Definition of our terminology as used within this document:
A ‘Project’ is any work undertaken or service provided by ACEL Systems for the client, as described in our confirmation order e-mail to that client.
‘You’ or ‘Client,’ is a person, persons, business or organisation using any of the services provided by ACEL Systems.
‘We’ or ‘us’, means ACEL Systems
‘Live’ or ‘Live Mode’ means the date the website is available on the client’s chosen domain.
‘Domain’ is the website address as specified or chosen by the client.
‘Hosting’ refers to the computer that stores and serves a website. Hosting costs are the costs associated with this service.
‘Content’ is both text and images that the client requires or places on the website.
General
The contract between ACEL Systems and the client will be on these conditions, to the exclusion of all other terms and conditions. Any variations to these conditions shall have no effect unless agreed in writing.
The works to be carried out shall be as set out in the ACEL Systems invoice which can be found attached to the confirmation order e-mail.
Legalities, Copyright and Intellectual Property
ACEL Systems shall expect the client to carry out sufficient research before proceeding with a website. This will include checking that the website/idea/business will operate legally. It is important that the website is not in any way illegal. Please ensure that any and all images and content you supply or use on your website are legally available for you to use. Content that you upload to your website, or that you send to us to upload on your behalf is and remains copyright to you and is your sole responsibility at all times. We cannot be held responsible for the illegal use of images, content or format of material supplied by the client. ACEL Systems reserve the right to remove or archive (take offline) any website if it has reason to believe that it is operating illegally.
ACEL Systems makes no claims that the contents of this website may be lawfully viewed or downloaded outside England and Wales. Access to this website may not be legal by certain persons or in certain countries. If this website is accessed from outside of the United Kingdom, it is done at your own risk and the visitor is responsible for compliance with the relevant laws of the visitors jurisdiction. The terms and conditions of this website are governed by the laws of England and Wales. Jurisdiction for any claims arising in respect of this website’s content shall lie exclusively with the courts of England. If any provision of these terms and conditions is found to be invalid by any court having competent jurisdiction, the invalidity of such provision shall not affect the validity of the remaining provisions of these terms and conditions, which shall remain in full force and effect.
ACEL Systems cannot be held responsible for anything adversely affecting the client’s business operation, sales, or profitability that might be claimed is a result of a service offered by ACEL Systems.
Paying for your project
Payment for your first month is required in full before work can begin. ACEL Systems is happy to discuss any special requirements you may have before work starts.
Any applicable fees, such as web hosting for the first month, are included in the initial fee. Once a project is transferred to you, you will be required to cover all applicable hosting fees. To transfer control of the website over to you, you must set up an account with MDD Hosting Limited, we will then arrange for your site and hosting to be transferred to you. If there are delays in this process due to the client, ACEL Systems will charge any and all additional hosting fees back to the client before releasing the website. If you wish to use a different hosting company please discuss this with us before taking out the contract.
Payment can be made through our secure payment gateway, powered by e-junkie and Paypal. Payment can also be accepted by BACS.
ACEL Systems own your website until final payment has been received in full. The website and its contents are then your property. However, the client must abide by any applicable license terms, such as the WordPress license agreement and any relevant license agreement included with add-on software such as plugins. Client is entirely responsible for operating their site within the laws of the United Kingdom and their country of residence.
Late payment – Payment for services is due within 30 days from the end of the month in which we were working on your website/project on your behalf. Any sites belonging to clients that are more than 30 days overdue for payment will be archived and taken down from the internet until such payment is made in full.
Communication
E-mail is our primary method of contact with regard to all communication for your websites development and maintenance. It is the client’s responsibility to inform us of any change in e-mail address so we always have valid contact details. We cannot be held liable in any way for problems relating to communication issues if we are not supplied with a valid e-mail address. Communication via Skype is also possible, subject to availability, during regular UK business hours.
E-mail is not a secure means for transmitting sensitive information such as passwords. At some point in the project, we will need to send you login details for your website. We can use any of the following means to transmit this data.
1) PGP Secured e-mail – This requires an understanding of how PGP mail works and for you to set up your e-mail software to accept this.
2) Via the Wickr secure message system.
3) Via a one-off SMS text message. Additional charges may be levied for this service if the client is not within the UK.
It is important for the client to keep in contact with ACEL Systems throughout the project. If we are unable to contact a client for more than 2 weeks, we will make up to 5 attempts to contact the client by e-mail using the e-mail address for the client held on file. If we do not receive a response to these attempts of contact the project may be terminated. If the client wishes to postpone the project for a period of longer than 2 weeks then please contact us, otherwise the project may be archived and/or the website removed from the internet. We reserve the right to levy a £50 administration fee if the client returns after an unapproved postponement period and wishes to continue work on their project.
Website Development and Deployment
Our services are designed to help small and micro businesses get up and running with WordPress as quickly and cost effectively as possible. Our packages do NOT include design or redesign work. The client may choose any theme from those available at ElegantThemes.com. If the client requires redesign work on their theme, this must be purchased from another party (we recommend Foliovision).
ACEL Systems will provide the client with an expected completion time frame for the project (live on the internet) if requested. Normally however, setting up your WordPress site should not take longer than one month.
Hosting and Search Engine Optimisation
ACEL Systems will arrange hosting for the website if the client requires us to do so and on receipt of full payment of hosting fees. All standard hosting offered by ACEL Systems is provided by and subject to the terms and conditions of MDD Hosting limited.
If the client does not require ACEL Systems to manage and maintain their WordPress site, then the management and hosting of the domain name are the full responsibility of the client.
If the client does not wish to use MDD Hosting, the site files and associated data can be made available to the client free of charge on request and the domain name can be transferred to the client’s registrar account. Should the client instruct us to upload and configure the site and domain name to a third party server this work will be subject to a charge.
ACEL Systems do not take any responsibility for a client’s website rank on search engines. This also includes any potential website downtime that can occur. When updating, changing, creating and hosting a client’s website, there could be a change in the websites search engine ranking.
Maintenance contracts
Our support contracts let ACEL Systems handle maintenance and upkeep of your WordPress website. While contracted to do this, we will:-
- Update your WordPress site, it’s plugins and related software.
- Help you implement a backup strategy suitable for your budget.
- Create and upload posts or pages for you based on content you send to us, up to the maximum amount agreed in the contract per month.
- Edit and maintain existing posts and content, as per your requests (this is counted as and billed as technical support).
- Provide technical support, up to the maximum amount of time agreed in the contract per month.
- Periodically e-mail you with suggestions and ideas to improve your site, such as SEO tips, social media integration etc.
- Install the required software or configuration changes to implement our suggestions if desired.
You will still have full access to your WordPress site while we are contracted to maintain it. This means you will be able to make system-wide changes to your site. Please note that ACEL Systems cannot be held responsible for any changes that you make to the site. ACEL Systems will provide you with an offline version of your website that you can run on your own PC. We strongly advise using this copy of your site to experiment with.
Our WordPress support contracts do NOT include the following.
- Repair, maintenance or technical support of your own computer or IT equipment.
- Any correspondence with website visitors, customers, potential customers or any other third party. We’re here to run your WordPress site, not your business!
- Out of hours support. Support is generally available within regular business hours of the United Kingdom and out of hours support may be given but is not guaranteed.
Please also read carefully the section “Hacking attacks, computer failure and other disasters” to familiarise yourself with our policy on hacking attacks.
The materials contained on this website and any advice, hints and tips or suggestions that we give to our clients are provided for general information purposes only and do not constitute legal or other professional advice on any subject matter.
Contract duration
There is no minimum contract duration and you may cancel at any time, we require one months notice only. When cancelling, maintenance and upkeep of the site will hand over to you at the end of the current calendar month and you will then be responsible for hosting costs.
Contract costs
All contract costs will be clearly communicated to you and must be agreed upon before the contract can begin. ACEL Systems will keep the monthly price of your contract fixed for a period of twelve calendar months. After twelve months we will review our pricing and inform you of any changes. If you do not agree to the new pricing you are of course free to cancel your contract.
Domain Names and Links
If required, a domain name will be registered by ACEL Systems on behalf of the client once we have received payment in full. Although the domain names are registered to us, the client is the legal owner of the domain and if they request to have details changed or the domain transferred elsewhere, we will do this within a reasonable timeframe.
ACEL Systems may provide links or references to our client’s websites solely for the convenience of prospective customers and intends that the links it provides be current and accurate, but does not guarantee or warrant that such links will point to the intended client site at all times.
We place a small text link on the footer of our client’s website that simply states the website was set up by ACEL Systems and links to our company website. This link can be removed, if desired.
Intellectual property and copyright law
You represent and warrant that, when using our website and services, you will obey the law and respect the intellectual property rights of others. Your use of our websites and services is at all times governed by and subject to laws regarding copyright ownership and use of intellectual property generally. You agree not to upload, post, transmit, display, perform or distribute any content, information or other materials in violation of any third-party’s copyrights, trademarks, or other intellectual property or proprietary rights. YOU SHALL BE SOLELY RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY VIOLATIONS OF ANY LAWS AND FOR ANY INFRINGEMENTS OF THIRD-PARTY RIGHTS CAUSED BY YOUR USE OF THE WEBSITE AND SERVICES. YOU BEAR THE SOLE BURDEN OF PROVING THAT CONTENT, INFORMATION OR OTHER MATERIALS DO NOT VIOLATE ANY LAWS OR THIRD-PARTY RIGHTS.
ACEL Systems will not be liable for any content uploaded by you or on your behalf that is found to be in violation of copyright law and reserves the right to remove such content immediately.
Hacking attacks, computer failure and other disasters
While ACEL Systems is running and maintaining your website, we will make every effort to keep WordPress and your related plug-ins up-to-date and patched against all known vulnerabilities. Regrettably there can be no 100% guarantees against hackers, computer failure, natural disaster etc. Should a hacking attempt against your site be successful, we will, of course, do everything in our power to help fix the problem. If we cannot confidently fix the problem we will refer you to security experts Sucuri.net. Please note we do not cover the costs of third party security audits and other remedial work.
Limitation of liability
The liability of ACEL systems and its sub-contractors and suppliers is limited, to the maximum extent permitted by law. In no event shall ACEL Systems, its suppliers or sub-contractors be liable for special, incidental, or consequential damages, lost profits, lost data or confidential or other information, loss of privacy, costs of procurement of substitute goods or services, failure to meet any duty including without limitation of good faith or of reasonable care, negligence, or otherwise, regardless of the foreseeability of those damages or of any advice or notice given to ACEL Systems arising out of or in connection with your use of the website and/or our services. this limitation shall apply regardless of whether the damages arise out of breach of contract, tort, or any other legal theory or form of action. Additionally, the maximum liability of ACEL systems and its sub-contractors, suppliers and sub-contractors to you under all circumstances shall be £50.00. You agree that this limitation of liability represents a reasonable allocation of risk and is a fundamental element of the basis of the contract between ACEL Systems and you. The websites and services would not be provided without such limitations.
YOU AGREE THAT YOUR USE OF OUR SERVICES IS AT YOUR SOLE RISK. YOU WILL NOT HOLD ACEL SYSTEMS OR ITS SUB-CONTRACTORS AND SUPPLIERS, AS APPLICABLE, RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY LOSS OR DAMAGE THAT RESULTS FROM YOUR ACCESS TO OR USE OF THE WEBSITE WE CREATE FOR YOU, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION ANY LOSS OR DAMAGE TO ANY OF YOUR COMPUTERS OR DATA. THE INFORMATION AND SERVICES MAY CONTAIN BUGS, ERRORS, PROBLEMS OR OTHER LIMITATIONS THAT WE ARE UNAWARE OF. THIS IS TRUE OF ALL COMPUTER SOFTWARE AND RELATED DOCUMENTATION AND CANNOT BE AVOIDED.
IMPORTANTLY, YOU HEREBY ACKNOWLEDGE THAT A CATASTROPHIC DISK FAILURE, HACKING ATTACK OR OTHER EVENT COULD RESULT IN THE LOSS OF ALL OF THE DATA RELATED TO YOUR HOSTING ACCOUNT. YOU AGREE AND UNDERSTAND THAT IT IS ULTIMATELY YOUR RESPONSIBILITY TO BACKUP YOUR DATA TO YOUR PERSONAL COMPUTER OR EXTERNAL STORAGE DEVICE AND TO ENSURE SUCH BACKUPS ARE SECURE. We are happy to advise upon and help implement backup strategies but the ultimate responsibility lies with you, the client.
Harassment and acceptable client behaviour
ACEL Systems will not tolerate any form of harassment against its employees or sub-contractors from customers or third parties and we reserve the right to cancel a contract without refund in the event of unreasonable or inappropriate conduct. This includes threatening behaviour and abuse directed towards our employees.
Changes and amendments
ACEL Systems reserves the right to change these terms and conditions at any time.
