LEGAL & TRUST

Terms of Service

Updated 9 September 2026 · AIONA Grade & AIONA Bookkeeping

These Terms of Service ("Terms") govern your access to and use of AIONA, the intelligent accounting software platform provided by AIONA Ltd, trading as AIONA ("we", "our", or "us"), a company registered in England & Wales (company number 16606520) with its registered office at 128 City Road, London, United Kingdom, EC1V 2NX. By accessing or using AIONA, you agree to be bound by these Terms.

1. Acceptance of Terms

By creating an account, accessing, or using AIONA, you confirm that:

• You are acting in the course of a business. AIONA is a business-to-business service supplied solely for business purposes. By using AIONA you confirm you are not a "consumer" for the purposes of the Consumer Rights Act 2015 or other consumer-protection legislation, without limiting any rights that cannot lawfully be excluded;
• You are at least 18 years old;
• You have the legal authority to enter into this agreement on behalf of your business or practice;
• You will comply with all applicable laws and regulations;
• All information you provide is accurate and current.

2. Description of Service

AIONA provides two products for businesses and accounting practices. Your account may include either or both:

• AIONA Grade: a dedicated review portal with Xero Assurance and a practice scorecard. It reads connected Xero records, produces grades and findings, links findings to available source lines and original Xero records, and exports review reports. Grade does not post to or correct your Xero ledger.
• AIONA Bookkeeping: the bookkeeping workspace described below, with Grade included for Bookkeeping clients.

A grade is a review aid, not an audit opinion, certification, guarantee of accuracy or substitute for professional judgement. Findings depend on the period, records and checks available; you must review the evidence and any coverage limitations. Links to Xero require appropriate access to the connected organisation.

AIONA Bookkeeping provides:

• Document Capture & Data Extraction: Automatic classification and extraction of invoices, receipts, bills, and bank statements, using automated document-data-extraction services (Google Document AI, with text extraction also performed on our own servers).
• Double-Entry Ledger: A general ledger with balanced debits and credits, immutable posted journal entries, and a tamper-evident audit trail.
• Financial Reporting: Trial Balance, Profit & Loss, and Balance Sheet, with period-accurate filtering and CSV/Excel export.
• VAT & Making Tax Digital: VAT tracking and calculations, and submission of VAT returns to HMRC under Making Tax Digital when you authorise it, subject to §2.1 (HMRC software recognition pending).
• Bank Reconciliation & Open Banking: Matching of bank transactions against ledger entries, including optional Open Banking bank feeds.
• Month-End Processing: Depreciation, prepayments, accruals, recurring journals, and period-close tooling.
• AI Assistant: A read-only, company-scoped assistant for understanding your books, powered by Anthropic's Claude models.
• Multi-Tenant Practice Support: Management of multiple client companies under a practice, with role-based access control.

Some capabilities may be made available, changed, or withdrawn over time, and certain features are available only on particular plans or when you connect the relevant integration.

2.1 Service Status and Feature Availability

Some AIONA features are rolled out progressively. Features described as rolling out (including submission of VAT returns under Making Tax Digital, other HMRC filings, and live bank feeds) may be incomplete, may change or be withdrawn without notice, and may be provided in a test mode until enabled for your account; service levels and uptime commitments do not apply to features while they are rolling out. In particular, submission of VAT returns under Making Tax Digital depends on HMRC granting software recognition to AIONA; until such recognition is granted, MTD submission features may be unavailable, limited, or provided in a test mode only, and you must maintain an alternative means of meeting your filing obligations. AIONA does not currently claim, and you must not rely on any assumption of, HMRC MTD software recognition.

3. Account Registration and Security

3.1 Account Creation

You must create an account to use AIONA, and verify your email address. You agree to:

• Provide accurate, complete, and current information;
• Maintain and update your account information;
• Keep your password secure and confidential;
• Notify us immediately of any unauthorised access.

3.2 Account Responsibility

You are responsible for all activities that occur under your account. We are not liable for any loss or damage arising from unauthorised use of your account caused by your failure to keep your credentials secure.

3.3 Multi-User Access

If you invite team members (admins, accountants, auditors), you are responsible for their actions and for their compliance with these Terms.

4. Acceptable Use

4.1 Permitted Use

You may use AIONA solely for lawful business accounting purposes in accordance with these Terms.

4.2 Prohibited Activities

You agree NOT to:

• Use AIONA for any illegal, fraudulent, or unauthorised purpose;
• Upload malicious code, viruses, or harmful content;
• Attempt to bypass security measures or access data, accounts, or companies that are not yours;
• Reverse engineer, decompile, or disassemble the Service;
• Use automated tools to scrape, extract, or harvest data;
• Interfere with or disrupt the Service or its infrastructure;
• Impersonate another person or entity;
• Share your account credentials with unauthorised parties;
• Use AIONA to process data for third parties without authorisation.

5. Data Ownership and Usage

5.1 Your Data

You retain all ownership rights to your financial data, documents, and content uploaded to AIONA. We do not claim ownership of your data.

5.2 Licence to Process

By using AIONA, you grant us a limited licence to:

• Process your documents through our optical character recognition and document-data-extraction providers;
• Store and analyse your data to provide the Service;
• Use automated techniques, including AI, to classify documents and suggest how transactions map to your accounts;
• Generate reports and insights based on your data;
• Transmit VAT returns to HMRC when you authorise submissions.

We process your data only to provide and improve the Service, as described in our Privacy Policy. The sub-processors we use, and the safeguards that apply, are listed there.

5.3 Data Accuracy

AIONA uses AI to assist with data extraction and classification, but these are suggestions. You are responsible for reviewing and approving entries before they are posted. We provide confidence indicators and draft-review workflows, but ultimate responsibility for the accuracy of your records remains with you.

6. Immutability and Audit Trail

AIONA enforces immutability on posted journal entries. Once a journal entry is posted:

• It cannot be edited or deleted;
• Any correction must be made through a reversing entry;
• All actions are permanently recorded in a tamper-evident audit trail.

This immutability is a core integrity feature and cannot be disabled.

7. HMRC Integration and MTD Compliance

7.1 Authorisation

When you connect AIONA to HMRC for Making Tax Digital, you authorise the Service to transmit to HMRC, using your HMRC authorisation, the VAT returns and data requests that you (or your agent) have reviewed and expressly approved, and to retrieve your VAT obligations and liabilities. Every submission is made by you: the legal declaration that accompanies each VAT return is your declaration, and AIONA acts only as the software through which it is transmitted - AIONA is not your tax agent and does not prepare, review, or advise on the contents of any return. To meet HMRC's fraud-prevention requirements, certain technical details about your connection (such as your IP address and browser identifier) are transmitted to HMRC with each request, as described in our Privacy Policy.

7.1A Open Banking and Regulated Services

Open Banking bank feeds are provided by TrueLayer Limited, which is authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority under the Payment Services Regulations 2017 for the provision of account information services (details on the FCA Financial Services Register). AIONA Ltd is not authorised or regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority and does not provide account information services, payment initiation services, or any other regulated financial service; AIONA only receives the read-only transaction data you instruct TrueLayer to share with us. Connecting a bank feed is subject to TrueLayer's end-user terms of service and privacy policy, presented to you during the connection flow.

7.2 Your Responsibility

You are solely responsible for the accuracy of VAT calculations and returns, for compliance with HMRC regulations and deadlines, for reviewing returns before submission, and for maintaining a valid VAT registration.

8. Fees and Payment

8.1 Products, pricing and free access

Prices are in pounds sterling. AIONA Ltd is not currently VAT-registered and does not charge VAT. Any future change will be communicated before it applies. Both products include unlimited team members. Rates are graduated: each band applies only to the clients within that band.

Grade free review: one complete review for one client per practice, including findings, source evidence and report exports, with no card required. Failed or incomplete reviews can be retried. Further and scheduled reviews require paid access.

Bookkeeping free client: your first Bookkeeping client is free with no time limit. It occupies the first position in the Bookkeeping bands. An archived client stops counting towards future billing. Your own practice’s books count as a client if managed in the Service.

Using both products: Grade-only clients and Bookkeeping clients are counted separately. Grade is included for Bookkeeping clients. Enabling Bookkeeping for a Grade client removes that client from future Grade charges; it does not automatically migrate records or authorise changes in Xero. Any immediate charge or credit is shown in the billing flow.

Founding Grade practices: the first 20 paying Grade practices receive 12 months of protection for their starting Grade rates from their first successful payment. Eligibility is confirmed after payment. This protects the per-client rates, not the total bill, which varies with client numbers. An individually agreed written arrangement takes precedence.

Review the applicable product, client count and amount in checkout before subscribing. See Grade pricing and Bookkeeping pricing.

8.2 Billing

• Monthly subscription fees are collected through Stripe. Any other billing interval applies only where expressly offered and selected at checkout.
• Fees are non-refundable except where these Terms, the Data Processing Agreement, an agreed written arrangement or applicable law provides otherwise.
• We may change fees with at least 30 days' notice, applied from your next renewal.
• Failure to pay may result in account suspension after a grace period and, if unresolved, termination.
• You may cancel at any time from the billing portal; cancellation takes effect at the end of your current billing period.

9. Service Availability and Support

9.1 Uptime

We strive to maintain high availability but do not guarantee uninterrupted access. The Service may be unavailable due to maintenance, updates, or technical issues.

9.2 Support

Support is provided via email at support@aionatech.com. Any separately agreed support commitments apply to your account.

9.3 Service Changes

AIONA is under active development. We may add, modify, or remove features from time to time. Material changes that reduce functionality already available to paying customers will be communicated in advance. We welcome your feedback via support@aionatech.com.

10. Intellectual Property

10.0 Your Licence to Use the Service

Subject to these Terms and payment of applicable fees, we grant you a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable, non-sublicensable licence to access and use the Service for your internal business purposes (including, for accounting practices, the management of your clients' companies within the Service) during your subscription term.

10.1 Our Rights

AIONA, including all software, algorithms, designs, and trademarks, is owned by AIONA Ltd. You may not copy, modify, or distribute our intellectual property.

10.2 Feedback

If you provide feedback, suggestions, or ideas, we may use them without obligation or compensation to you.

11. Third-Party Services

AIONA relies on third-party services to deliver its functionality. A full sub-processor register with purpose, region, and when each applies is in §5 of our Privacy Policy. In summary, we use:

• Fly.io - cloud hosting of the application and database (UK).
• Google Cloud - document storage and document data extraction.
• Anthropic - the AI Assistant and automated transaction-coding suggestions.
• Resend - outbound transactional email and inbound email capture (the documents address for each client).
• Stripe - subscription billing and payment processing.
• Xero - read-only import of accounting data when you connect your Xero organisation. AIONA reads from Xero; it does not write to it.
• HMRC and Companies House - tax filing and company-register data.
• TrueLayer - Open Banking bank feeds when you connect them.

Your use of these services is subject to their respective terms and privacy policies. We are not responsible for the availability or performance of third-party services outside our control.

12. Disclaimers and Limitation of Liability

12.1 No Professional Advice

AIONA is bookkeeping and accounting software. It does not provide regulated financial, accounting, investment, or tax advice, and is not a substitute for a qualified accountant or tax adviser. You should obtain professional advice for complex matters and remain responsible for your own compliance. All outputs of the Service - including extracted data, suggested classifications, calculated figures, reports, and draft returns - are provided for your review. You (or your appointed accountant or agent) are solely responsible for reviewing and approving all entries, and for the accuracy and completeness of any filing, return, or submission made to HMRC, Companies House, or any other authority.

12.2 No Warranties

The Service is provided "as is" and "as available". Except as expressly set out in these Terms, and to the maximum extent permitted by law, all conditions, warranties, and other terms implied by statute or common law are excluded, and we do not warrant that the Service will be uninterrupted, error-free, or fit for any particular purpose. Nothing in this clause excludes any term implied by law that cannot lawfully be excluded in a business-to-business contract.

12.3 Limitation of Damages

To the maximum extent permitted by law, we shall not be liable for:

• Indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages;
• Loss of profits, revenue, data, or business opportunities;
• Errors in AI-generated classifications or account mappings;
• Inaccuracies in document data extraction;
• HMRC penalties or tax liabilities arising from submissions you authorise;
• Unavailability, delay, or failure of HMRC, Companies House, TrueLayer, or any other third-party service on which a feature depends;
• Errors, omissions, or delays in obligations, liabilities, or other data retrieved from HMRC or other third-party sources;
• Missed filing deadlines or other consequences arising from third-party outages, where you retained the ability to file by other means;
• Data loss due to user error or third-party service failures.

Subject to the remainder of this clause, our total aggregate liability arising out of or in connection with these Terms and the Service, whether in contract, tort (including negligence), breach of statutory duty or otherwise, shall not exceed the greater of (a) £100 and (b) the total fees you paid to us in the 12 months immediately preceding the event giving rise to the claim. Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits liability that cannot be excluded or limited under applicable law (including for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for fraud, or for fraudulent misrepresentation).

13. Indemnification

You agree to indemnify and hold harmless AIONA Ltd from any claims, damages, losses, or expenses arising from your use of the Service, your violation of these Terms or of any law or regulation, inaccurate or fraudulent data you provide, or unauthorised use of your account.

14. Data Retention and Deletion

14.1 Retention

We retain your data for as long as your account is active. Our standard retention period for Bookkeeping financial records (posted journals, audit events, VAT submissions and reconciliations) is 7 years, to support customers’ record-keeping requirements. This is our retention policy, not a statement that the same statutory minimum applies to every business or every type of data. Return and deletion of customer personal data are governed by the DPA.

Cancelling a Grade subscription stops new and scheduled reviews when paid access ends. Saved review history and reports remain accessible while the account remains open. Cancellation does not itself delete an account. You can request return or deletion under the DPA; Xero disconnection stops further access but does not itself delete saved reviews.

14.2 Account Termination

Upon account termination:

• You may export your data beforehand via Settings → Privacy & Data;
• Personal identifiers are removed from retained financial records - your name and email are replaced with an anonymous reference while the underlying accounting entries remain subject to the retention and deletion arrangements in §14.1 and the DPA;
• Login history and refresh tokens are permanently deleted;
• Immutable audit logs are retained for compliance with the actor identifier anonymised.

15. Termination

15.1 By You

You may terminate your account at any time from Settings or by contacting support. You remain responsible for fees incurred before termination.

15.2 By Us

We may suspend or terminate your account if you violate these Terms, fail to pay fees, engage in fraudulent or illegal activity, or pose a security risk to the Service.

16. Changes to Terms

We may update these Terms from time to time. We will notify you of material changes by email or through the Service, giving at least 30 days' notice. If you do not agree to a material change, you may terminate your account before the change takes effect and we will refund any prepaid fees for the unexpired portion of your billing period. Continued use after changes take effect constitutes acceptance of the updated Terms.

17. Governing Law and Disputes

17.1 Governing Law

These Terms are governed by the laws of England and Wales.

17.2 Dispute Resolution

Any disputes shall first be addressed through good-faith negotiation. If unresolved, disputes shall be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of England and Wales.

18. General Provisions

18.1 Entire Agreement

These Terms, together with our Privacy Policy and our Data Processing Agreement for customer personal data, constitute the entire agreement between you and AIONA Ltd and supersede all prior discussions and representations. Each party confirms it has not relied on any statement not set out in these Terms. Nothing in this clause limits liability for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation.

18.2 Severability

If any provision is found unenforceable, the remaining provisions remain in full effect.

18.3 No Waiver

Our failure to enforce any right or provision does not constitute a waiver of that right.

18.4 Assignment

You may not assign these Terms without our consent. We may assign these Terms to any successor or affiliate.

18.5 Third-Party Rights

Except as expressly stated, these Terms do not give rise to any rights under the Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999 to enforce any term of these Terms. No consent of any third party is required to rescind or vary these Terms.

18.6 Events Beyond Our Control

We are not liable for any failure or delay in performance caused by events beyond our reasonable control, including internet or utility failures, outages of third-party services (including HMRC), acts of government, labour disputes, or force majeure events. If such an event continues for more than 30 days, either party may terminate affected subscriptions on notice.

19. Contact Information

For questions about these Terms, please contact us:

AIONA Ltd
Email: support@aionatech.com
Registered in England & Wales, company number 16606520
Registered office: 128 City Road, London, United Kingdom, EC1V 2NX

These Terms of Service are effective as of 3 July 2026.