Standard Terms and Conditions of Business, Accru Felsers

STANDARD TERMS & CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS Accru Felsers PTY LTD – ABN 51 135 524 766

These standard terms and conditions are to be read and apply to all services that we perform for you, including those in subsequent years. These terms and conditions are referred to as “this agreement”.

We reserve the right to change the terms and conditions at any time and your continued use of our services indicates acceptance of such change.

Purpose, scope and output – Compilation services

For compilation services which are required, our procedures use accounting expertise to collect, classify and summarise the financial information, which you provide, into a financial report. Our procedures will not include verification or validation procedures. We understand that neither an audit nor formal review of the financial statements is required and, accordingly no assurance will be expressed. If you would like to extend the terms of our engagement to include an audit or review function, we are happy to discuss the matter with you further.

As mentioned above, our engagement cannot be relied upon to disclose irregularities including fraud, other illegal acts and errors that may exist. However, we will inform you of any such matters which may come to our attention.

The information will be prepared in accordance with Australian Accounting Standards and other mandatory professional reporting obligations where applicable. Any known departures from this financial reporting framework will be disclosed within the financial report, and when considered necessary, will be mentioned in our compilation report.

If for any reason, we are unable to complete the compilation of your special purpose financial report, or we consider the information to be misleading, we may refer to such matters within our compilation report or may determine not to issue a report.

Your obligations

The timely completion of the services requires your cooperation in the provision of information, documents and resources relevant to the Services. Estimates of time for completion of Services are given on the assumption that we receive this cooperation. We may charge additional fees and expenses which result from the delays in providing this cooperation.

We advise and you acknowledge that:

(a) You are responsible for the reliability, accuracy and completeness of the accounting records, and for all particulars and information provided to us
(b) You warrant the ongoing timely disclosure of all material and relevant information to us
(c) Any advice given to you is only an opinion based on the actual knowledge of your circumstances; and
(d) Taxpayers have obligations under self-assessment to keep full and proper records in order to facilitate the preparation of accurate returns.

Income tax returns

All income tax returns are subject to examination by the Australian Taxation Office. You may be requested to produce documents, records or other evidence to substantiate items shown on the income tax returns.

The preparation of your income tax return does not constitute a prudential tax audit and cannot be relied upon as such. The onus is on you, the tax payer to self-assess and there are substantial penalties for incorrect returns. You should carefully review the income tax return to ensure that items shown are accurately stated so that any necessary corrections can be made.

Payroll services

Where we attend to payroll services on your behalf, you acknowledge that all staffing matters including pay rates and conditions comply with the Fair Work Act 2009 as well as relevant National Employment Standards and Awards.

Confidentiality & privacy

In conducting this engagement, information acquired by us in the course of the engagement is subject to strict confidentiality requirements and the Australian Privacy Principles contained in the Privacy Act 1988 (as amended).

We collect and store your personal information primarily for the purposes of providing professional services to you and effectively managing our business relationship. Your personal information will not be disclosed by us to other parties without your express consent, except for the purpose of performing services we are engaged to perform by you (see contractors below), as required by law or for market research purposes.

Our files may, however, be subject to review as part of the quality control review program of the Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand (CAANZ), which monitors compliance with professional standards by its members. We advise you that by accepting this agreement you acknowledge that, if requested, our files relating to this engagement will be made available under this program. Should this occur, we will advise you.

We take security measures to protect the personal information we hold by maintaining physical electronic and procedural safeguards. By accepting these services, you acknowledge and agree that your personal information may be stored overseas.

Please refer to our full privacy policy at https://accrufelsers.com/privacy-policy/ for further details.

Your information and contractors

Our firm may from time to time use the services of third party contractors to perform some of the services we are engaged to perform for you. This may include use of services commonly referred to as ‘outsourced’ services which are based in a country other than Australia. Use of these providers will be a judgement by the partner responsible for your work taking into account the workflow requirements of the firm at the time and the complexity of the assignment requiring completion.
Where we use the services of third party contractors, we are nevertheless responsible for the conduct and activities of those contractors and for the delivery of the services we are engaged to perform for you.
From time to time our firm and our third-party contractors may engage external IT service providers (including ‘cloud computing’ services) in the performance of services under this engagement. Such IT service providers and services could be located in a country other than Australia.

The full list of the cloud-hosted software that we may be using and links to their privacy policies can be found at https://www.accrufelsers.com/cloud-hosted-software/.

Acceptance of our agreement indicates your acceptance of the use of these contracted services as described and the disclosure of your personal information. We will continue to take reasonable steps to ensure that the Australian Privacy Principles are complied with by us and our providers.

Governing law

This agreement, the contract arising from it and all aspects of our engagement, as well as the performance of our work are governed by the law of New South Wales and you agree to be bound by the laws of New South Wales.
Both you and we irrevocably submit to the exclusive jurisdiction of the Courts of New South Wales, notwithstanding that your activities or any part of the work we do or your acceptance of these terms of engagement may be or take place outside the State of New South Wales.

Limitation of Liability

Under the Professional Standards Legislation and the Scheme approved under that Act, the liability of the firm, its directors, associates and employees or contractors is limited to a maximum sum of $2 million including without limitation liability for negligence, where the fee for the engagement is up to $100,000 or such higher amount as prescribed.

Accordingly, you agree to the aforementioned and to release and indemnify the firm, its directors, associates and employees or contractors from all claims arising from or connected with the performance or purported performance of any services arising from or connected with our engagement to the extent any such claim or claims made exceed such limit.

A copy of the Act and Scheme are available on from the Professional Standards Council www.psc.gov.au or by directly contacting the Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand (CAANZ).

Nothing in our agreement with you excludes the operation of the Australian Consumer Law (ACL) or analogous provisions of State and Territory Fair Trading Acts to the extent that they may be applicable.

Third parties

Nothing produced by this firm, its directors, its employees or contractors is to be made available by you to other than your own employees in any way whatsoever without our written permission and, in any event, we accept no responsibility to any third party. You agree and undertake that you will make the provisions as to limitation of liability known to anyone, including your own employees, to whom you may disclose anything produced by us pursuant to our engagement.

Severability

We agree that each of the promises and undertakings given in this agreement are independent from one another and severable.

Fees

Our fees, which will be billed as the work progresses, are based on the time recorded by the individuals assigned to the engagement plus direct out of pocket expenses.

We may incur disbursements and expenses on your behalf which we may ask you to pay in advance including government fees and charges, overseas telephone calls, postage and courier charges, application, filing and registration fees and the fees, disbursements & expenses of experts and other service providers.

We will obtain your approval before incurring any extraordinary expenses other than in cases of urgency.

The terms of the payment of all bills rendered by this firm are 7 days from invoice. Alternatively, we can establish monthly payment terms of an amount that will be agreed with you, directly by way of electronic transfer. Please contact this office should this be your preference.

We may require you from time to time to pay us money in advance towards our estimated costs and/or disbursements.

Where the service provided is subject to GST, GST at the prescribed rate will be added and charged to you, and you agree to payment of same.

Interest on unpaid costs

If our bill of costs is not paid with 30 days of receipt, we may charge you interest at the Reserve Bank of Australia published Cash Target Rate increased by 2 percentage points. You acknowledge that this is reasonable.

Termination of the agreement

We will use our discretion to discontinue the work in the following circumstances:

We will provide notice of our intention to terminate our agreement, and of the grounds on which the notice is based. You may terminate this agreement at any time.

If the agreement is terminated either by you or us, you will be required to pay our professional fees and charges for work done, and for expenses and disbursements incurred, up to the date of termination. For lump sum fee matters, you must pay the part of our lump sum fee that we reasonably estimate has been incurred in respect of the services provided to you up to the date of termination, plus charges, expenses and disbursements, subject to your right to a cost’s assessment.

On termination, we are entitled to retain possession of your papers and documents while there is money owing to us for our charges and expenses, unless and until satisfactory security is provided for our costs.

Avoiding conflicts of interest

We may act for clients who may compete with or, more rarely, may even be involved in business with you. Naturally, we will continue to represent those clients or new clients in matters that are not substantially related to work we are engaged to perform for you.

We will not disclose or use any confidential information you may disclose to us in the course

of our working for you except where required in the course of our acting for you.

Liability apportionment

While we will take care in performing services under our retainer, if any loss or damage is suffered partly as a result of our fault and partly as a result of your own fault, any claim for damages for breach of contract will be reduced, as if the claim was in negligence, to the extent that is just and equitable, having regard to your share of responsibility for the loss or damage in question.

Data transmission

We may communicate with you via text based, electronic or digital channels for the transmission of all correspondence, documents and advices, where appropriate, unless we are specifically requested by you not to do so. Because such types of communication are not secure and may be read, copied or interfered with in transit or impaired, you agree to assume the risks associated with such transmission and to release us from any claim you may have arising from transmission defects.

Intellectual property

We own the copyright and all other intellectual property rights in everything we create in connection with your matter. Unless we agree otherwise, what we create may be used by you only for the matter for which we create it.

If you provide anything to us (for example, a document for amendment or use as a precedent) you warrant that our use of it for your matter will not infringe any other person’s intellectual property rights.

Involvement of others

Where involvement of others is part of our engagement, the services of an external consultant or expert are required, as estimated cost and timeframe and involvement will be provided to you for your approval.

Retention of your documents

Your files will be archived and kept in storage for no more than seven (7) years after the date of our final account rendered by us in respect to the particular matter, after which date you acknowledge that we are authorised to destroy the files (unless you instruct us to the contrary). Archived files are stored off-site in leased premises operated and maintained by a reputable security company. You will not be charged the costs of storage, however, should you require to have your file retrieved a standard fee may be payable by you and should you wish to take possession of the file at any time prior to expiration of the storage period, the reasonable photocopying costs of duplicating your file may be payable by you in addition to the standard retrieval fee. Important original documents will be retained in safe custody or returned as you may direct. Documents are stored at your risk, and you are strongly encouraged to make your own insurance arrangements to cover the perceived value of the relevant documents.

More than one client

If there is more than one person or entity covered by an engagement, all such persons and entities agree that each is authorised to instruct us and that each is jointly and severally liable for our costs and disbursements.

You also acknowledge the disclosure of information across the aforementioned persons and entities to assist in performance of our work.

Accession

Where you instruct us to work for additional entities or persons, you agree that these terms and conditions will apply to those such entities and persons in the same manners as if they were specifically included in our engagement.

Acknowledgement

You acknowledge that you have had the opportunity to obtain any necessary independent advice to ensure that you fully understand this agreement.