Terms of Service | Ironfang

Who we are

These terms are between you and Ironfang Ltd, a company registered in England & Wales (No. 12764014), C/O Burton Varley Ltd, The Counting House, 24 Richmond Road, Bowdon, Altrincham, WA14 2TT, England ("Ironfang", "we", "us"). By using this website or any Ironfang product, including Ironfang Render and Ironfang Finance (together, the "Services"), you agree to these terms.

Accounts

Your account

You need an account to use Ironfang Render or Ironfang Finance. You must provide a valid email address, keep your API keys secret, and you are responsible for all activity under your keys. We may suspend accounts that breach these terms or our Acceptable Use Policy.

Ironfang Finance eligibility

Ironfang Finance is for business use, including use by sole traders. Its free allowances are open to every account. Paid usage of Ironfang Finance needs an approved business profile on the account, and is initially available to businesses established in the United Kingdom or European Union, where we can lawfully provide the service and process payment. By submitting a business profile, you confirm that you are acting for a business and are authorised to accept these terms on its behalf. We may require evidence of your business status, establishment and tax details before approving a profile. Adding a payment method does not by itself make paid Ironfang Finance usage available. Availability does not mean support for every country's invoice format, tax regime or submission network. Check the supported formats and rulesets before use.

VAT numbers and business verification

UK businesses do not need a VAT number for their business profile to be approved. An EU business profile is approved once its VAT number and business details have been verified. EU businesses without a VAT number can submit their details for review under Billing in the portal. Approval depends on confirming business status and the applicable tax treatment.

Billing, plans and payment

Free and Pay as you go

Every account has the free monthly allowances published on our pricing page, renewed on the first day of each UTC calendar month. Free usage needs no payment method and is never charged. When an allowance is used up, that work stops until the next month unless Pay as you go is switched on. Unused allowance does not carry over.
Pay as you go is switched on for an account by a person with billing rights, with a payment method and a monthly usage limit. Usage beyond the free allowances is then charged at the graduated rates the pricing page publishes for each meter: each band prices only the units inside it. A month is priced by the rate catalogue in force at its start, and work belongs to the month in which it was started, whenever it finishes.
Usage is counted only when its result is delivered, as the pricing page describes for each meter. Rejected input, failures, timeouts and work cancelled before its output are not charged, and a replay or a retry with the same idempotency key is not counted again. A completed Ironfang Finance validation counts even when it finds errors in the invoice.
Paid usage of Ironfang Finance needs an approved UK or EU business profile on the account, as described under Ironfang Finance eligibility above.

Plans

Some products are sold on monthly plans. Ironfang Agent is sold only on plans. Each plan has a monthly fee and includes an amount of usage each month; the plans, their fees and what they include are published on our pricing page. Every account starts on the product's Free plan, which has no fee and needs no payment method. On Ironfang Agent's Free plan, the assistant talks only to the test contacts you add until Pay as you go is switched on; it then also talks to your customers, within the usage the Free plan includes. Unused included usage does not carry over.
A paid plan needs Pay as you go switched on, as described above. Past the usage a paid plan includes, further usage is charged at the rate the plan publishes. On the Free plan, work stops when its included usage is used up, until the next month.
A plan's fee is charged for each calendar month you are on it, after the month closes: it appears on that month's statement and is collected with the month's usage at monthly settlement. Fees are not prorated for part of a month. Your spending limits cover usage, not plan fees: a plan's fee is charged in addition to them.
Moving to a plan with the same or a higher fee takes effect straight away, and that month is charged the new plan's full fee in place of the old plan's. Moving to a plan with a lower fee, including the Free plan, takes effect at the start of the next month; until then you keep your current plan, and its fee is charged for the current month.
A paid plan continues from month to month until you change it. To stop paying for a plan, move to the Free plan in the portal: no fee is charged for any month after the one in which you do so. Pausing Pay as you go does not end a plan: while it is paused, or while a payment has failed, the plan's usage beyond the Free plan waits until paid usage resumes, and the plan's fee is still charged for the month.
Ironfang Agent is for business use. By choosing a paid Ironfang Agent plan, or by switching on Pay as you go while on its Free plan, you confirm that you are acting for a business and are authorised to accept these terms on its behalf.

Prices and tax

Prices are in pounds sterling (GBP) and exclude VAT. VAT, or another tax where one applies, is added on the invoice and shown separately. It is calculated from your billing details, so you must keep them accurate, including a tax ID where applicable.
Your bank or card provider may apply its own currency conversion or fees.

Spending limits

Pay as you go needs a monthly usage limit for the whole account, which you set as an amount before VAT. You can also set a limit for any product. Limits are set and changed in the portal by a person with billing rights.
Paid work that would take usage past a limit is refused before it starts. Free allowances use none of a limit. When a limit is reached, paid work stops until the limit is raised or the next month starts.
Your paid usage is therefore bounded by the limits you choose, and tax is shown separately on the invoice.
Until a payment from the account has succeeded, the account can owe at most £20.00 before VAT for paid usage: this month's paid usage, including work already accepted, together with any balance not yet paid. Paid work that would go past it is refused before it starts, whatever your own limits, and free allowances keep working. Once a payment has succeeded, only the limits you set apply.

Monthly settlement and the minimum collection

Usage and plan fees are settled after each UTC calendar month closes. Your payment method is charged only when the account's uncollected balance before VAT (the usage and plan fees of closed months not yet collected, and any adjustments) is at least £5.00, the minimum collection. The whole balance is then collected, with any tax, in one payment.
While the account is open, a balance below £5.00 is carried forward to a later settlement without a charge. It is never raised to £5.00: the minimum collection is a threshold for collecting, not a minimum fee. A carried balance is not overdue. When an account is closed, its balance is settled as described under Pausing, closing and termination.
Passing £5.00 during a month charges nothing; money is collected only at monthly settlement.

Statements, invoices and payment

Each month has its own statement: the quantities used, the free allowance or the usage a plan includes, the graduated bands, any plan fees and the rate catalogue that priced it.
Each collection has one itemised invoice covering every product on the account, with a line for each month and meter it collects and for each plan fee, and tax shown separately. Amounts are calculated exactly and invoiced in whole pence; a fraction of a penny left over is carried to the next collection.
Payments are processed by Stripe. We do not store your card details. Payment details, limits, statements and invoices for every Ironfang product are managed together under Billing in the portal.

If a payment fails

If a payment fails, new paid work on the account stops at once and resumes when the payment succeeds. The same applies while your bank asks you to authenticate a payment. Free allowances keep working, and saved results remain available within their retention periods.
Updating the payment method charges an unpaid invoice to the new one straight away, and our payment provider also retries a failed payment. If the invoice has failed and is still unpaid at the next monthly settlement, we void it and collect its balance together with the new month in one invoice, so nothing is charged twice. If the invoice turns out to have been paid, the payment is recorded and the balance is not collected again.
While an invoice is waiting for you to authenticate its payment, that settlement waits too, until the payment succeeds or fails. If the payment provider stops retrying an invoice, paid work stays stopped until that invoice is paid.

Billing errors and disputes

If we charge you incorrectly, we correct it: by a credit or adjustment on a later collection or, where you have already paid the amount, by a refund to your payment method. If you think a statement or invoice is wrong, tell us through the contact form and we will check it against the recorded usage.
Please contact us before disputing a payment with your bank or card provider, so that we can correct a mistake quickly. This does not limit your right to dispute a payment.

Ironfang Audit retention extensions

Ironfang Audit keeps evidence for the standard retention period published on our pricing page. You can buy longer retention for evidence you select. Each purchase is quoted as a fixed price for that evidence before you buy, is made by a person with billing rights and needs Pay as you go switched on. The price is added to the month of purchase, counts towards your limits and is settled with that month. A purchase does not renew by itself.
Deleting evidence before its extended retention ends does not refund the purchase.

Price changes

We publish changes to our rates before they apply, with reasonable notice. A change takes effect only at the start of a UTC calendar month and never applies to usage already made.
A month is always priced by the rate catalogue in force at its start, so a change never reprices a month already under way. This applies to plan fees and what plans include as it does to rates.

Your content

Content you submit for rendering

You retain all rights to content you submit for rendering and to the output. You grant us the limited licence needed to process, cache and deliver renders. You are responsible for having the rights to any URL or HTML you submit.

Ironfang Finance documents

For Ironfang Finance, you retain your rights in submitted invoices and generated documents. You grant us the limited licence needed to validate, generate, store and deliver the documents and results you request. You are responsible for the accuracy of invoice information, your right to submit it, and any disclosures or permissions required for personal data it contains. Data handling is described in our Privacy Policy.

What a validation result means

Ironfang Finance checks documents against the selected, supported ruleset. A passing result is not tax or legal advice and does not establish compliance with every rule that may apply to your business. Document validation or generation does not itself submit an invoice to a tax authority or deliver it through Peppol. You remain responsible for review, record keeping and any required submission or delivery.

Availability

We publish live service status and work to maintain high availability. Unless agreed separately in writing, the Services are provided "as is" without a guaranteed service level. We may perform maintenance with reasonable notice where practical.

Liability

Nothing in these terms excludes liability that cannot be excluded by law. Otherwise, our total liability to you in any 12-month period is limited to the amount you paid us in that period, and we are not liable for indirect or consequential losses, including lost profits or data.

Pausing, closing and termination

A person with billing rights can pause Pay as you go at any time in the portal. New paid work then stops at once; free allowances and work already accepted continue. Usage already made is settled with its month.
When an account is closed, its usage and the plan fees for the month it is closed in are settled. An undisputed balance below £5.00 is written off, provided no collection for the account ever failed, was disputed or became uncollectible, and the balance includes no plan fee; any other balance is collected.
Our Refunds & Cancellation policy covers refunds and the correction of billing errors. We may terminate accounts for material breach of these terms.

Changes to these terms

We may update these terms. For material changes we will email account holders at least 14 days before the change takes effect. Continued use after that date is acceptance.

Governing law

These terms are governed by the laws of England and Wales, and the courts of England and Wales have exclusive jurisdiction, except where consumer law gives you additional rights.

Contact

Questions about these terms: use the contact form.