Terms of Service

These terms govern the supply of the AEGIS Finance OS platform to your firm. They are written to be read, not to be survived. Where a clause protects us at your expense, we say so plainly rather than burying it — you are an accountant, you will find it anyway, and we would rather you found it now.

1Definitions

AEGIS, we, us, our

AEGIS INTELLIGENCE SYSTEMS (Pty) Ltd, registration number 2026/521302/07.

You, your, the Firm

The accounting practice or other entity that subscribes to the Platform.

Platform

AEGIS Finance OS, including the web application at app.aegis.org.za, its APIs and its documentation.

Client Data

All data you or your clients load into, or generate within, the Platform — accounting records, contacts, employee and payroll records, documents and the resulting ledger.

Users

The individuals you authorise to access the Platform under your account.

Operator Agreement

Document 04, which governs our processing of personal information on your instruction under POPIA.

2The agreement, and what forms part of it

1. These Terms, the Privacy Policy (Document 01), the Operator Agreement (Document 04) and any signed order form together form the whole agreement between us. They replace anything said in a meeting, an email or a demo.
2. Where they conflict, the order of precedence is: (a) a signed order form; (b) the Operator Agreement; (c) these Terms; (d) the Privacy Policy.
3. You accept these Terms by signing them, by signing an order form that refers to them, or by using the Platform.

3What we provide

1. A non-exclusive, non-transferable right, for the subscription term, for your Users to access and use the Platform for your firm's own business — including work you perform for your own clients.
2. The Platform as it exists from time to time. Features may be added, changed or removed (clause 16).
3. Support in accordance with clause 8.

You may not resell, sublicense or white-label the Platform, reverse engineer it, use it to build a competing product, or circumvent any access control or usage limit. You may absolutely use it to serve your own clients — that is what it is for.

4Your account and your people

1. You are responsible for everything done under your account, including by your Users.
2. You will keep credentials secure, enable multi-factor authentication where we make it available, and tell us immediately if you suspect a compromise.
3. You will remove Users promptly when they leave your firm. We provide the tooling; the act is yours.
4. You warrant that you are entitled to load the Client Data you load, and that you have the mandate from each of your clients to do so.

5Your data, and getting it back

1. You own the Client Data. We hold it as your operator, on your instruction, under the Operator Agreement.
2. We will not sell it, mine it, benchmark it, or train artificial-intelligence models on it — not raw, not aggregated, not anonymised — unless you instruct us in writing, for your own purposes.
3. Export is a function, not a favour. While your subscription is live you may export your Client Data at any time, unaided, in open formats — including a trial-balance export formatted for CaseWare.
4. On termination we will make a full export available to you for 60 days. After that we delete Client Data on your written instruction, or retain it only where the law requires. We will not hold your data hostage against an invoice dispute.
5. The audit trail is append-only and is not deletable, including by us. That is a feature: it is what allows you to defend what you signed.

6The professional line — what AEGIS is not

This clause is the most important one in this document. Read it twice.

1. AEGIS is software. AEGIS is not an accountant, an auditor, a tax practitioner or an advisor. We are not registered with SAICA, SAIPA, SAIBA, IRBA or SARS as a tax practitioner, and we do not hold ourselves out as such.
2. Every output of the Platform is a derivation of data you supplied — a trial balance, a VAT201, an EMP201, a payslip, a set of annual financial statements, a solvency test. It is a computation, not an opinion, and it carries no professional assurance.
3. You are the professional. The review, the judgment, the sign-off and the submission remain yours. Nothing produced by the Platform may be filed, signed, issued or relied upon by you or your client without your own review.
4. Garbage in, garbage out is a law of arithmetic, not a disclaimer. Where the data you supply is wrong, incomplete or mis-mapped, the output will be wrong. The Platform is built to refuse rather than guess — it will not post a take-on that does not tie, will not compute VAT for a client whose registration status you have not captured, and will not close a period that does not balance. Those refusals are the product working. Do not defeat them.
5. We do not accept responsibility for your professional obligations to your clients, to SARS, to the CIPC or to your professional body. Those obligations are personal to you and cannot be delegated to a vendor.

7Stage of development, and what we do not promise

1. We do not promise that the Platform is free of defects. No software is.
2. We do not promise any feature, integration or date that is not in a signed order form. Statements made in a demo, an email or on our website about work in progress are statements of intent, not commitments.
3. Direct submission of statutory returns to SARS is not available. The Platform prepares a VAT201, EMP201, EMP501 or IRP5 to the box. A human being — you — submits it. Any change to that depends on SARS granting Independent Software Vendor access, which is a matter outside our control and to which we attach no date.
4. Bank feeds depend on third-party banks and providers and are subject to their terms, their pricing and their timelines.

8Availability and support

1. We aim for 99.5% monthly availability, excluding scheduled maintenance (which we will notify in advance where practicable) and events outside our reasonable control.
2. Support is by email to support@aegis.org.za during South African business hours. We aim to acknowledge within one business day.
3. Where availability falls materially below the target for a sustained period, your remedy is a pro-rata credit of the fees for the affected period, on request. That is your sole remedy for unavailability.

9Fees, billing and payment

1. Fees are as set out in your order form or on our published pricing, and are quoted in South African Rand.
2. Where we are not registered for VAT, no VAT is charged and no VAT invoice is issued. If and when we register, we will notify you and prices will be shown VAT-inclusive or VAT-exclusive as stated.
3. Subscriptions are billed monthly or annually in advance, by card or debit order through our payment processor. We do not store your card details.
4. Fees are non-refundable except where these Terms or the law expressly provide otherwise.
5. If payment fails we will notify you and allow a grace period before restricting access. We will not delete your data for non-payment, and we will always allow you to export it.
6. We may change fees on 30 days' written notice, effective from your next renewal. If you do not accept a fee change you may terminate before it takes effect, without penalty.

10Intellectual property

1. The Platform, its code, design, documentation and trade marks are and remain ours. Nothing in these Terms transfers any of it to you.
2. The Client Data is and remains yours (clause 5).
3. If you give us feedback or suggestions, we may use them freely to improve the Platform, without obligation to you. Feedback is not confidential and confers no ownership.

11Confidentiality

Each of us will keep the other's confidential information confidential, use it only for this agreement, and protect it with at least the care we use for our own. This survives termination. Your clients' books are confidential information of the highest order and we treat them as such. Our people are bound by written confidentiality undertakings, as POPIA s21 requires.

12Warranties

1. We warrant that we will provide the Platform with reasonable skill and care, and that we have the right to grant the licence in clause 3.
2. Subject to clause 12.3, and to the maximum extent the law permits, all other warranties, conditions and terms — express or implied, statutory or otherwise — are excluded. We do not warrant that the Platform will be uninterrupted, error-free, or that its output will be accurate where the data supplied to it is not.
3. Where the Consumer Protection Act 68 of 2008 applies to you (broadly, where your firm is a juristic person whose annual turnover or asset value is below the threshold prescribed by the Minister), nothing in this agreement limits or excludes any right you have under that Act, and any clause that purports to do so is severed to that extent. We say this plainly because a clause that unlawfully excludes a statutory right is worse than useless — it misleads you into thinking you have no remedy.

13Limitation of liability

1. Nothing in this agreement limits or excludes liability for: (a) death or personal injury caused by negligence; (b) fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation; (c) gross negligence or wilful misconduct; (d) any liability that cannot lawfully be limited, including under the Consumer Protection Act where it applies.
2. Subject to 13.1, neither party is liable for indirect or consequential loss, loss of profit, loss of revenue, loss of anticipated savings, loss of business or reputational harm, however arising.
3. Subject to 13.1, our total aggregate liability arising out of or in connection with this agreement, in any twelve-month period, is limited to the fees you actually paid us in the twelve months preceding the event giving rise to the claim.
4. Subject to 13.1, we are not liable for penalties, interest, additional tax or administrative fines imposed by SARS, the CIPC, the Information Regulator or any authority, arising from a return, filing or record that you reviewed, approved, signed or submitted. The professional review is yours (clause 6) and it is the point at which such loss becomes preventable.
5. Subject to 13.1, we are not liable for loss arising from data you supplied that was inaccurate, incomplete or mis-mapped, nor from your decision to override a refusal or warning issued by the Platform.
6. You must bring any claim within twelve months of becoming aware of the circumstances giving rise to it.

14Indemnity

You indemnify us against claims brought by your clients or third parties to the extent they arise from: (a) your breach of clause 4.4 (you had no mandate to load the data); (b) your professional acts or omissions; or (c) your use of the Platform in breach of these Terms. This indemnity does not apply to the extent the claim arises from our own breach, gross negligence or wilful misconduct.

15Suspension and termination

1. Either party may terminate for convenience on 30 days' written notice, effective at the end of the then-current billing period.
2. Either party may terminate immediately on written notice if the other commits a material breach and fails to remedy it within 14 days of being asked to.
3. We may suspend access immediately where there is a genuine security risk, or where the law requires it. We will tell you why, as soon as we lawfully can, and restore access as soon as the risk is resolved.
4. On termination, clause 5.4 applies: you get your data. That obligation survives any dispute, including a dispute about money.
5. Clauses 5, 6, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 and 17 survive termination.

16Changes to the service and to these terms

1. We may change the Platform. We will not materially reduce core functionality you rely on without 30 days' notice.
2. We may change these Terms on 30 days' written notice. If a change materially disadvantages you, you may terminate before it takes effect and receive a pro-rata refund of prepaid fees. We will not change the deal quietly.

17General

1. Governing law: the laws of the Republic of South Africa.
2. Jurisdiction: the parties consent to the jurisdiction of the Magistrates' Court having jurisdiction, notwithstanding that the claim may exceed its monetary limit, without prejudice to our right to proceed in the High Court.
3. Dispute resolution: before litigating, the parties will attempt in good faith to resolve the dispute between their senior representatives within 15 business days. Nothing prevents either party from seeking urgent interim relief.
4. Notices: by email to the addresses on the order form, and to info@aegis.org.za for AEGIS. Email is a valid data message under the ECT Act.
5. Electronic signature: the parties agree that an electronic signature, including a signature applied through the Platform, is valid and binding under the Electronic Communications and Transactions Act 25 of 2002.
6. Cession: you may not cede or assign this agreement without our written consent, not to be unreasonably withheld. We may cede it as part of a sale of our business, on notice to you.
7. Severability: if a clause is unenforceable, it is severed and the rest stands.
8. No waiver: a failure to enforce a right is not a waiver of it.
9. Force majeure: neither party is liable for a failure caused by an event outside its reasonable control, provided it mitigates and tells the other promptly.

ASchedule A — disclosures under ECTA s43

Section 43 of the Electronic Communications and Transactions Act 25 of 2002 requires an online supplier to disclose the following. Failure to do so entitles a consumer to cancel within 14 days.

Required disclosure	AEGIS
Full name and legal status	AEGIS INTELLIGENCE SYSTEMS (Pty) Ltd — a private company incorporated in the Republic of South Africa
Registration number	2026/521302/07
Physical address	South Africa
Telephone and email	See aegis.org.za · info@aegis.org.za
Website address	aegis.org.za
Membership of self-regulatory or accreditation bodies	None. We are a software company. We are not a member of SAICA, SAIPA, SAIBA or IRBA and are not a registered tax practitioner.
Code of conduct subscribed to	None beyond these Terms and our Privacy Policy.
Description of goods or services	AEGIS Finance OS — a subscription software platform for accounting and statutory compliance. See aegis.org.za/finance-os.
Full price, including all costs and taxes	As displayed at the point of subscription, in South African Rand, inclusive of all charges. There are no hidden fees.
Manner of payment	Card or debit order, via our payment processor. Card data is never held by AEGIS.
Terms of agreement and where to access them	This document and the Privacy Policy, at aegis.org.za/legal/terms.
Time within which goods/services will be supplied	Access is provisioned on acceptance of these Terms and successful payment.
Right to withdraw / cancel	See clause 15. Where s44 of ECTA applies, a consumer may cancel within seven days without reason or penalty; that right does not apply to services fully performed with the consumer's consent before the period expires.
Return, exchange and refund policy	Clause 9.4 and clause 16.2. Fees are non-refundable except as stated.
Alternative dispute resolution	Clause 17.3.
Security procedures for payment	Payments are processed by a PCI-DSS compliant third-party processor over TLS. AEGIS does not receive, transmit or store card numbers.
Opportunity to review, correct and withdraw	The subscription flow presents a review step before any payment is taken, allowing correction of errors and withdrawal before the order is placed, as s43(2) requires.
Record of the transaction	A record of your subscription and each payment is available in the Platform and emailed to you.