Terms of service

1. About these terms

These terms apply when an accounting firm ("you", "your firm") uses the AnnualsAI service ("we", "us"). Before your first job, your firm signs our engagement letter online. The engagement letter, these terms and any quote we give you together form our agreement. If a quote and these terms differ, the quote applies to that job.

The service is for accounting firms acting in trade. It is not for consumers or members of the public.

2. Our service

We prepare annual accounts (financial statements, income tax returns and workpapers), GST returns, BAS, and bookkeeping catch-up and clean-up work for accounting firms in New Zealand and Australia.

We communicate by email only. We do not take phone calls or use WhatsApp or other messaging apps. This is part of how we keep our prices low. Our emails are handled by AI.

If we need missing information or have a query, we email you. Each of your clients gets their own dedicated email address with us. Reply to that address, and your answer goes straight to the right job. Please reply only to that address, so your answers are matched to the right job.

3. AI-prepared and AI-reviewed work

All work is prepared by AI and reviewed by AI. No human prepares, reviews or approves the work. A person from our team is involved only when you sign up: to get your access in place, set the AI up to your firm's policies, and fix anything that is not working the way you want. After that, no person is involved in the day-to-day work, and no person prepares, reviews or signs off your work. AI can make mistakes. The work is a draft for your firm's review. It is not advice and it is not a final product.

4. Your responsibilities

• Your firm must review all work before it is used, sent to a client, filed or lodged.
• Your firm is responsible for the work once delivered, for advice to its clients, and for anything filed with IRD or lodged with the ATO.
• For Australian clients, your firm's registered tax agent or BAS agent remains responsible for supervising and checking the work, and for anything lodged with the ATO.
• You must have your clients' authority to share their information with us, including that it may be stored or processed overseas.
• You must give us complete and accurate information, and tell us about anything unusual that affects a job.

Disclosing our use of AI

Your firm is responsible for disclosing that it uses AnnualsAI, an AI service provider, to prepare work. This includes disclosure:

• to your clients, in writing, before you share their information with us. Your engagement letter with each client is the right place to do this.
• to the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) and the Tax Practitioners Board (TPB) in Australia, where they require it.
• to Inland Revenue (IRD) in New Zealand, where it requires it, including through the authority to act you hold for each client.
• to any professional body your firm or its members belong to, where its rules require it. For example, Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand (CA ANZ) or CPA Australia.
• in your engagement letter with each client, where your professional body or the law requires it. In Australia, this includes the requirements of APES 305 Terms of Engagement.

We are not responsible for any disclosure your firm is required to make.

5. No filing or lodging

We never file or lodge anything with IRD or the ATO. We do not act as your firm's or your clients' tax agent or BAS agent.

6. Free first job

Each new firm can have one free job. The free job covers one entity of any type. It is offered once per firm. Apart from the price, the free job is provided on these terms.

7. Quotes, invoicing and payment

• We quote before we start. Quotes are in NZD for New Zealand firms and AUD for Australian firms.
• We invoice per job after delivery.
• Payment is due by the date shown on the invoice.

8. Turnaround

For annual accounts, we deliver within 5 days of receiving everything we need. "Everything we need" means the access, records and answers needed to complete the job. The 5 days are calendar days, including weekends and public holidays. Our AI works day and night, seven days a week.

If we send you a query during a job, the turnaround period stops from the time we send the query until we receive your full answer. It then continues.

For GST returns, BAS and bookkeeping, the turnaround is set out in the quote.

Fixes

If you are not happy with delivered work, email us with what needs to change and any extra information you want us to use. We will fix it at no extra charge. This covers the work in the original job, not new work.

9. Access to your systems

We use only the access you give us, and only for your jobs. You can remove our access at any time. If you remove access before a job is finished, we may not be able to complete it.

10. Confidentiality

We keep your firm's information and your clients' information confidential. We use it only to provide the service, unless the law requires us to disclose it.

11. We never approach your clients

We will never contact, approach or offer services to your clients, directly or indirectly. Your clients remain your clients.

12. Your data

We work inside your portal, and the finished work is saved there. We do not store your data on our own servers, PCs or laptops. To prepare and review each job, the information needed is sent to our AI provider for processing, and the AI provider may keep it for a limited time under its own terms. Your records and the finished work stay in your portal, under your control. Once you remove our access, we can no longer see it. See our Privacy and security page.

13. Limitation of liability

• To the extent permitted by law, our total liability for any job is limited to the fees paid for that job. For the free first job, this means our liability is nil.
• We are not liable for indirect or consequential loss, including loss of profit, penalties, interest or use-of-money interest, or loss caused by your firm's review not identifying an error.
• For New Zealand firms, the parties agree that the service is supplied and acquired in trade, the Consumer Guarantees Act 1993 does not apply, and it is fair and reasonable for the parties to be bound by this clause.
• For Australian firms, nothing in these terms excludes rights that cannot be excluded under the Australian Consumer Law. Where permitted, our liability for a failure to meet a consumer guarantee is limited to supplying the service again or paying the cost of having it supplied again.

14. Ownership of work

Once a job is paid for, or for the free first job once it is delivered, your firm may use the work for its clients. Your clients' records remain theirs.

15. Ending the arrangement

Either party can stop working together at any time by giving notice. You must pay for work already delivered. Clauses 10 to 13 continue after the arrangement ends.

16. Changes to these terms

We may update these terms. Changes apply to jobs sent after the update is published on this page.

17. Governing law

These terms are governed by New Zealand law. For Australian firms, this does not remove rights that cannot be excluded under Australian law.

Contact

AnnualsAI · hello@annualsai.co.nz