Terms & Conditions

1. About these terms

These terms are the agreement between Darwen Pub Co Ltd, trading as PubSuite (“PubSuite”, “we”, “us”), a company registered in England and Wales under company number 16420301, whose registered office is at 253 Bolton Road, Darwen BB3 2PG, and the business that subscribes to PubSuite (“you”). By starting a trial, subscribing or using PubSuite, you agree to them on behalf of your business.

PubSuite is for businesses, not consumers. The person who accepts these terms confirms they have authority to bind the business.

In these terms:

• Service means the PubSuite web application and everything in it, including any add-ons switched on for you.
• Venue means one pub, bar or restaurant site with its own PubSuite address (for example yourvenue.pubsuite.app).
• Users means the owner, managers, staff and anyone else you give a PubSuite login to.
• Your Data means everything you or your Users put into PubSuite, and everything your guests submit through it (bookings, enquiries, feedback, mailing-list sign-ups).
• Add-on means an optional part of the Service, such as the Accountant, card payments or the Employment Hero payroll export.

2. The service and add-ons

PubSuite gives each Venue online software for running a pub: bookings and guests, rotas, clock-in, timesheets and training, kitchen and stock, takings and reporting, and the staff room. You can switch whole sections off in Settings.

Add-ons are optional. Some you switch on yourself; others we switch on for you on request. An add-on may have its own price, which we tell you before it is switched on. Where an add-on connects to another company (HMRC, Stripe, Employment Hero), section 7 applies as well.

PubSuite is a tool. It helps you keep records and run the business, but it does not give legal, tax, accounting or employment advice, and it does not replace your accountant.

3. Accounts, users and security

The owner’s login controls the Venue. The owner decides who else gets a login and what role they have, and is responsible for what Users do in PubSuite.

You must:

• give each person their own login and never share one;
• keep passwords private and remove access as soon as someone leaves;
• tell us straight away at jamie@pubsuite.app if you think an account has been misused.

Some actions need more than a password. Connecting PubSuite to HMRC and submitting a VAT return also need a one-time code emailed to the owner. Keep the owner’s email account secure, because anyone with access to it could complete these steps.

4. Free trial, fees and payment

Each new Venue starts with a free trial of 60 days. You can use the whole Service during the trial, and nothing is charged if you cancel before it ends.

After the trial, the Service costs the monthly price per Venue shown when you signed up (from £59.99 a month), plus any add-ons you have chosen, plus VAT. Fees are paid monthly in advance by Direct Debit, collected for us by GoCardless. You set up the Direct Debit from the link we email when the Venue is created.

• We tell you at least 30 days before any price change, and you can cancel before it takes effect.
• If a payment fails, we let you know and try again. If it is still unpaid 14 days later, we may suspend the Venue until it is paid. Your Data is kept while it is suspended.
• Fees already paid are not refunded for part of a month, except where the law says otherwise or we end the agreement without your being at fault.

5. Your responsibilities

You are responsible for your business and the records you keep in PubSuite. In particular:

• Accurate records. Takings, invoices, expenses, VAT rates and hours worked are only as accurate as what goes in. Where PubSuite reads figures off a photo or PDF (invoices, receipts, till reports), check them; PubSuite holds them back from your accounts until someone in management confirms them.
• Staff and pay. Rotas, timesheets and payroll exports help you pay people correctly, but you remain the employer. You are responsible for paying staff, holiday pay, right-to-work checks and employment law.
• Food safety and allergens. Allergen information comes from the recipes and ingredients you enter. You are responsible for keeping it correct and for what you tell guests.
• Guests. You are responsible for how you use guests’ details, including only emailing marketing to people who agreed to it.
• The law. You will use PubSuite lawfully, including licensing, data protection, tax and employment law.

6. Making Tax Digital and HMRC

With the Accountant add-on, PubSuite can send VAT returns to HMRC under Making Tax Digital. You stay responsible for your VAT: PubSuite prepares and sends what you approve.

Connecting. The owner connects PubSuite to HMRC by signing in with the business’s own Government Gateway account and granting PubSuite access to read and submit its VAT returns. HMRC asks for this to be renewed every 18 months. You can disconnect at any time in PubSuite, or withdraw the access through HMRC.

What PubSuite does. It fetches the returns HMRC says are due, builds each one from your records, shows the entries behind each box, sends the return when the owner submits it, and keeps HMRC’s receipt. Entries added or changed after a quarter was sent are carried into the next return, within the limits HMRC allows.

What you do. Check every return before submitting it. Submitting is a legal declaration to HMRC that the information is true and complete, made by you for your business, not by PubSuite. If a correction is larger than HMRC lets you put right in a later return, you must tell HMRC separately (form VAT652); PubSuite warns you when this applies.

Information sent to HMRC. The law requires software to send HMRC fraud prevention information with every request. PubSuite sends details of the device and connection used, such as the IP address, browser, screen size, time zone, a device identifier kept in the browser, the PubSuite user ID and the fact that an emailed code was used. It is sent only to HMRC and only for this purpose.

Records. HMRC requires VAT records to be kept for six years. PubSuite keeps your records and submitted returns while you subscribe; before you leave, export them (section 12).

Accounting schemes. PubSuite builds returns on standard (invoice) VAT accounting. It does not yet support the cash accounting or Flat Rate schemes; if you use either, do not submit returns through PubSuite.

7. Card payments and other services

Some features work with other companies. When you use them, that company’s own terms apply between you and them as well as these.

• Card payments (Stripe). Booking deposits and no-show fees are paid into your own Stripe account, which you open and agree with Stripe. Stripe’s fees are charged by Stripe. PubSuite never sees or stores full card numbers. You decide the deposit and no-show policies shown to guests, and you are responsible for refunds and disputes.
• Direct Debit (GoCardless). Your PubSuite subscription is collected through GoCardless under the Direct Debit Guarantee.
• Payroll (Employment Hero). PubSuite produces a file of approved hours for you to import into Employment Hero. Running payroll, and its accuracy, sits with you and Employment Hero.
• HMRC. See section 6.
• Reading documents. To read invoices, receipts, till reports and statements you upload, PubSuite sends them to an AI service that extracts the figures. The figures are held back until a manager confirms them.

We are not responsible for another company’s service being unavailable, or for its actions, but we will help you where we reasonably can.

8. Your data and privacy

Your Data belongs to you. For the personal data in it (your staff, guests and suppliers), you are the controller and PubSuite is your processor under UK data protection law. How we handle personal data about you as our customer is in our privacy policy.

As your processor, we will:

• use Your Data only to provide the Service and as you instruct, never to sell it or for our own marketing;
• keep it confidential, and limit access to people who need it to run and support the Service;
• protect it with appropriate security, including encrypted connections, encrypted backups and access controls;
• use only the sub-processors needed to run the Service — hosting (Railway), email (Resend), payments (Stripe, GoCardless), document reading (Anthropic), text messages (Twilio) and backups (Cloudflare) — and tell you before adding a new one;
• keep Your Data on servers in the United States, where Railway hosts PubSuite, and where it or our sub-processors handle it outside the UK, protect it with safeguards approved under UK law (the UK Extension to the EU–US Data Privacy Framework, or the UK International Data Transfer Agreement or Addendum);
• tell you without undue delay if we become aware of a breach affecting Your Data;
• help you respond to people exercising their data rights, and with any data protection impact assessment;
• delete or return Your Data when the agreement ends (section 12).

You confirm you have a lawful basis to put personal data into PubSuite and that you give staff and guests the privacy information the law requires.

9. Availability, support and changes

We aim to keep PubSuite available at all times, but we can’t promise it will never be interrupted. Updates usually take a minute or two, and we schedule larger work outside busy trading hours where we can.

Support is by email at jamie@pubsuite.app. We aim to reply within one working day, and sooner for anything stopping you trading.

We keep improving PubSuite and may change, add or remove features. We will not take away a feature you rely on, or reduce the Service substantially, without at least 30 days’ notice; if you don’t accept the change, you can cancel before it takes effect.

10. Acceptable use and intellectual property

You must not, and must not let anyone else:

• use PubSuite for anything unlawful, or to send spam or content you have no right to send;
• try to get into another Venue’s data, test or break PubSuite’s security without our written agreement, or overload it;
• copy, resell or reverse-engineer the Service, or use it to build a competing product.

We may suspend access straight away if this is needed to protect PubSuite, other customers or the public, and will tell you why.

PubSuite, its software, design and content belong to us. You get the right to use it for your Venues while you subscribe. Your Data stays yours; you give us permission to use it only to run the Service for you. If you send us suggestions, we may use them freely.

11. 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.

Subject to that:

• We are not liable for loss of profits, revenue, business or goodwill, or for any indirect or consequential loss.
• We are not liable for tax, penalties, interest or wages owed because of figures you entered, approved or submitted, including a VAT return you submitted through PubSuite. Penalties caused by PubSuite itself sending HMRC something different from what you approved are covered by our liability below.
• Our total liability in any 12 months is limited to the fees you paid us in those 12 months, or £1,000 if that is more.

PubSuite is provided as described in these terms. Apart from what they say, we give no other promises about it, to the extent the law allows.

12. Ending the agreement

You can cancel at any time by emailing jamie@pubsuite.app or cancelling the Direct Debit. The Service continues until the end of the month you have paid for.

We can end the agreement with 30 days’ notice. We can end it sooner if you seriously break these terms and don’t put it right within 14 days of our asking, or if fees stay unpaid 30 days after we suspend the Venue.

Your Data when it ends. Before you leave, download what you need: the accounts ledger, VAT returns and receipts, reports and staff records can all be exported. After the agreement ends:

1. we keep Your Data for 30 days so you can still ask for a copy;
2. we then delete it within a further 60 days, except copies in encrypted backups, which expire on their normal cycle, and anything the law requires us to keep;
3. PubSuite’s connection to HMRC is removed. Remember HMRC expects you to keep VAT records for six years, so keep your own copy.

13. General

• Changes to these terms. We may update these terms. We will email the owner at least 30 days before a change that affects you materially; if you don’t accept it, you can cancel before it takes effect. The current version is always at pubsuite.app.
• Notices. We send notices to the owner’s email address in PubSuite. You send them to jamie@pubsuite.app.
• Things outside our control. Neither of us is responsible for delays caused by events beyond reasonable control, such as a failure of the internet, a hosting provider, HMRC’s systems or a power cut.
• Transfer. You may not transfer this agreement without our agreement. We may transfer it to a business that takes over PubSuite, and will tell you if we do.
• Whole agreement. These terms, and anything they refer to, are the whole agreement between us about PubSuite. If any part can’t be enforced, the rest still applies.
• Law. These terms are governed by the law of England and Wales, and the courts of England and Wales deal with any dispute.