Terms of service

What Spark is

Spark is a business app for UK trades. It is still being built: features change, some are switched on for a few businesses first, and some will be withdrawn.

Spark does not charge for anything at present. Before any charge starts, we will tell you, and you choose whether to carry on.

Your account

Each business has its own account. Its admins invite members and decide what they can do. You are responsible for who you invite and for what they do in Spark.

Keep sign-in details to yourself. Tell us straight away if you think someone else has used them.

QuickBooks

You connect QuickBooks Online through Intuit's own permission screen. Spark then reads your customers, items, invoices and estimates, and, when a member checks a receipt, creates the supplier, the expense or bill, and attaches the photo.

You can disconnect at any time in Spark or in QuickBooks. Check anything Spark creates or fills in before you rely on it or send it to a customer. Readings taken from receipt photos can be wrong.

Your data stays yours

You own the information you put into Spark or connect to it. You give us permission to use it only to run Spark for you.

Your customers' data

For personal data about your customers, you are the controller and we are your processor under UK GDPR. This section is the contract Article 28 requires between us.

• What and why: names, contact details, addresses, job details, and the review-request and reminder history of your customers, handled to show them to your members, record jobs and receipts, and send the review requests and certificate reminders you choose to send, for as long as you use Spark. A customer who unsubscribes from your reminders stays on your opt-out list for as long as you use Spark, so they are not emailed again.
• Your instructions: we handle it only to run Spark as you use it, which is your instruction to us, unless the law requires otherwise. If we think an instruction breaks data protection law, we tell you.
• Confidentiality: only people who need it to run Spark can reach it, and they are bound to keep it confidential.
• Security: we keep it safe with measures suited to the risk, including HTTPS, encrypted QuickBooks tokens, and access limited to your business's members.
• Sub-processors: the companies listed in our privacy policy. You agree to us using them. We will tell you before adding or replacing one, and you can object; if we cannot meet the objection, you can leave Spark.
• Helping you: we help you answer your customers' requests to see, correct or delete their data, and help with your own security and data protection duties where Spark is involved.
• Breaches: if your customers' data is lost or exposed, we tell you without undue delay, with what we know.
• When you leave: we delete your customers' data within 30 days, unless the law requires us to keep it. Most of it lives in your QuickBooks, which stays yours.
• Showing we comply: we give you the information you reasonably need to check we keep to this section, and allow reasonable audits.

Emails Spark sends to your customers go out in your name. You are responsible for having a lawful reason to contact them.

Fair use

Don't use Spark to break the law, send spam, reach another business's data, or interfere with how Spark runs. We may suspend an account that does, and will tell you why.

Our responsibility

We build Spark carefully, but it is provided as it is, and we do not promise it will always be available or free of mistakes. We are not liable for indirect loss, or for loss of profit, business or data, to the extent the law allows.

Nothing in these terms limits liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for fraud, or for anything else the law does not allow to be limited.

Ending

You can stop using Spark at any time. When a business leaves, we revoke its QuickBooks connection and delete the data we hold for it within 30 days. Download anything you need to keep first.

We may close Spark or an account with reasonable notice, or straight away if the account breaks these terms.

Changes and law

If we change these terms in a way that matters, we tell you before it takes effect. These terms are governed by the law of England and Wales.

Questions: privacy@spark-app.co.uk.