Terms of Service

You accept these terms when you create an organisation and tick the boxes confirming you are signing up for a business, not as a consumer, and agreeing to these terms. The person who does so confirms they are at least 18 and have authority to bind the business. We record the date and the version you accepted.

If the venues in your organisation are run by more than one company or employer, the person who signs up accepts these terms for each of them and confirms they have authority to do so. "You" then means each of them.

These terms, the Data Processing Agreement and the plan you choose are the whole agreement between us. You have not relied on anything else we said, but nothing here limits liability for fraudulent misrepresentation.

Fairpool is web software that helps hospitality venues record tips, gratuities and service charges, record workers' hours and role weights, calculate how each pot is shared, keep a written tipping policy, and keep and export the records the Employment (Allocation of Tips) Act 2023 requires. It also sends service emails, such as pay-by reminders and security notices, to the people in your organisation.

We may improve and change the service. We will not materially reduce the core features of your paid plan during a billing period you have already paid for.

• Give accurate details and keep them up to date.
• Keep passwords and two-factor devices secret, and only let your own staff and contractors use your organisation. You are responsible for what happens under your organisation's accounts.
• Tell us at once at support@fairpool.example if you think someone has used an account without permission.

Fees are charged per venue. Our current prices, volume discounts for groups, annual billing, whether VAT is added, and any free trial are shown on the Fairpool website and on the Billing page in the app (together, the "pricing page"). The pricing page in force when you are billed forms part of these terms. Larger groups may agree different pricing with us in writing.

• We bill monthly in advance through Stripe, our payment provider, or annually in advance if you choose annual billing. You are billed for each venue in your organisation that is not archived, with a minimum of one, and any volume discount is applied automatically for that number. When you add, archive or restore a venue, Stripe adds a proportionate charge or credit to your next invoice.
• Your subscription renews automatically. At the end of each billing period (a month, or a year on annual billing) it renews for another period of the same length, and Stripe charges your payment method, until you cancel it or the agreement ends.
• The pricing page says whether VAT is added. If we are registered for VAT, we add it at the rate in force and show our VAT number on invoices. If we register later, we will tell you before we start adding it.
• If a payment fails, Stripe retries it and you keep full access meanwhile. If it is still unpaid after Stripe's last retry, your subscription ends and the agreement ends with it (section 12). You still owe any fees that were due.
• We may change the pricing page at any time, but a change to what you pay only applies after we have given you at least 30 days' notice under section 13, from your next billing period (or your next annual renewal) after the notice ends.
• You can cancel at any time from the Billing page. Cancelling stops the next renewal; it takes effect at the end of the billing period you have paid for. We do not refund partial periods, except where the law requires it or these terms say so.
• If we offer a free trial, the pricing page and the app show its length and limits. These terms apply during a trial, but you pay nothing during it. If you subscribe during a trial, the trial continues and your first payment is taken on the day it ends, which is when your first billing period starts. The trial's venue limit still applies until that first payment. If you cancel before then, you pay nothing.
• When a trial or paid plan ends, your organisation moves to limited access free of charge: you can still sign in, view, allocate tips already recorded, mark allocations as paid and export your records, but cannot add venues, workers or new tips. Limited access lasts until we delete your organisation under section 12.

• Fairpool is newly launched, and while it is in early access we may change features and screens more often than we will later. We will tell you in advance about any change that materially affects how you record or allocate tips.
• If we offer you a founding price, by promotion code or annual prepayment, we will honour it for the period stated in the offer while your subscription continues. After that the standard price applies, with notice under section 4.
• If you have prepaid annually and we discontinue the service, end the agreement for any reason under section 12, or you end it because of our serious breach, we will refund the unused part of your prepayment pro rata. If you cancel a prepaid year yourself, your access continues to the end of that year.
• You can export your records at any time: during early access and trials, after a plan ends, and before the agreement ends.

You remain the employer. You are legally responsible for complying with the Employment (Allocation of Tips) Act 2023 and its statutory Code of Practice, including deciding which tips the law covers, allocating them fairly, paying them in full by the end of the following month, having a written policy, and giving workers their records on request. You are also responsible for pay, National Minimum Wage, PAYE, National Insurance and any tronc arrangements.

Independent troncs. Fairpool does not currently support independent tronc schemes or troncmasters. Allocations made in Fairpool are made by you as the employer, and Fairpool does not determine how tips are treated for tax or National Insurance.

Fairpool is a tool, not advice. It calculates shares from the data you enter and the policy and role weights you choose. Nothing in Fairpool, including the policy template, is legal, tax or employment advice. Check each allocation before you pay it, and take your own advice where you need it.

Workers' data. You are the controller of the worker data you put into Fairpool. You must have a lawful basis for it, tell your workers in your own privacy notice that you use Fairpool to process it, and enter only what you need. Some of your workers may be under 18; take that into account when you decide what to record and who to give private links to.

Free-text fields. Do not put health, trade union membership, ethnic origin, religion, sex life or sexual orientation, or criminal offence details in tip notes, record-request notes, correction notes or references, your tipping policy or consultation summaries. Keep notes to what explains the record.

Acceptable use. Do not use Fairpool unlawfully; try to get around its security or access other customers' data; upload malicious code; overload it or test it for load or security without our written agreement; copy or reverse-engineer it except as the law allows; or resell it.

We aim to keep Fairpool available 99.5% of the time each month, not counting planned maintenance, which we try to do outside venue opening hours and announce in advance where we can. This is a target, not a guarantee.

Support is by email at support@fairpool.example. We aim to reply within 2 working days (Monday to Friday, excluding bank holidays in England). If you are unhappy with the service, email the same address with "Complaint" in the subject: we will reply within the same time, look into it, and tell you what we will do. Complaints about how we handle personal data can also go through our data protection complaint form.

We back up the database, but you should also export your records regularly, because you must be able to produce them for three years.

We may suspend all or part of your access if:

• you seriously break the acceptable use rules in section 6;
• it is needed to protect the service, other customers or anyone's data; or
• the law or a regulator requires it.

We will tell you why, give notice first where reasonable, and restore access once the problem is fixed. While suspended you can still export your records, unless that would itself create a security risk. Suspension does not delete your data. Unpaid fees do not lead to suspension: they end the subscription (section 4).

Each of us will comply with the UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018. For worker data you are the controller and we are your processor, on the terms of the Data Processing Agreement. For the accounts of the people in your organisation who sign in, we are the controller, as our privacy notice explains.

We own Fairpool and all intellectual property in it. While these terms are in force, you may use it for your own business. That right is non-exclusive and you cannot transfer it.

You own the data you put in ("your data"). You give us permission to host, copy and process it only to provide, secure and support the service. You can adapt the policy template freely for your venues. If you send us feedback, we may use it without owing you anything.

Each of us will keep the other's confidential information confidential and use it only for this agreement, unless it is already public or the law requires disclosure.

We will provide the service with reasonable care and skill. Apart from that and what these terms say, we exclude all terms implied by statute or common law, to the extent the law allows.

Nothing in these terms limits or excludes liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, or for anything else the law does not allow to be limited or excluded.

Subject to that:

• Neither of us is liable for loss of profit, revenue, business, goodwill or anticipated savings, or for indirect or consequential loss.
• We are not liable for back pay, awards, penalties or compensation you must pay as an employer, including under the Tips Act or to HM Revenue & Customs, except to the extent they result directly from our breach of these terms or the Data Processing Agreement.
• Our total liability for all claims arising from or in connection with this agreement in any contract year (each 12 months from the date you accepted these terms) is limited to the greater of £5,000 and the fees you paid or owed for that contract year.
• These limits do not apply to your obligation to pay fees.

We set these limits because our fees are small compared with the payroll they relate to; because Fairpool is run by one person, who is personally liable for it; and because you check each allocation before paying it and are best placed to insure your own risks as an employer.

• The agreement continues, renewing with your subscription (section 4), until you delete your organisation or it ends under this section.
• It also ends when your subscription ends: when a cancelled subscription reaches the end of the period you paid for, when a payment is still unpaid after Stripe's retries, or when your subscription is paused. If you never subscribe, it ends when your free trial ends. You then have limited access (section 4) so you can reach and export your records, and subscribing again (or resuming a paused subscription) before we delete your organisation continues the agreement.
• Deleting your organisation from the Account page ends it immediately. It permanently deletes your data straight away and cancels your subscription without a refund.
• We may end the agreement for any reason with at least 30 days' notice, and will refund fees you have paid for any period after it ends.
• Either of us may end it at once by written notice if the other seriously breaches it and does not put the breach right within 14 days of being asked, or becomes insolvent or bankrupt.

Your data when the agreement ends. Before we delete it, download your records: the records and tips CSVs from the Records page, the payroll CSV for each allocation, each worker's export (JSON) and your account data from the Account page (JSON). The Tips Act requires you to keep tip records for three years, so make sure you have a copy: keeping them is your duty as the employer, not ours, and after the agreement ends we must delete them rather than keep them for you.

We email your organisation's owners when the agreement ends, 30 days and 7 days before deletion, and again the day before, with direct links to every download. We then delete your organisation and all of its data 90 days after the agreement ends, together with your customer record at Stripe, unless the law requires us to keep something. If a notice goes late, for example because our systems were down, deletion waits until at least 7 days after the final notice and at least a day after the day-before reminder. Until then you can ask us for an export. Afterwards we keep only a note that an organisation was deleted, when and why, with no personal data. Copies in our backups are deleted on the schedule in the Data Processing Agreement.

Sections 6 (for what happened before the end), 10, 11, 12 and 14 continue after the agreement ends, as does anything you owe us.

We may update these terms, the Data Processing Agreement and the pricing page. We will email your organisation's owners at least 30 days before a change that is materially worse for you, including a price increase, takes effect. If you do not agree, you can cancel before it takes effect and we will refund fees you have paid for any period after that date. Changes needed to comply with the law, or to protect the service, may take effect sooner. We keep every version of these terms; ask us for the one you accepted.

• We may transfer this agreement to a company we control or to anyone who takes over the business, by telling you. Your rights under it will not be reduced. You need our written consent to transfer it.
• Neither of us is liable for delay or failure caused by events outside our reasonable control, as long as we tell the other and try to limit the effect.
• Notices to you go to your organisation owners' email addresses. Notices to us go to support@fairpool.example or our address for service, [Address for service to be confirmed].
• Because we contract only with businesses, regulations 9(1), 9(2) and 11(1) of the Electronic Commerce (EC Directive) Regulations 2002 (information about the technical steps to conclude the contract and any codes of conduct, a way to correct input errors, and acknowledging the order) do not apply. These terms are in English.
• If a court finds part of these terms unenforceable, the rest still applies. Not enforcing a right straight away does not waive it.
• Nobody else has rights under this agreement under the Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999.

The law of England and Wales governs this agreement and any dispute about it, including non-contractual disputes. The courts of England and Wales have exclusive jurisdiction.