Terms of Service

These terms are the agreement between you and Cratebooks when you use the service. Please read them. By creating an account you accept them.

1. Who we are and what this covers

Cratebooks ("we", "us", "the service") provides software that connects to your bank, categorises your business expenses and income, and produces Making Tax Digital ready totals you can export. These Terms of Service ("Terms") govern your use of Cratebooks. If you do not agree with them, do not use the service.

2. What Cratebooks is, and what it is not

Cratebooks is a preparation tool. It helps you organise your records and produce categorised totals.

• Cratebooks does not file or submit anything to HMRC on your behalf, and is not an HMRC-recognised filing product.
• Cratebooks does not provide tax, accounting, financial, or legal advice. Its categorisations are automated suggestions, not professional advice.
• You are responsible for reviewing your transactions and confirming what is and is not a business expense or income before you rely on the totals. If you are unsure, speak to a qualified accountant.

3. Eligibility

You must be at least 18 years old and using Cratebooks for a genuine trade, profession, or business. By using it you confirm the information you give us is accurate.

4. Your account

You are responsible for keeping your login details secure and for activity under your account. Tell us promptly if you believe your account has been accessed without your permission. One account is for one user; do not share your login.

5. Bank connection and read-only access

Where you connect a bank, you do so through our provider Plaid on a read-only basis. Cratebooks can read your transactions to categorise them; it cannot and will never move money, make payments, or change anything at your bank. Your bank may require you to re-approve access periodically, and you can disconnect any bank at any time. Your use of the bank connection is also subject to Plaid's terms.

6. Subscriptions, billing and renewal

• Paid features (connecting a bank and exporting your totals) require an annual subscription. Getting started, importing a statement, and viewing your category breakdown are free.
• The founding-member rate is £29/year and is held for as long as your subscription stays active. The standard rate is £39/year. Prices are in GBP and include VAT where applicable.
• Payment is handled by Stripe. We do not see or store your full card details.
• Subscriptions renew automatically each year using your saved payment method, at the rate then applying to your plan, until you cancel.
• We may change our prices. If a change affects your renewal we will give you reasonable notice beforehand, and you can cancel before it takes effect.

7. Cancelling and refunds

You can cancel at any time from the billing portal (reached from inside the app) or by emailing us. When you cancel, your subscription stays active until the end of the period you have already paid for, and does not renew after that.

If Cratebooks is not for you, email hello@cratebooks.com within 14 days of your first payment for a full refund. Outside that window, payments for a period already started are non-refundable, except where the law gives you a right to a refund.

8. Your data and its accuracy

The quality of your totals depends on the quality of the data you connect or import. Cratebooks categorises automatically and sends anything it does not recognise to you for review rather than guessing. You are responsible for checking the results. We are not responsible for tax, penalties, interest, or other losses arising from figures you did not review, or from incomplete or inaccurate source data.

How we handle your personal data is set out in our Privacy Policy, which forms part of these Terms.

9. Acceptable use

You agree not to misuse the service. In particular, do not: use it for anything unlawful; attempt to access other users' data; probe, scrape, overload, or interfere with the service or its security; reverse engineer it except to the extent the law allows; or resell or provide it as a service to others without our agreement.

10. Availability and changes

We work to keep Cratebooks available and accurate, but we provide it "as is" and do not guarantee uninterrupted or error-free operation. We may add, change, or remove features, and we may carry out maintenance that makes the service temporarily unavailable. Because Cratebooks is designed to be used a few times a year around tax deadlines, we aim to give notice of significant changes where we reasonably can.

11. Limitation of liability

Nothing in these Terms limits liability that cannot be limited by law (such as for death or personal injury caused by negligence, or for fraud). Subject to that:

• Cratebooks is not liable for any tax owed, penalties, interest, or filing decisions. Those remain your responsibility, as Cratebooks is a preparation tool and not a filing service or adviser.
• We are not liable for indirect or consequential losses, or for loss of profit, revenue, or data.
• Our total liability to you in connection with the service is limited to the amount you paid us in the 12 months before the event giving rise to the claim.

12. Suspension and termination

You can stop using Cratebooks at any time and delete your account. We may suspend or end your access if you break these Terms, if we are required to by law, or if we stop providing the service. If we withdraw the service entirely, we will give you reasonable notice and a way to export your data.

13. Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms from time to time. If we make a material change we will update the date above and, where appropriate, notify you in the app. Continuing to use Cratebooks after a change means you accept the updated Terms.

14. Governing law

These Terms are governed by the laws of England and Wales, and the courts of England and Wales have jurisdiction, without affecting any statutory consumer rights you have in your place of residence.

15. Contact

Questions about these Terms? Email hello@cratebooks.com.