For example, we don’t offer grooming services for pet koala bears, but we’re not going to state that here otherwise this document would be way too long and boring to read 😉

So, without further ado:

Agreement Between Client and Simple Startup

Our services are offered to you conditioned on your acceptance without modification of the terms, conditions, and notices contained herein (the “Terms”). Your use of our services constitutes your agreement to all such Terms. Please read these terms carefully, and keep a copy of them for your reference.

What you can expect from us

  • Response to emails that specifically ask for a response within 48 hours (usually much sooner). If you just send us details of a transaction to your accounting email address please do not expect a response, you can assume it has been dealt with 🙂
  • Availability via phone or messaging system between 9am and 5pm (when not in meetings) on business days
  • If we don’t hear back from you on a certain decision in a timely manner (within 2-3 days) e.g. if we need the go ahead to pay your quarterly sales tax return and by not paying you would get a penalty, we will go ahead and pay it even if we don’t hear from you.

What we expect from you

  • Open communication! We can’t provide you with awesome data and up to date accounts if we don’t know what’s going on so please keep us informed as much as you can
  • In order to provide things on time, we need info from you in advance. If we don’t get it, deliverables may be delayed and that makes us sad 🙁
  • Honesty and openness – if you don’t like anything, tell us and we’ll fix it. Don’t let it fester. We’ve set up a page on our website so you can provide feedback anytime anonymously or otherwise, and send periodic feedback surveys out as well.

Our Super Simple Referral Program

If you love our service, there’s no bigger compliment you can give us than to introduce us to other people who might like our service, too. As a thank you, once they sign up for their monthly subscription, we’ll donate 20% of your next month’s subscription fee to a charity of your choice (or directly to you – no judgment there!) You can use this form to submit referrals.

Pricing and Fair Use Policy

Unlike most financial services companies, we don’t charge by the hour. However, if your account starts taking up way more time than any other account, we will need to have a conversation.

For our Accrual Basis Accounting services, we charge based on expenses. Expenses are all expenses incurred by the company. For the avoidance of doubt, this includes cost of sales, operational expenses and other expenses as captured on the income statement. Expenses are calculated using a rolling two-month average so that one-off wild swings in expenses don’t cause crazy shifts in your monthly subscription. Your subscription will increase or decrease from month to month automatically. We price based on the rolling two month average of your expenses using the information available to us at the time of subscription run date. We do not modify past month’s subscription fees based on information that becomes available to us after the time of subscription run date, i.e. if we have to go back and make an accounting adjustment in May that affects February’s expenses and thus April’s subscription fee (either increased or decreased), we would not go back and make an adjustment to April’s fee.

For our Cash Basis Accounting services, we charge based on transaction volume. We determine transactions as anything listed on the Transaction by Date report in Quickbooks and the Detailed Account Transaction Report in Xero. We review your tier on a quarterly basis and take the average number of transactions over the previous quarter to determine which tier you fall into. That way, your tier will not automatically increase based on a one-time increase in transactions. If, on average, your transactions in a quarter place you in a higher or lower tier, your price will move up or down automatically for the quarter.

For our Finance and add-on services, we charge hourly, via retainer, or via a flat fee per service performed (i.e. for sales tax returns). These details can be found on our service sheets and are always discussed with you prior to the start of services.

Cancellation

If for whatever reason you decide to leave us (don’t go!) we require advance notice so we have time to wrap everything up for you and try to find someone equally awesome to replace you (impossible). The required notice period depends on your most recent tier level. Our tier levels were modified in March of 2019 to make room for 5 lower tiers – please see comparison to old tier levels below. Most recent tier level can be found on your most recent invoice. Please inquire if you are unsure of your most recent tier level.

Pricing Tiers

Accrual Accounting

Cash Accounting

Tier
Monthly Expenses Up to…
Tier
Monthly Transactions Up to…
0$20,000175
1$25,0002150
2$30,0003250
3$35,000
 
4$40,000
5$45,000
6 (formerly Tier 1)$50,000
7 (formerly Tier 2)$75,000
8 (formerly Tier 3)$100,000
9 (formerly Tier 4)$125,000
10 (formerly Tier 5)$175,000
11 (formerly Tier 6)$225,000
12 (formerly Tier 7)$275,000
13 (formerly Tier 8)$400,000
14 (formerly Tier 9)$500,000
15 (formerly Tier 10)$625,000
16 (formerly Tier 11)$750,000
17 (formerly Tier 12)$875,000
18 (formerly Tier 13)$1,000,000
19 (formerly Tier 14)$1,125,000
20 (formerly Tier 15)$1,250,000

Notice Period Requirements:

  • Tiers 0-6 and Cash Accounting clients must notify Simple Startup at least 30 days ahead of cancellation, i.e. to cancel as of March, you must notify us by February 1st.
  • Tiers 7-10 must notify Simple Startup 60 days ahead of cancellation, i.e. to cancel as of March, you must notify us by January 1st.
  • Tiers 11-13 must notify Simple Startup 90 days ahead of cancellation, i.e. to cancel as of March, you must notify us by December 1st.
  • Tiers 14+ must notify Simple Startup 120 days ahead of cancellation, i.e. to cancel as of March, you must notify us by November 1st.
  • As an example, if you are in Tier 1 and you cancel April 30th, you pay for May and we close May. If you cancel April 15th, because 30 days takes us to the middle of the next month, you would still pay for May so we close out May and don’t just stop working mid-month.

We are able to allow a grace period of 7 days for Tiers 7+ (no grace period for Tiers 0-6 or Cash), however anything beyond that will be held to the full notice period and charged at the full subscription rate for the months therein – as accountants, we’re sticklers for the rules. The only time we will consider an exception to our notice period is in the case of gross misservicing, i.e. we doubled everyone’s payroll, failed to ever reconcile your bank accounts, stood you up for a scheduled monthly meeting, or other egregious errors. If this is the case, we ask that you give us at least half an hour of your time to discuss what went wrong and see what we can do to make it right.

We may decide, in our discretion, to suspend or cancel the engagement in any one of the following circumstances:

  • if you fail to pay our bills;
  • if you fail to provide us adequate instructions or documents in a timely and reasonable fashion;
  • if you give us instructions that are deliberately false or intentionally misleading;

Where possible or appropriate, we will give you at least 14 days’ notice of our intention to terminate our agreement on grounds which the notice is based. If the agreement is terminated by us, you will be required to pay our professional fees and charges for work done up to the date of termination.

Clean Up

If you require clean up of your books from previous months we are more than happy to do 5 hours of clean up free of charge for our Accrual Accounting subscribers. Anything more than that will be charged at an hourly rate of $85-$250 depending on complexity. Cash Accounting subscribers will be charged an hourly rate from the 1st hour.

Refund Policy

We also offer a 30 day money back guarantee (only in the first 30 days of service), all we ask is that you spend at least an hour with us to explain, in-depth, why you would like the refund and how we could improve our service. The onboarding fee is non-refundable.

Our Services – The Gist

We offer both a subscription and project-based Financial Management service which is designed to make running your business WAY easier.

  • We will set things up for you so that you own and have access to your data at all times.
  • We will make it easy for you to leave us if you ever (heaven forbid!) want to.
  • We will always protect your data and not share it with anyone outside our organization without your express permission.
  • We require 30-120 days notice if you would like to cancel your subscription, depending on what tier you fall into
  • We will always make it easy for you to contact us

Financial Disclaimer

Our work is meant to help you and your company with its financial management. THE SERVICE IS NOT INTENDED TO PROVIDE LEGAL, TAX OR FINANCIAL ADVICE. COMPANY IS NOT A FINANCIAL PLANNER, BROKER OR TAX ADVISOR. You acknowledge and agree that you are responsible for your own legal, tax, financial and investment research and decisions, that our service is only one part of a detailed process you should go through to make any financial, legal, tax or investment decisions. We are not liable for any decision made or action taken by you or others based upon information or materials created or provided by our service.

Privacy Policy

Simple Startup takes all reasonable steps to ensure that any personal information is secure and in accordance with US privacy laws. Please find our full privacy policy here.  Note that we don’t store any of your banking information on our system, but instead rely on our third-party payment processor, ChargeOver.  Please find ChargeOver’s privacy policy here.

Anonymous Data

You acknowledge and agree that Simple Startup may obtain and aggregate financial and other data throughout your use of the Services excluding any personally identifiable with respect to you (“Aggregated Anonymous Data”), and Simple Startup may use the Aggregated Anonymous Data to analyze, improve, support and operate the Services and otherwise for any business purpose, during and after the term of this Agreement, including without limitation to generate industry benchmarks or best practices guidance, recommendations or similar reports for distribution to and consumption by you and other Simple Startup clients and prospects. For clarity, this does not give Simple Startup the right to identify you as the source of any Aggregated Anonymous Data.

Outsourced Service

By agreeing to these Terms and Conditions, you accept the use of outsourced services by our firm. Where the outsourced service requires the disclosure of your personal information, we will take all reasonable steps to ensure that any personal information is secure and in accordance with US privacy laws and our privacy standards.

 

Storage of Personal Information

By agreeing to these Terms and Conditions, you acknowledge and agree that your personal information may be stored in the United States or overseas as set out in our privacy statement.

 

Disclosure

You must provide all information and documents relevant to the proper performance of the work at the outset of the Engagement and during the Engagement. This includes promptly advising us of anything that occurs subsequently to render information already provided misleading or incomplete, or advising us of any change in your circumstances relevant to the work.

Reservation of Rights

Company. Company expressly reserves all rights in the Service and all other materials provided by Company hereunder not specifically granted to Customer. It is acknowledged that all right, title and interest in the Service and all other materials provided by Company hereunder, any update, adaptation, translation, customization or derivative work thereof, and all intellectual property rights therein will remain with Company (or third-party suppliers, if applicable) and that the Service and all other materials provided by Company hereunder are licensed on a services subscription basis and not “sold” to Customer. Names, logos, and other materials displayed on the Services constitute trademarks, trade names, service marks or logos (“Marks”) or Company or other entities. Customer is not authorized to use any such Marks. Ownership of all such Marks and the goodwill associated therewith remains with Company or those other entities. Any use of third party software provided in connection with the Services will be governed by such third parties’ licenses and not by this Agreement.

Customer. Customer expressly reserves all rights in any information, records, files, or other data that Customer (or Customer Personnel) loads, enters into, or otherwise makes available to Company or the Service and all results from processing such data, including compilations, and derivative works thereof (“Customer Data”), except that Customer grants Company a perpetual, non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free, fully sublicensable, fully paid-up license to use, reformat, modify, display, perform, reproduce, and create derivative works of the Customer Data: (i) in providing the Service to Customer or (ii) in connection with Company’s internal business purposes. Unless specifically agreed in writing, each Party’s rights under this clause (b) extend to any update, adaptation, translation, customization or derivative work of Customer Data, made under this Agreement.

ACH Payment Agreement

I authorize Simple Startup to debit the bank account on file with ChargeOver, the third-party payment processor used by Simple Startup,  for my subscription fee and for all other services performed on the schedules indicated. I understand that this authorization will remain in effect until the schedule end date, or until I cancel it in writing, whichever comes first, and I agree to notify the business in writing of any changes in my account information or termination of this authorization at least 15 days prior to the next billing date. If the payment date falls on a weekend or holiday, I understand that the payment may be executed on the next business day. I understand that because this is an electronic transaction, these funds may be withdrawn from my account each period as soon as the indicated transaction date. In the case of an ACH Transaction being rejected for Non-Sufficient Funds (NSF) I understand that the business may at its discretion attempt to process the charge again within 30 days, and agree to an additional {$25} charge for each attempt returned NSF which will be initiated as a separate transaction from the authorized recurring payment. I acknowledge that the origination of ACH transactions to my account must comply with the provisions of U.S. law. I will not dispute Simple Startup’s recurring billing with my bank so long as the transaction corresponds to the terms indicated in this agreement. Should the balance be declined and unpaid by a reasonable amount of time as determined by Simple Startup, we reserve the right to use a debt collection agency or other legal means to recover outstanding fees. If we incur any costs for payment collection, such as solicitor fees and collection agency fees, you agree to indemnify us for all such costs.

Payment of Services and Fees

We collect payment for all of our services via automatic bank debit. Unless otherwise agreed, payment is due upon receipt for services rendered and invoiced. Should the account be unpaid by the due date, we reserve the right to use a debt collection agency or other legal means to recover outstanding fees. If we incur any costs for payment collection, such as solicitor fees and collection agency fees, you agree to indemnify us for all such costs.

No Unlawful or Prohibited Use/Intellectual Property

All content included as part of the Service, such as documents, text, graphics, logos, images, as well as the compilation thereof is the property of Simple Startup or its suppliers and protected by copyright and other laws that protect intellectual property and proprietary rights. You agree to observe and abide by all copyright and other proprietary notices, legends or other restrictions contained in any such content and will not make any changes thereto.  You also agree and acknowledge that, even where there are no express copyright or other restriction notices or legends, Simple Startup does not waive any of its rights with respect to such intellectual property and that no ownership or other license rights in that intellectual property are being granted to you, unless otherwise expressly stated in these Terms and Conditions.

You will not modify, publish, transmit, reverse engineer, participate in the transfer or sale, create derivative works, or in any way exploit any of the content, in whole or in part, found on our website, https://www.simplestartup.com (the “Site”). Simple Startup content is not for resale. Your use of the Site does not entitle you to make any unauthorized use of any protected content, and in particular you will not delete or alter any proprietary rights or attribution notices in any content. You will use protected content solely for your personal use, and will make no other use of the content without the express written permission of Simple Startup and the copyright owner. You agree that you do not acquire any ownership rights in any protected content. We do not grant you any licenses, express or implied, to the intellectual property of Simple Startup or our licensors except as expressly authorized by these Terms.

Liquidated Damages for Hiring Simple Startup Employees

If, during the term of this Agreement or for twelve months thereafter, you directly or indirectly retain the services (whether as an employee, independent contractor or otherwise) of any employee or contractor of Simple Startup (or ex-employee or ex-contractor within three months of the employee or contractor’s termination or resignation from Simple Startup) who has provided services to you on behalf of Simple Startup, you agree that Simple Startup will be damaged. Accordingly, you agree that for each such Simple Startup employee or contractor hired by you, you will pay Simple Startup 50% of the employee or contractor’s new annual total compensation package or contract as liquidated damages, to be paid in full by employee or contrator’s start date. Simple Startup’s obligation to provide service to you ceases effective immediately upon employee departure date from the firm. Hiring Simple Startup staff and resultant ceasing of service has no impact on your obligation to fulfill your notice period in full, as outlined in the above section “Cancellation”. Each party agrees that this does not provide for unreasonably large liquidated damages. Should any legal fees be incurred by Simple Startup in the process, you agree that all such fees are payable by you. Notwithstanding the foregoing, “employee or contractor of Simple Startup” shall include employees and contractors of Simple Startup who provide services to Simple Startup customers.

Offboarding

Upon offboarding, an administrative fee of 20% of up to $1000 of your monthly subscription cost will be added to your monthly fee. This is in order to cover the administrative cost of us gathering and preparing your information for transfer, which can take us anywhere from 2-10 hours depending on how long you’ve been a client and how much data we need to prepare and transfer.

If you require more offboarding support, such as meetings to educate/explain procedures to your new accountant, we charge for this on an hourly basis. Our rates for this work vary from $85-250 per hour depending on complexity/level of staff supporting the offboarding transition.

If you require this support, we will take an initial retainer equal to or less than 50% of your monthly fee prior to the work being performed. The total retainer is dependent on the amount of hours expected to be required (determined upon offboarding by you and your Simple Startup team). If the retainer is met, subsequent work will be charged via an additional retainer.

Transfer of Supporting Schedule Data Upon Conclusion of Services

The data in your supporting schedule is your data, however, the supporting schedule itself is owned by Simple Startup. We have developed these schedules on our time and hence at our cost, given we do not charge by the hour. You have therefore never been charged for these schedules and therefore the ownership remains with Simple Startup.

Upon conclusion of service, we will provide PDF copies of any supporting schedule with less than 25 active rows in the final month of service at no extra cost.

Where the supporting schedule contains more than 25 active rows in the final month of service, this is left up to the Account Manager’s discretion as to whether the data is transferred solely in PDF form or with the addition of the raw data in spreadsheet form, but not to include the supporting schedule itself.

Where the above is determined by you or by Simple Startup to not to meet your needs, Simple Startup will determine a reasonable cost at which the supporting schedules may be purchased for sale, depending on the complexity and size of the file.

Electronic Communications

Visiting www.simplestartup.com or sending emails to Simple Startup constitutes electronic communications. You consent to receive electronic communications and you agree that all agreements, notices, disclosures and other communications that we provide to you electronically, via email and on the Site, satisfy any legal requirement that such communications be in writing.

Links to Third Party Sites/Third Party Services

Certain services made available via www.simplestartup.com are delivered by third party sites and organizations. By using any product, service or functionality originating from the www.simplestartup.com domain, you hereby acknowledge and consent that Simple Startup may share such information and data with any third party with whom Simple Startup has a contractual relationship to provide the requested product, service or functionality on behalf of Simple Startup customers.

International Users

If you access the Service from a location outside the USA, you are responsible for compliance with all local laws. You agree that you will not use the Simple Startup Content accessed through www.simplestartup.com in any country or in any manner prohibited by any applicable laws, restrictions or regulations.

Indemnification

You agree to indemnify, defend and hold harmless Simple Startup, its officers, directors, employees, agents and third parties, for any losses, costs, liabilities and expenses (including reasonable attorney’s fees) relating to or arising out of your use of our services. Simple Startup reserves the right, at its own cost, to assume the exclusive defense and control of any matter otherwise subject to indemnification by you, in which event you will fully cooperate with Simple Startup in asserting any available defenses.

Arbitration

In the event the parties are not able to resolve any dispute between them arising out of or concerning these Terms and Conditions, or any provisions hereof, whether in contract, tort, or otherwise at law or in equity for damages or any other relief, then such dispute shall be resolved only by final and binding arbitration pursuant to the Federal Arbitration Act, conducted by a single neutral arbitrator and administered by the American Arbitration Association, or a similar arbitration service selected by the parties, in a location mutually agreed upon by the parties. The arbitrator’s award shall be final, and judgment may be entered upon it in any court having jurisdiction. In the event that any legal or equitable action, proceeding or arbitration arises out of or concerns these Terms and Conditions, the prevailing party shall be entitled to recover its costs and reasonable attorney’s fees. The parties agree to arbitrate all disputes and claims in regards to these Terms and Conditions or any disputes arising as a result of these Terms and Conditions, whether directly or indirectly, including Tort claims that are a result of these Terms and Conditions. The parties agree that the Federal Arbitration Act governs the interpretation and enforcement of this provision. The entire dispute, including the scope and enforceability of this arbitration provision shall be determined by the Arbitrator. This arbitration provision shall survive the termination of these Terms and Conditions.

Class Action Waiver

Any arbitration under these Terms and Conditions will take place on an individual basis; class arbitrations and class/representative/collective actions are not permitted. THE PARTIES AGREE THAT A PARTY MAY BRING CLAIMS AGAINST THE OTHER ONLY IN EACH’S INDIVIDUAL CAPACITY, AND NOT AS A PLAINTIFF OR CLASS MEMBER IN ANY PUTATIVE CLASS, COLLECTIVE AND/ OR REPRESENTATIVE PROCEEDING, SUCH AS IN THE FORM OF A PRIVATE ATTORNEY GENERAL ACTION AGAINST THE OTHER. Further, unless both the client and Simple Startup agree otherwise, the arbitrator may not consolidate more than one person’s claims, and may not otherwise preside over any form of a representative or class proceeding.

Liability Disclaimer

THE INFORMATION, SOFTWARE, PRODUCTS, AND SERVICES INCLUDED IN OR AVAILABLE THROUGH SIMPLE STARTUP MAY INCLUDE INACCURACIES OR TYPOGRAPHICAL ERRORS. CHANGES ARE PERIODICALLY ADDED TO THE INFORMATION HEREIN. SIMPLE STARTUP AND/OR ITS SUPPLIERS MAY MAKE IMPROVEMENTS AND/OR CHANGES AT ANY TIME.

SIMPLE STARTUP AND/OR ITS SUPPLIERS MAKE NO REPRESENTATIONS ABOUT THE SUITABILITY, RELIABILITY, AVAILABILITY, TIMELINESS, AND ACCURACY OF THE INFORMATION, SOFTWARE, PRODUCTS, SERVICES AND RELATED GRAPHICS CONTAINED ON THE SITE FOR ANY PURPOSE. TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW, ALL SUCH INFORMATION, SOFTWARE, PRODUCTS, SERVICES AND RELATED GRAPHICS ARE PROVIDED “AS IS” WITHOUT WARRANTY OR CONDITION OF ANY KIND. SIMPLE STARTUP AND/OR ITS SUPPLIERS HEREBY DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES AND CONDITIONS WITH REGARD TO THIS INFORMATION, SOFTWARE, PRODUCTS, SERVICES AND RELATED GRAPHICS, INCLUDING ALL IMPLIED WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, TITLE AND NON-INFRINGEMENT.

Termination/Access Restriction

Simple Startup reserves the right, in its sole discretion, to terminate your access to their services or any portion thereof at any time, without notice. To the maximum extent permitted by law, this agreement is governed by the laws of the State of Colorado and you hereby consent to the exclusive jurisdiction and venue of courts in Colorado in all disputes arising out of or relating to the use of the Services.

 You agree that no joint venture, partnership, employment, or agency relationship exists between you and Simple Startup as a result of this agreement. Simple Startup’s performance of this agreement is subject to existing laws and legal process, and nothing contained in this agreement is in derogation of Simple Startup’s right to comply with governmental, court and law enforcement requests or requirements relating to your use of our services or information provided to or gathered by Simple Startup with respect to such use. If any part of this agreement is determined to be invalid or unenforceable pursuant to applicable law including, but not limited to, the warranty disclaimers and liability limitations set forth above, then the invalid or unenforceable provision will be deemed superseded by a valid, enforceable provision that most closely matches the intent of the original provision and the remainder of the agreement shall continue in effect.

 Unless otherwise specified herein, this agreement constitutes the entire agreement between the customer and Simple Startup with respect to the services and it supersedes all prior or contemporaneous communications and proposals, whether electronic, oral or written, between the customer and Simple Startup. A printed version of this agreement and of any notice given in electronic form shall be admissible in judicial or administrative proceedings based upon or relating to this agreement to the same extent and subject to the same conditions as other business documents and records originally generated and maintained in printed form. It is the express wish to the parties that this agreement and all related documents be written in English.

Changes to Terms and Prices

Simple Startup reserves the right, in its sole discretion, to change the Terms under which our services are offered and the prices for those services. The most current version of the Terms will supersede all previous versions. Simple Startup encourages you to periodically review the Terms to stay informed of our updates.

Contact Us

Simple Startup welcomes your questions or comments regarding the Terms and Conditions:

Simple Startup

2101 Pearl Street

Boulder, Colorado 80302

Email Address: hello@simplestartup.com

Telephone number: 800-997-0331

Last updated January 12, 2022.