Terms of service

What you're getting

Short versionWorkshop software, hosted by us, for your business, for as long as you pay for it.

PISTON is a subscription. You get access to PISTON for your business and your team through your own address on our domain, and we host it, back it up and keep it running. There's one version, so you get every feature there is, and new features as they land.

PISTON is a tool for running your business, and you're still the one running it. The prices you quote, the invoices you send and the tax you pay are yours to get right.

Your account

Short versionOne account per business, real people on it, keep your passwords to yourselves.

An account belongs to a business, and the person who set it up is responsible for it, including who they add to the team and what those people do. Keep logins private, use a decent password, and tell us if you think somebody has got into an account.

Don't use PISTON for anything illegal, don't try to break into it or anyone else's account, and don't send spam through it.

Money

Short versionFree for 14 days. Then $129 a month plus GST (NZ$129 and no GST in Australia), charged to your card on the same date each month, starting the day your trial ends. No surcharge, no bank transfer, cancel any time.

Your first 14 days are free and need no card. After that we charge the card you've saved $129 plus GST on the day your trial ends, and on the same date every month after that, and the invoice arrives already paid. Each charge covers the month ahead of it. If your billing date doesn't exist in a month (the 31st in February, say) you're charged on the last day of that month, and you're back on your own date the month after.

If your business is in Australia, you pay NZ$129 and no GST, because we're a New Zealand business selling to you, and your bank may charge a small fee to convert it. A card is the only way to pay us, and we never add a card fee to what you pay. The price covers your whole business, however many people are on it.

If a charge fails we'll tell you. You've got 14 days before the invoice is late and 14 more after that before PISTON closes to everything but your account pages, which is where you fix the card. Your data stays put throughout, and nothing is deleted over a failed payment.

You can cancel any time from your account. You keep access until the end of the month you've paid for, and there's no cancellation fee. We don't refund part months.

If the price ever changes, we'll tell you at least a month before it applies to you.

Taking card payments from your customers

Short versionOptional. It's your Stripe account, your money and your call on the fee. We don't take a cut.

If you connect a Stripe account, your customers can pay your invoices by card and the money goes to your Stripe account, not through us. Stripe's fee (2.7% + 30c a payment in New Zealand, 1.7% + 30c in Australia) comes out of that payment. You can choose to add that fee to what the customer pays; if you do, the invoice page shows it before they pay and your bank details stay on it without the fee. Stripe's own terms apply to the account; ours don't add anything to them. We take nothing from your customers' payments.

Your data

Short versionIt's yours. We look after it, we don't sell it, you can take it with you.

Everything you put into PISTON (customers, quotes, jobs, rates, invoices, time) belongs to you. You're giving us permission to store it and process it so PISTON works, and nothing else. We don't sell it, we don't use it for advertising, and we don't use it to train anything. How we handle it is in our privacy policy, which is part of this agreement.

You can export your data at any time. If you cancel, it stays for 30 days for you to collect and is then deleted.

Your customers' personal information is yours to look after under the Privacy Act. We're your processor for it; make sure you're allowed to hold what you put in.

If it breaks

Short versionWe'll keep PISTON up and fix it fast. Check your own numbers before a quote goes out. Our liability is capped at what you've paid us.

We aim for PISTON to be available all the time, and we'll tell you ahead of any planned downtime. Things do break; when they do we fix them as quickly as we can and tell you what happened.

PISTON is provided as is. We don't guarantee it will be uninterrupted or error-free, or that a number it works out is the number you should quote, so check your quotes before you send them. To the extent the law allows, we're not liable for indirect or consequential loss (a job you priced wrong, a customer who didn't pay) and our total liability to you for anything arising out of the service is limited to the amount you've paid us in the twelve months before the claim.

If you're using PISTON for business, the Consumer Guarantees Act 1993 doesn't apply.

Ending it

Short versionYou can leave whenever. We can close an account that's being misused, and we'll give notice if we ever shut the service down.

You can close your account any time. We can suspend or close an account that breaks these terms or goes unpaid, and we'll tell you why. If we ever stop offering PISTON altogether, we'll give at least three months' notice and make sure you can take your data with you.

The rest

PISTON is a trading name of Polycode Limited, a New Zealand company. Wherever these terms say "we" or "us", that's who they mean.

These terms are governed by New Zealand law, and any dispute goes to New Zealand courts. We'd both rather it went to an email first. If part of this turns out to be unenforceable, the rest still stands. If we change these terms in a way that matters, we'll email account holders before it takes effect.

The deal, in writing.