Terms and Conditions

CA Assist (caassist.app), operated by Cognitive Automation

1. Definitions

• "CA Assist", "we", "us": Cognitive Automation, a sole proprietorship based in Gujarat, India, GSTIN 24IABPM6767B1ZO.
• "Platform": the CA Assist web application at caassist.app, its WhatsApp assistant, APIs, documentation and support.
• "Customer", "you": the chartered accountancy firm, practitioner or other professional business that registers for the Platform.
• "Authorised User": a partner, employee or contractor you allow to use your account.
• "Client": a client of yours whose details or documents you keep in, or send through, the Platform.
• "Customer Data": everything you, your Authorised Users or your Clients put into or generate through the Platform, including documents and Client personal data ("Client Data").
• "Plan": the subscription tier you choose (Starter, Growth or Scale), with the limits and features shown on the pricing page on the day you pay.
• "Billing Period": the month or year you have paid for.
• "Applicable Law": the laws of India, including the Information Technology Act 2000 and its rules, the Digital Personal Data Protection Act 2023 and its rules as they come into force, GST law and the Income-tax Act.

2. Who may use the Platform

2.1 By ticking the acceptance box, creating an account or using the Platform you agree to these Terms. The person accepting confirms they have authority to bind the Customer. These Terms are an electronic record under the Information Technology Act 2000 and form a contract by electronic means under its section 10A; they need no physical or digital signature.

2.2 The Platform is for business use only. You confirm that you act for a professional business and not as a consumer, that every Authorised User is at least 18, and that the firm details you give us (including ICAI firm registration number, PAN and GSTIN) are true. If you present yourself as a chartered accountant or CA firm, you confirm you are registered with the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India and in good standing.

2.3 We may refuse or close an account that gives false information, duplicates another account to obtain extra free trials or rewards, or breaks these Terms.

3. The Platform

3.1 Right to use. While your Plan is paid up (or during a free trial) we give you a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable right to use the Platform for your firm's internal business, within your Plan's limits.

3.2 Free trials. New firms get a free trial on Growth features (7 days, or 45 days when joining through a valid referral, once per verified firm). A trial ends automatically. We never charge you unless you choose a plan and pay.

3.3 Plans and features. Each Plan includes the limits and features shown on the pricing page (for example active clients, team seats, deliveries per month, storage, WhatsApp numbers and the document types it supports). The Platform enforces them automatically. Features marked "coming soon", "beta" or "preview" are provided as they are and may change or be withdrawn.

3.4 Changes. We improve the Platform continuously and may change features, and we may change the limits and features a Plan includes. A Billing Period you have already paid for keeps the limits and features it was bought with. A change reaches new customers when it is published and reaches you from the first Billing Period you pay for after that. A change that reduces the limits or core features of your Plan reaches you no earlier than 30 days after we tell you by email and in the app; until then your renewals keep your current Plan.

3.5 Availability and support. We work to keep the Platform available but cannot promise uninterrupted operation. Support levels and the Scale plan's availability target are in Schedule A.

3.6 Not tax, legal or filing services. The Platform organises and delivers documents and collects fees for you. It does not prepare, verify or file any return, is not a GST Suvidha Provider, and gives no tax, legal, accounting or audit advice. Your professional work and your relationship with your Clients remain entirely yours.

4. Accounts and security

4.1 Keep sign-in details confidential, use two-factor authentication for owner accounts, and tell us promptly about any suspected misuse. Sessions sign out automatically after 7 days without use.

4.2 You are responsible for everything done under your account and for your Authorised Users' compliance with these Terms. Seats are for named individuals and may not be shared.

4.3 Keep a working owner email and billing email: we send expiry reminders, invoices and legal notices there.

5. Your responsibilities for Client Data

5.1 Roles. For Client Data you are the Data Fiduciary and we are your Data Processor, on the terms of the Data Processing Agreement, which forms part of these Terms.

5.2 Notice and consent. You are responsible for giving your Clients the notices, and obtaining the consents, that the law requires for keeping their data in the Platform and messaging them on WhatsApp, for recording opt-ins and honouring opt-outs, and for answering their rights requests.

5.3 Accurate records. Documents are routed using the client records you maintain (phone numbers, GSTINs, PANs, which contact belongs to which client). Keep them accurate and remove access for contacts who should no longer receive documents.

5.4 Review. Automatic classification is an aid. Review documents placed in the review queue, and choose approval and security settings suited to how sensitive your documents are. You decide what is made available to each Client.

5.5 Your own records. You remain responsible for your professional and statutory record-keeping. Keep your own copies of records you are required to retain; CA Assist is not your statutory record-keeper.

5.6 Fees you charge Clients. You alone decide whether to charge Clients for documents and how much, and you are responsible for your invoices, GST, TDS, refunds and disputes with your Clients.

6. Payments from your Clients

6.1 Client fees are paid into your own payment gateway account (currently Razorpay), using credentials you save in the Platform in test or live mode. We never hold, receive or settle Client money and are not a payment aggregator, payment system operator or bank.

6.2 Your agreement with the gateway, its KYC, fees, settlements, refunds and chargebacks are between you and the gateway. We are not responsible for a gateway's decisions or outages.

7. Third-party services

7.1 The Platform relies on services we do not control, including WhatsApp (Meta), payment gateways, cloud hosting and email delivery. You must follow Meta's WhatsApp Business terms and messaging policies. We are not liable for a third party suspending, restricting, repricing or changing its service, including action taken against your WhatsApp number.

7.2 Charges made by third parties to you directly (for example WhatsApp conversation charges or gateway fees) are yours.

8. Acceptable use

You will not, and will not let anyone:

(a) break the law or anyone's rights through the Platform;
(b) upload malware, or content that is unlawful, defamatory or breaches confidentiality;
(c) send spam or promotional messages through the WhatsApp assistant, which is for delivering documents and related service messages only;
(d) store Clients' GST or Income-tax portal passwords, card numbers, bank account numbers or Aadhaar numbers in the Platform;
(e) try to access another firm's data, test our security without written permission, or bypass limits or access controls;
(f) copy, scrape, reverse engineer or resell the Platform, or use it to build a competing product;
(g) open multiple accounts to obtain repeat free trials, referral rewards or other benefits; or
(h) misrepresent your identity or firm registration details.

We may suspend access immediately where needed to protect the Platform, other customers or Clients, or to comply with law, and will tell you why as soon as we can. Where content or activity appears to be an offence under Indian law, we may remove it, preserve the related records and report it to the authorities, as the law requires.

9. Fees, payment and plan changes

9.1 Prepaid plans. You pay in advance for a Billing Period of one month or one year at the price shown when you pay. Prices shown include 18% GST: your GST invoice shows the taxable value and the GST in that price. The monthly and yearly prices of each Plan are both shown on the pricing page. Your plan is active from the moment the payment is confirmed until the end of the Billing Period shown on your invoice.

9.2 Renewal, and optional automatic renewal. Your plan renews only when a renewal is paid. You can renew by paying again from 30 days before your Billing Period ends; the new period starts when the current one ends, so you never lose paid days. Automatic renewal is never switched on for you: it is on only if the account owner chooses it, by choosing "Pay and renew automatically" when paying for a plan, or later in Billing. The owner then approves a mandate at Razorpay (UPI AutoPay or a card standing instruction) with the most a single charge may take. When automatic renewal is chosen with a payment, that payment is the mandate's authorisation; when it is turned on later, ₹1 is taken to check the mandate and given back. During a free trial the owner may choose a plan to start automatically when the trial ends; a free trial never requires it. We then charge each renewal of your plan, or after a free trial the plan chosen (the price shown in Billing, which includes GST, less any credit), from 3 days before your Billing Period or free trial ends; trial days left over are added to the first paid period. We remind you 7, 3 and 1 day before, and your bank or UPI app also notifies you before each debit. We never charge more than the maximum you approved; above ₹15,000, RBI rules require you to approve each debit. If a charge fails we try up to three times and then ask you to pay by hand. You can turn automatic renewal off at any time in Billing, or from your UPI app or bank; that stops the next charge and does not end the period you have paid for. An automatic renewal charge you did not want can be refunded under the Cancellation and Refund Policy.

9.3 Paying during a trial. If you pay while your free trial is still running, the unused trial days are added to your first Billing Period.

9.4 Upgrades (a higher plan, or monthly to yearly): you choose when the new plan starts. Upgrade now starts it immediately: the unused value of your current Billing Period is deducted from the price of the new plan, and the new Billing Period starts on the day you upgrade. When my current plan ends keeps your current plan until its Billing Period ends and starts the new plan then: you pay the new plan's full price when you choose it, and nothing is deducted because nothing is cut short.

9.5 Downgrades take effect when your current Billing Period ends and are never charged early. You can only schedule a downgrade while your usage fits the lower plan's limits; we never delete your data to make a plan fit.

9.6 Payment processing. Payments to us are processed by Razorpay. We receive only the payment status and reference (and, for automatic renewal, Razorpay's references to your mandate), never your card, UPI or bank details.

9.7 GST invoices. We issue a GST tax invoice for every payment, using the billing details you provide (legal name, state, GSTIN). CGST and SGST apply when your state is the same as ours; IGST applies otherwise. Keep your GSTIN correct: we cannot reissue invoices for input tax credit lost through wrong details you supplied.

9.8 Credits. Referral credits and other account credits are taken off the taxable value of your next payment automatically, so the GST on it is lower too. They have no cash value and cannot be transferred.

9.9 Price changes. We may change list prices for future Billing Periods with at least 30 days' notice; a lower price applies at once. A period you have already paid for is never repriced. If the GST rate changes, prices change by the same amount of tax from the date the new rate applies.

9.10 Refunds and cancellation are governed by the Cancellation and Refund Policy, which forms part of these Terms and which you agree to each time you pay. In short: within 7 days of your first plan payment (or of an automatic renewal charge) you may claim a refund of what you paid minus 7 days of fees (7/30 of a monthly payment, 1/70 of a yearly one); the refund can be claimed once per firm and per person, ever; and claiming it permanently deletes your account at once (10.9). Otherwise payments are not refundable.

10. Expiry, grace period, suspension and closure

10.1 Reminders. We remind the owner and billing contacts by email and in the app 7, 3 and 1 day before a trial or Billing Period ends.

10.2 Grace period. If a paid Billing Period ends without renewal, your account stays fully usable for a 7-day grace period.

10.3 Suspension. If you do not renew by the end of the grace period, or do not choose a plan by the end of a free trial, your account becomes read-only: you and your team can still sign in, view and export your data and pay, but you cannot add or change data, and the WhatsApp assistant tells your Clients the service is temporarily unavailable. Paying for any plan restores full access immediately.

10.4 Closure. An account that stays suspended for 60 days is closed. We notify you before and when this happens.

10.5 Cancelling. You can choose to close your account at the end of the current trial or Billing Period from Billing settings; you keep full access until then, and can withdraw the request before that date.

10.6 Export and deletion. After closure you can ask for an export of your Customer Data for 60 days. After that we delete Customer Data as set out in the Data Processing Agreement and the Privacy Policy, except records the law requires us to keep (such as our GST invoices). Securing your own copy of Client Data in time is your responsibility.

10.7 Deleting your account. Any user can delete their own account under My account → Delete account. We email a one-time confirmation link; once it is used the account is deactivated for 30 days, during which signing in and choosing Restore account brings everything back. We send reminders 7 days and 2 days before, and then delete it permanently. Because each firm has one owner, the owner's deletion also deletes the firm's workspace and every team member's access to it; download what you need first. Deleting an account this way does not refund anything; a refund claimed under the Cancellation and Refund Policy deletes the account immediately instead, with no 30-day window (10.9). Records the law requires us to keep (such as our GST invoices and payment records) are kept as set out in the Privacy Policy.

10.8 Our termination. We may terminate: (a) immediately for a serious breach of sections 5, 8 or 9, fraud or a security risk; or (b) for convenience on 30 days' notice, in which case we refund the unused part of any prepaid Billing Period.

10.9 Claiming a refund deletes your account. A refund claimed under section 5 of the Cancellation and Refund Policy is a decision to leave CA Assist. Once the owner confirms the claim (by typing the firm's name and confirming from a link emailed to the owner), we immediately and permanently delete the firm's account and all Customer Data and Client Data in it, and every team member's access, without any restore period; this cannot be undone. The Customer, acting through its owner, is solely responsible for that decision and its consequences, including keeping its own copies of documents and records it or its Clients need and any obligations to its Clients or others; CA Assist is not liable for data deleted on a confirmed claim. We keep only the records the law requires, as set out in the Privacy Policy. Trying to obtain the 7-day refund more than once (for example with a new account for the same firm or person) is a serious breach of these Terms.

11. Intellectual property

11.1 The Platform, its software, designs, documentation, name and logos belong to CA Assist and its licensors. You receive only the right in 3.1.

11.2 You own your Customer Data. You allow us to host, process, transmit and back it up only to provide, secure and support the Platform for you, as the Data Processing Agreement describes.

11.3 We may use suggestions you give us without obligation.

11.4 Unless you tell us otherwise in writing, we may name your firm as a customer. Case studies or testimonials need your separate written consent.

12. Data

12.1 We process Client Data only on your documented instructions, as set out in the Data Processing Agreement.

12.2 No AI training. We do not use the content of your documents or Client Data to train AI models, ours or anyone else's.

12.3 We may use aggregated, de-identified usage statistics that do not identify you, your Clients or any person to run and improve the Platform.

12.4 We keep Customer Data in India and protect it with the safeguards described in the Privacy Policy and the Data Processing Agreement. We will notify you of a personal data breach affecting Client Data promptly, as the Data Processing Agreement sets out.

13. Confidentiality

Each party will keep the other's non-public information confidential, use it only for this agreement, and share it only with people who need it and are bound by confidentiality. This does not cover information that is public, already known, independently developed or lawfully received from others, or disclosure required by law (with notice where lawful). These duties last 5 years after the agreement ends, and indefinitely for Client Data.

14. Disclaimers

14.1 To the extent the law allows, the Platform is provided "as is" and "as available", without warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose or uninterrupted, error-free operation.

14.2 In particular we do not warrant that automated classification will always be correct, that WhatsApp messages or gateway payments will always be delivered or accepted by third parties, or that the Platform alone meets your professional or regulatory obligations.

15. Limitation of liability

15.1 Neither party is liable for indirect, incidental, special or consequential loss, or for loss of profit, revenue, goodwill or anticipated savings.

15.2 Each party's total liability under or in connection with these Terms is limited to the fees you paid us in the 12 months before the event giving rise to the claim, or ₹10,000 if you have paid nothing.

15.3 These limits do not apply to fraud or wilful misconduct, to your obligation to pay fees, to your indemnity in 16.1, or to any liability the law does not allow to be limited.

16. Indemnities

16.1 By you. You will indemnify CA Assist against third-party claims, penalties and reasonable legal costs arising from Customer Data, your instructions (including a refund claim and the deletion of data that follows it under 10.9), your breach of these Terms or the law, your Clients' claims about your professional services, fees, notices or consents, and documents misdirected because of inaccurate records or settings you control.

16.2 By us. We will defend you against a third-party claim that the Platform, used as these Terms allow, infringes that party's intellectual property rights in India, and pay damages finally awarded, subject to section 15. We may instead modify the Platform, obtain a licence, or end the affected feature and refund prepaid fees for it.

16.3 The indemnified party must notify the other promptly, let it control the defence and settlement, and cooperate reasonably.

17. Force majeure

Neither party is liable for delay or failure caused by events beyond its reasonable control, including natural disasters, epidemics, war, government action, power, internet or telecom failures, failures of third-party services such as Meta or cloud providers, and cyber-attacks despite reasonable safeguards. This does not excuse payment for services already provided.

18. Governing law and disputes

18.1 These Terms are governed by the laws of India.

18.2 The parties will first try to settle any dispute by good-faith discussion for 30 days after written notice.

18.3 Unresolved disputes will be finally settled by arbitration under the Arbitration and Conciliation Act 1996 by a sole arbitrator appointed by agreement of the parties or, failing agreement within 30 days of one party's written request, appointed under section 11 of that Act. The seat and venue is Jamnagar, the language English, and hearings may be held online. The award is final and binding on both parties.

18.4 Subject to 18.3, the courts at Jamnagar have exclusive jurisdiction, including for interim relief.

19. General

19.1 Entire agreement. These Terms, the Cancellation and Refund Policy, the Data Processing Agreement, the Privacy Policy, the Terms of Use, the Referral Program Terms and any signed order form are the whole agreement. On data protection the Data Processing Agreement prevails; otherwise a signed order form prevails over these Terms.

19.2 Changes. We will give at least 30 days' notice in the app and by email of material changes and ask you to accept them. If you do not agree, you may close your account before they take effect and we will refund the unused part of your prepaid Billing Period. Changes the law requires, or that do not reduce your rights, may take effect sooner.

19.3 Notices. We send notices to your owner and billing emails and in the app. Send notices to us at admin@caassist.app. Email notices are received 24 hours after sending.

19.4 Assignment. You may not transfer these Terms without our written consent. We may transfer them in a merger, acquisition or sale of our business, with notice to you.

19.5 Electronic records and evidence. We record every acceptance of these Terms and the documents that form part of them: the account and firm, the document and version accepted, the SHA-256 fingerprint of that version's exact text, the time, the IP address and the browser. Every version we publish is kept unchanged, and its fingerprint stays on record. Both parties accept these records, together with invoices, emails and system logs, as evidence of the agreement and of what was done under it, and neither will dispute these Terms only because they were made, accepted or kept electronically.

19.6 Survival. Sections 5, 9 (for amounts already due), 10.6 to 10.9, 11, 13, 15, 16, 18 and 19 continue after these Terms end.

19.7 Other. If a provision is unenforceable the rest continues. Not enforcing a right is not a waiver. The parties are independent contractors.

19.8 Language. These Terms are written in English. On request we provide them in any language listed in the Eighth Schedule to the Constitution of India; if the versions differ, the English text prevails.

19.9 Grievance Officer: Grievance Officer, Cognitive Automation, Gujarat, India, at admin@caassist.app (or the contact form). We acknowledge every complaint within 24 hours and resolve it within 7 days. Complaints that content is unlawful are acted on within 36 hours, and complaints about intimate or morphed images of a person within 2 hours, as the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules 2021 require. If you are not satisfied with the decision, you may appeal to the Grievance Appellate Committee (gac.gov.in) within 30 days.

Schedule A: Support and availability

Targets are goals, not guarantees. Credits must be requested within 30 days.