Application licence agreement

What this agreement covers

Off Your Plate Books Ltd. of Chilliwack, BC operates a private application that connects to a QuickBooks Online company and reads and writes that company’s accounting records. We call it the application. We call the business whose books it connects to the company.

This agreement covers the connection itself. The bookkeeping work is covered by a separate written client agreement, and where the two differ on the work, the client agreement governs.

The application isn’t sold, licensed or installed. There is no fee for it and nobody downloads it. It runs on our own computer and is the tool we use to do the work you’ve engaged us for. It isn’t listed on the Intuit App Store and isn’t available to the public.

Your QuickBooks subscription is yours. Your ledger stays in it. This agreement doesn’t change your relationship with Intuit, and Intuit’s own terms continue to govern your subscription.

Who may authorise the connection

QuickBooks Online allows three kinds of user to connect an application. Any of them may authorise ours:

• →The company’s primary admin or a Company Admin. This is the usual route for a company we work with directly.
• →The owner of an accounting firm that holds the company as a client, acting as the firm’s primary admin. QuickBooks Online permits a firm owner to connect and manage applications for their clients’ companies. Where we work alongside a bookkeeping or accounting firm, this is the route used, and the firm performs the connection.
• →Us, where the company is our own. We say so when it applies.

A firm that connects the application for a client company confirms that it has that client’s authority to do so. We ask for that confirmation in writing before the connection is made, and we keep it.

We also ask the company itself to agree in writing before we connect, even when a firm has the authority to connect without asking. The agreement names us, says what the application reaches and says how to disconnect it. A firm’s authority is enough for QuickBooks; we don’t treat it as enough for us.

What the firm’s authorisation does and does not do

A firm authorising the connection gives us access to the company’s accounting records. It doesn’t make the firm responsible for our work, and it doesn’t make us responsible for the firm’s.

It doesn’t transfer the client relationship. Where a firm brings us in, the company remains the firm’s client and we work to the scope the firm and the company have agreed.

It doesn’t give us access to anything beyond the company it was given for. Each company is authorised separately and reached separately.

It doesn’t survive the firm. If the firm’s engagement with the company ends, the authority ends with it, and we disconnect.

What the application does

The application requests one permission from QuickBooks: accounting. It reads customers, suppliers, bills, expenses, invoices, accounts, tax codes, attachments and reports, and it creates and updates the same records when the work calls for it.

It doesn’t request payroll or payments permissions, so it can’t reach payroll records, employee pay or card and bank payment data held by Intuit.

We start every connection with writing switched off and read the connection back before anything is opened up: the company name, the company start date, the fiscal year start month, and a live report. We confirm the company is the one intended before we do anything else.

Deletion stays switched off permanently. Corrections are made as reversals and adjustments, so the original entry and the correction both remain visible in your file.

Every entry we make is checked by a person against the source document before it goes in, and read back afterwards to confirm it recorded what was intended.

What the application will never do

• →It won’t give any other business access to your accounting records for that business’s own purposes. The services we use to do the work are listed in our privacy policy and act on our instructions only.
• →It won’t export, save or store your accounting records for any purpose other than the bookkeeping work you’ve engaged us for.
• →It won’t record your credentials or your accounting records in any log.
• →It won’t take payment authority, signing authority or custody of your money. We don’t hold, receive, pay or transfer funds, including payments to the Canada Revenue Agency.
• →It won’t connect a second company without that company’s own authorisation.
• →It won’t be used to train a machine-learning model on your records.

Where your information goes

Our privacy policy is part of this agreement and sets out what we hold, for how long and who else handles it. In summary: your ledger stays in your QuickBooks subscription; we work on an encrypted computer in Canada; working extracts are deleted when the work they were taken for is complete; and the change log and working papers are kept for the period in your client agreement.

Connection credentials are held encrypted, on one computer, used by the person doing the work, and never sent by email or chat.

Where we use AI assistance, the service that processes your records is named in your engagement documents before the work starts, together with the retention arrangement that applies. Information sent to Intuit or to an AI service can be stored or processed outside Canada.

Disconnecting

You can disconnect at any time, without telling us first and without a reason. In QuickBooks Online: the gear icon, then Apps, then Connected apps, then Disconnect. That revokes our access immediately.

A company admin can disconnect whether the connection was authorised by the company or by a firm on its behalf. A firm that authorised the connection can also disconnect it. Neither needs the other’s agreement.

Disconnecting stops our access. It doesn’t remove entries already recorded in your file, which are your records, and it doesn’t end your client agreement or any fees already due under it.

We’ll tell you if we think disconnecting mid-period will leave a period unfinished, and what that means. Then it’s your call.

When the engagement ends

We disconnect the application and destroy the company’s credentials within 10 business days of the engagement ending, whichever party ended it.

You keep your QuickBooks file and receive the complete change log. Working papers are kept for the retention period in your client agreement and remain confidential.

We may also stop work and disconnect if we’re asked to record information we believe to be false, to act unlawfully, or to do something that would require us to hold out as an accountant. We’ll say so in writing when we do.

Your obligations

Keep your own QuickBooks access secure and use multi-factor authentication on it. Tell us promptly if an authorised user leaves, if you suspect your QuickBooks account has been accessed without authority, or if the firm that authorised our connection is no longer engaged by you.

Don’t ask us to use the application to reach records outside the agreed scope.

Liability

We’re responsible for our own work. We’re not responsible for the accuracy of records we didn’t create, for information we weren’t given, or for the work of another firm.

To the extent permitted by law, we exclude liability for indirect loss and lost profit arising from the connection itself, including interruption of the application or of Intuit’s service. This doesn’t exclude liability that can’t lawfully be excluded, or liability for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation.

Our total liability to you, however it arises, is limited to the fees you have actually paid us in the twelve months before whatever went wrong. Where you have paid us nothing, we have no liability, except for the things in the paragraph above that can’t lawfully be excluded. Your client agreement says the same and governs the bookkeeping work.

We don’t provide audit, review or other assurance services, tax advice or income tax return preparation, and nothing the application produces is a certification or an opinion on financial information.

Governing law and changes

The laws of British Columbia and the applicable laws of Canada govern this agreement. The courts of British Columbia have exclusive jurisdiction.

Changes appear here with a new version and effective date. We tell connected companies, and any firm that authorised a connection, directly and in advance of a material change. Changes don’t alter work already agreed in writing.

Questions about this agreement: help@offyourplatebooks.ca.