Terms of service
1. About these terms
These terms are an agreement between site software Ltd (company number 17471847, registered office 8 Mostyn Road, Bushey, Hertfordshire, WD23 3PN) (“we”, “us”) and the business that signs up to use costin (“you”). They cover the costin software and any support we give with it (together, the “Service”).
costin is for businesses. By signing up you confirm you are acting for a business, and that the person accepting these terms has authority to bind it. Our privacy policy explains how we handle personal data about the people who use costin. Schedule 1 below covers the data you keep in costin.
2. The Service
costin helps building firms run enquiries, quotes, jobs, orders, supplier invoices, labour and sales invoices in one place. Each firm has its own separate copy of the app and its own database. We may improve and change the Service over time. We will not remove a major feature you rely on without giving you reasonable notice.
Some features may be marked as new or in testing. They may change or be withdrawn, and are provided without the commitments in section 9.
3. Accounts and users
- costin is charged by the number of logins your firm has switched on (see section 4). Each person needs their own login. Logins must not be shared, and costin shows you where each login is being used so you can check.
- You choose what each user can see (for example, site staff who can’t see prices or wages), and you are responsible for what your users do in costin.
- Keep passwords private. Tell us straight away at [email protected] if you think a login has been misused.
4. Fees and payment
- Free trial. Every new account starts with a 14-day free trial. You give card or Direct Debit details when you sign up, but nothing is taken during the trial. If you cancel before it ends, you pay nothing.
- Monthly fee. After the trial, the fee is set by how many logins are switched on:
Logins you switch off, for example when someone leaves, are not charged.Logins Fee per month 1 £25 2 or 3 £30 4 or more £30, plus £10 for each login over 3 (for example, 5 logins is £50) - Paying. Fees are billed monthly in advance by card or Direct Debit, through our payment provider, Stripe. The first payment is taken when the trial ends. If the number of logins changes, the new fee applies from your next monthly payment. Fees already paid are not refunded for part months, unless the law requires it.
- Voice notes. Each month your firm can have voice notes on site visits turned into text for up to 300 minutes for each login, shared across the firm, with up to 5 minutes a note. A top-up adds 300 minutes for £3, added to your next monthly payment; top-up minutes carry over until they are used. When the minutes run out, recordings are still kept, and are turned into text after a top-up or at the start of the next month.
- VAT. We are not currently registered for VAT, so no VAT is added. If we become registered, VAT will be added to the fees at the rate in force, and we will give you at least 30 days’ notice.
- If a payment is more than 14 days late we may suspend access after giving you notice. Your data is kept safe while access is suspended.
- We may change our prices with at least 30 days’ notice. The new price applies from your next billing date after the notice ends.
- We may charge interest on late payments under the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998.
5. Your data
- Everything you put into costin (“Your Data”) belongs to you.
- You give us permission to store and process Your Data only to provide the Service to you, to keep it secure and backed up, and to give you support.
- We do not sell Your Data, use it for advertising, or use it to train artificial intelligence models.
- You can export Your Data at any time using the exports built into costin, and ask us for a full copy (see section 13).
- You are responsible for having a lawful basis to store the personal data you put in costin, and for its accuracy. Schedule 1 sets out how we handle it on your behalf.
6. Connecting your accounting software
If you connect costin to Xero or QuickBooks, you authorise us to send the records you choose (such as sales invoices, supplier bills, subcontractor payments and the matching contacts) to your accounting software, and to read back what is needed to keep them in step (such as whether an invoice has been paid). Your use of that software is governed by its own provider’s terms. You can disconnect at any time from costin’s settings or from the accounting software.
7. What costin is not
costin helps you keep records and work figures out, including VAT, the domestic reverse charge and CIS deductions. It is not tax, accounting or legal advice. You are responsible for checking figures before relying on them, and for what you file with HMRC. Where costin reads information from documents automatically, such as supplier invoices, it asks you to check what it has read. You remain responsible for what is saved.
8. Acceptable use
You must not:
- use the Service for anything unlawful, or to store content you have no right to hold;
- try to get into another firm’s data, test or break our security, or overload the Service;
- copy, resell, or reverse-engineer the Service, or use it to build a competing product.
9. Availability, support and backups
- We aim to keep costin available at all times, apart from planned maintenance, which we will try to do outside working hours.
- Support is by email at [email protected], Monday to Friday, 8am–5pm UK time. We aim to reply within one working day.
- Each firm’s data is backed up every night, and further daily copies of the storage are kept for 30 days. An encrypted copy of each nightly backup is also kept off-site, in the EU. We check backups when they are made. Even so, we recommend you export your records regularly.
10. Our intellectual property
The costin software, name and logo belong to site software Ltd. While you are a customer, you have a non-exclusive, non-transferable right for your users to use the Service for your business. Suggestions you send us may be used to improve costin, with no obligation to you.
11. Confidentiality
Each of us will keep the other’s confidential information private and use it only for this agreement, unless it is already public or the law requires it to be disclosed.
12. Liability
- Nothing in these terms limits liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for fraud, or for anything else the law does not allow to be limited.
- Neither of us is liable for indirect or consequential loss, or for loss of profit, revenue, business or goodwill.
- We are not liable for decisions made from figures in costin, for records entered or saved by your users, or for anything done in your accounting software.
- Otherwise, our total liability in any 12 months is limited to the fees you paid us in the 12 months before the claim arose.
13. Ending the agreement
- The agreement runs month to month. You can cancel at any time, using the “manage your subscription” link in the emails we send you about your account, or by emailing [email protected]. costin keeps working until the end of the month you have already paid for, and you are not billed again. If you cancel during the free trial, it ends when the trial would have ended, and you pay nothing.
- We can end it with 30 days’ notice, or immediately if you seriously break these terms (including non-payment after suspension) and don’t put it right within 14 days of being asked.
- After it ends, you have 90 days to export Your Data or ask us for a full copy (the database and your documents). During that time we keep your records safe and you can still sign in to export them. After that we delete Your Data from the live system. Copies in backups are deleted as those backups roll off, within a further 60 days. The same is true while you use costin: a record you delete goes from the live system at once, but deleted records remain in encrypted backups for up to 60 days, until those backups roll off.
14. Changes to these terms
We may update these terms. We will give you at least 30 days’ notice by email of any change that affects you materially. If you don’t agree, you may cancel before the change takes effect.
15. General
- These terms, including Schedule 1, are the whole agreement between us about the Service.
- Neither of us is responsible for delays caused by events outside our reasonable control.
- You may not transfer this agreement without our written agreement. We may transfer it to a company that takes over the Service, and will tell you if we do.
- These terms are governed by the law of England and Wales, and the courts of England and Wales have exclusive jurisdiction.
Schedule 1 — Data processing
This schedule forms part of the terms and meets the requirements of Article 28 of the UK GDPR. For the personal data you keep in costin, you are the controller and we are the processor.
1. What we will do
- Process the personal data only on your documented instructions, which are these terms and how you use costin, unless the law requires otherwise (in which case we will tell you, unless the law forbids it).
- Make sure anyone we allow to process it is bound by confidentiality.
- Keep appropriate technical and organisational security measures in place (paragraph 5).
- Only use the sub-processors listed in paragraph 4. We will give you at least 30 days’ notice of any new one, and you may object. If we can’t resolve the objection, you may end the agreement without penalty. Each sub-processor is bound by data protection terms at least as protective as these.
- Help you, as far as we reasonably can, to respond to requests from people exercising their rights, and with security, breach notifications and data protection impact assessments.
- Tell you without undue delay, and in any case within 48 hours of becoming aware, of a personal data breach affecting your data, with the information you need to meet your own duties.
- At the end of the agreement, return or delete the personal data as set out in section 13 of the terms, unless the law requires us to keep it. Records you delete while using costin go from the live system at once, and remain in encrypted backups for up to 60 days.
- Make available the information you reasonably need to show these obligations are met, and allow reasonable audits on reasonable notice, at your cost, no more than once a year unless a breach has occurred.
- Not transfer the personal data outside the UK unless a lawful safeguard is in place (paragraph 4).
2. What you will do
- Make sure you have a lawful basis to store and use the personal data you put in costin, and give people the privacy information the law requires.
- Not store special category data (such as health information) in costin unless you have a lawful basis for it and it is necessary. For example, keep emergency contact details brief.
- Use the emails and texts costin sends to your customers only about that customer’s own enquiry or job, not for marketing. Texts sent from costin show your firm’s name and cannot be replied to.
- Tell your customers, in your own privacy information, that costin tells you when they open a link to a quote, invoice, progress update or price breakdown you have sent them (paragraph 3).
3. The processing
| Subject matter and duration | Providing costin to you, for as long as the agreement lasts and until data is deleted under section 13. |
|---|---|
| Nature and purpose | Storing, organising, displaying, backing up and exporting records you create, so your firm can manage enquiries, quotes, jobs, orders, labour, invoices and payments. Reading supplier documents and receipts you upload. Sending records to your accounting software when you connect it, and reading back whether invoices have been paid. Showing progress updates you choose to share with your own customers, through a private link. Sending the emails you write from costin to your customers and suppliers, with their attachments. Sending the texts you choose to send to a customer from costin: a short message, shown as from your firm, with a link to a quote, invoice or progress update. Recording when a customer opens a link to a document you have sent them (a quote, invoice, progress update or price breakdown): the time, and whether it was opened on a phone or a computer. costin then tells you, so you know it has been seen; you are responsible for telling your customers that this happens. Putting your visits and jobs into a user’s own calendar, and sending notifications to a user’s own phone or browser, when that user turns those on. |
| People the data is about | Your customers and their contacts; your employees; your subcontractors; your suppliers’ contacts; your own users. |
| Types of personal data | Names, addresses (including site addresses), phone numbers and email addresses; quotes, invoices, payments and job details; employee National Insurance numbers, start dates, emergency contacts, pay records and certificates (for example CSCS cards); subcontractor UTR numbers, CIS verification details, rates and payment statements; vehicle driver details; documents and photos you upload. |
4. Sub-processors and transfers
| Sub-processor | Purpose | Data location / safeguard |
|---|---|---|
| Fly.io, Inc. | Hosting, database, document storage and backups | London, UK. Covered by Fly.io’s Data Processing Agreement. Fly.io is certified under the UK Extension to the EU–US Data Privacy Framework. |
| Cloudflare, Inc. | Domain name service: points costin.app addresses at our servers. Storing the off-site copy of each nightly backup. | Your Data goes straight to Fly.io and does not pass through Cloudflare. The off-site backups are stored in the EU, encrypted on our servers before they are sent so Cloudflare cannot read them, and deleted after 60 days. Certified under the UK Extension to the EU–US Data Privacy Framework. |
| AssemblyAI, Inc. | Turning voice notes recorded on a site visit into text | Its EU servers. Recordings are not used to train its models, and costin asks for each one to be deleted as soon as its text comes back. |
| Resend (Plus Five Five, Inc.) | Delivering emails you send from costin, such as invoices, quotes, orders and progress updates, with their attachments | Resend is a United States company. Covered by Resend’s Data Processing Agreement and the UK International Data Transfer Addendum. Emails are sent from Resend’s EU (Ireland) region where that is enabled for our sending domain. |
| Twilio Inc. | Only if your firm turns on texts from costin: sending the texts you choose to send to a customer (a short message, shown as from your firm’s name, with a link to a quote, invoice or progress update) to the mobile number you hold for them | United States. Covered by Twilio’s Data Protection Addendum and the UK International Data Transfer Addendum. Texts go through costin’s own Twilio account; each firm sends under its own name, with its own monthly limit. |
| Microsoft Corporation (Microsoft 365) | Our support and hello mailboxes: the emails you send to [email protected] and [email protected], with any screenshots or documents you attach, which may show details of your customers, staff or suppliers | Microsoft’s UK or EU data centres for our tenancy. Covered by Microsoft’s Data Protection Addendum. A document you send us so we can improve costin’s reading of it is kept only until we have looked at it. |
These receive personal data from costin only when you, or one of your users, instruct it to send it. They act for you, not for us, so they are not sub-processors:
- HM Revenue & Customs. When you verify a subcontractor for CIS, or make a return or submission to HMRC through costin, the details go to HMRC under your own duties as a contractor or taxpayer, together with the device and connection details HMRC requires by law to be sent with them.
- Xero Limited / Intuit Inc. (QuickBooks). Only if you connect them: the records you choose to send to your own accounting software, under your own agreement with them, and what costin reads back to keep them in step.
- Your users’ own calendar and notification providers (Apple, Google, Mozilla, Microsoft). If a user turns on costin’s calendar feed, the visits and jobs in it, with the customer’s name, address and phone number, go to that user’s own calendar provider. If a user turns on notifications, the short wording of each one goes through the push service of their phone or browser. Each goes to a provider the user has chosen, under your instruction, and stops when the user turns it off.
GitHub, Inc. holds the list of costin app names (the part of each firm’s address before costin.app) for a scheduled job, and nothing else. No personal data is kept there.
5. Security measures
- Encryption in transit (HTTPS) for all connections.
- A separate app and database for each firm.
- Role-based access for users. Passwords stored only as salted hashes. Sign-in throttling against guessing. Users can see and sign out devices.
- Uploaded documents available only to signed-in users of the same firm, except the progress notes and photos a firm chooses to put in a customer update, which are reachable only through that update’s private, unguessable link.
- Nightly backups checked for integrity, 30 days of storage snapshots, an encrypted off-site copy in the EU, and an offline copy kept on encrypted equipment.
- Access to production systems limited to named people at site software Ltd, using individual accounts.
- Automatic reading of documents done on our own servers, not by outside services.