Terms and Conditions

SCOPE OF OUR SERVICES

We will provide the services listed in the [proposal_type] #[proposal_number], which will be conducted to the extent that our procedures and services will be limited exclusively for the purpose of satisfying BAS Agent Services as defined by the Tax Agent Services Act 2009. We may provide reports that contain portions of financial information; these reports are for internal management use only. We will not provide any financial statements and will not perform any compilation, review or audit of the financial information. We do not at any time provide legal services of any type. We have not been requested to discover errors, misrepresentation, fraud, illegal acts, or theft. Therefore, we have not included any procedures designed or intended to discover such acts, and you agree we have no responsibility to do so. However, we will inform you of any such matters that come to our attention.Our advice will only cover Goods and Services Tax. It will not cover any other taxes such as Income Tax, Stamp Duty, Land Tax, Payroll Tax or Employment Law. The scope of our engagement will be limited to the performance of the services listed in the below Schedule of Services.

WHO WE ARE ACTING FOR

We are acting for the Director(s) / Trustee(s) / Partner(s) / Owner(s) of [company_name] as required.Any change to the Nominated Person should be notified to us in writing and will not be effective until acknowledged by us in writing. By signing this Letter of Engagement you confirm and warrant that the Nominated Person set out above is authorised to give instructions and information to us on your behalf and to receive our advice and work product on behalf of you.

FEES

Why do we offer a fixed price agreement for ongoing services?

The standard method of billing in professional services has traditionally had an emphasis on providing services in exchange for an hourly rate. We believe that this method is an archaic method of pricing. It is also a conflict of interest because what it means is (as an industry) we are directly rewarded for our inefficiencies. The longer we take to do the work the more we get. Hourly billing does not promote an emphasis on customer service or an incentive to complete work quickly.

The biggest issue with hourly billing is that you have no idea how much the work will cost until the bill is received. We don’t feel that is fair on you. As a courtesy to you, we feel that you deserve to know in advance how much the work will cost and what it entails. As a modern and progressive firm we have moved all of our engagements to a fixed price agreement model.

What does this mean for you?

You will always know how much you will pay for services in advance, and will always have the opportunity to discuss the agreement before we get started on any work. If new work is required outside of the scope of our existing agreement we will issue a written proposal for you to accept (or discuss) before we commence new services.

It places the risk back on us, the practice. You don’t have to worry about paying for more hours than you thought it would take. We have to focus on being more efficient to ensure our relationship is mutually profitable. This means we can leverage the best in breed technology to constantly improve the quality of the services we deliver to you.

It opens the lines of communication. You don’t have to be afraid to contact us with questions and be worried about receiving a bill for your time. All of our fixed price agreements include support and regularly scheduled review sessions. In fact, we encourage communication. Becoming your trusted advisor is our mission and communication is the key.

Our fees will be charged in accordance with your fee schedule. Please review this to ensure you understand the basis of our charge and our payment terms. Invoices are payable in full, due in advance of the completion of work, and as per the Schedule of Services.

ENGAGEMENT TERMS

These are the Terms of Engagement (“Terms”) between Stream Accounting Pty Ltd (“We”) ABN 36 626 662 119 and [company_name] (“You”). This Engagement is constituted by these Terms and any other later document that we advise you becomes part of, or varies this Engagement. These Terms confirm our understanding of the nature and the limitations of the services we will provide.

PERIOD OF ENGAGEMENT

This engagement will start when you sign this Letter of Engagement and make any specified upfront payment as listed in the [proposal_type] #[proposal_number].

USE OF CLOUD COMPUTING SERVICES

We use Xero, MYOB and Intuit Quickbooks Online (cloud accounting systems), Xero Tax (a cloud activity statement preparation system), GSuite (a cloud email and calendar system), Karbon (a cloud workflow system), GoProposal (a cloud client engagement system), Integrapay (a cloud payments provider), Typeform (a cloud survey and form system), Drip (a cloud email database) and E-Sign (a cloud electronic signature system). These cloud computing systems store files on remote servers operated by third parties, including the use of hosting providers in the United States of America and in Singapore.

STORAGE OF PERSONAL INFORMATION

By signing this Letter of Engagement and accepting these services you acknowledge and agree that your personal information may be stored electronically overseas.

RESPONSIBILITIES

In conducting this engagement, information acquired by us during the engagement, including information relating to your affairs whether it belongs to you or not or is provided by you or not, is subject to strict confidentiality requirements. That information will not be disclosed by us to other parties except as required or allowed for by law, or with your express consent.We wish to draw your attention to our firm’s system of quality control, which has been established and maintained in accordance with the relevant BAS Agent Services standard. Thus, our files may be subject to review as part of the quality control review program of the Tax Practitioners Board, which monitors compliance with professional standards by its members. We advise you that by accepting our engagement 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.

PRIVACY ACT

We may collect Personal Information about your representatives, your clients and others when we provide services to you. If we do, you agree to work with us to ensure that we both meet the obligations that we each may have under the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (as amended) (Privacy Act). The obligations may include notifying the relevant person to whom the personal information relates who we are and how we propose to use their personal information. Where you have collected personal information, you confirm that you have collected the personal information in accordance with the Privacy Act, that you are entitled to provide this personal information to us and that we may use and disclose the personal information for the purpose/s we provide our services to you. We will handle personal information in accordance with the Privacy Act.

YOUR DISCLOSURE AND RECORD KEEPING OBLIGATIONS

You are required by law to keep full and accurate records relating to your tax affairs in order to facilitate the preparation of accurate Business and/or Instalment Activity Statements. The responsibility for the accuracy and completeness of the particulars and information provided to us by you rests with you. Any advice given to you by us is only an opinion based on our knowledge of your circumstances.

It is your obligation to provide us with all information that you reasonably expect will be necessary to allow us to perform work specified under this engagement within a timely manner or as requested. This includes providing accurate and complete responses to questions asked of you by us within 10 working days or sooner, if necessary, to meet compliance obligations. Inaccurate, incomplete or late information could have a material effect on our services and/or our conclusions and may result in additional fees.

You are also required to advise us on a timely basis if there are any changes to your circumstances that may be relevant to the performance of our services. Specifically, if any subsequent event results in the information you provided to us being inaccurate, incomplete or misleading, then you are obliged to advise us as soon as possible. We take no responsibility to the extent that our advice is inaccurate, incomplete or misleading because it is based on inaccurate, incomplete or misleading information being provided to us.

By accepting the terms in this Letter of Engagement, you will be taken to have agreed that the performance of our services is dependent on the performance of your obligations relating to disclosure and record keeping. You are responsible for the reliability, accuracy and completeness of the accounting records and disclosure to us of all material and relevant information.

You are also required to advise us if you become aware of any conflict of interest or potential conflict of interest. Generally, a conflict of interest is any event which may result in us becoming unable to remain objective in the performance of our services to you. Some examples of events which could give rise to a conflict of interest or potential conflict of interest during this engagement are changes to your business circumstances, events affecting your family (eg. death and/or marriage breakdown) or a legal action commencing against you.

In relation to your financial records, you will be specifically responsible for retaining copies of all financial records and source documents for a period of 5 years, and providing to us all financial information we have requested within 10 working days of our request or sooner if necessary to meet compliance obligations.

OUR OBLIGATION TO COMPLY WITH THE LAW

We have a duty to act in your best interests. However, the duty to act in your best interests is subject to an overriding obligation to comply with the law even if that may require us to act in a manner that may be contrary to your interests. For example, we could not lodge a Business and/or Instalment Activity Statement for you that we knew to be false in a material respect.

We also have an obligation to ensure that we manage conflicts of interest as they arise. In this regard, we have arrangements in place to ensure that we manage potential or actual conflicts of interest. The effective operations of these arrangements depend, in part, on you complying with your obligation to disclose any potential conflicts of interest to us (as mentioned previously).Our advice and/or services will be based on the Goods and Services Tax Act 1999 in force at the date of the provision of the advice and/or services. It is your responsibility to seek updated advice if you intend to rely on our advice at a later stage. We note that GST Laws are often subject to frequent change and our advice will not be updated unless specifically requested by you at the time of the change in law or announced change in law.

OWNERSHIP OF DOCUMENTS

All original documents obtained from you arising from this engagement will remain your property. However, we reserve the right retain a reasonable number of copies of the original documents for our records.Our engagement may result in the production of internal management reports, Business and/or Instalment Activity Statements, and other electronic documents or files which will be supplied to you. Ownership of these documents will vest in you. All other documents produced by us in respect of this engagement will remain our property.We will exercise a legal right of lien over any of your documents in our possession in the event of a dispute between us.

LIMITATION OF LIABILITY

Our liability is limited by a scheme approved under Professional Standards Legislation. Further information on the scheme is available from the Professional Standards Council’s website: http://www.psc.gov.au

OUTSOURCED SERVICES

We may involve third party contractors or outsourced service providers in providing various aspects of your accounting work. These services may include:

Accounting file preparation and/or data entry into your accounting systems.

Drafting of payroll.

Business and/or Instalment Activity Statements drafting but not lodgement.

Preparation of internal management reports and commentary on these reports.

Acceptance of our services in conjunction with this Letter of Engagement indicates your acceptance of the use of outsourced services as described above. Where the outsourced service requires that the disclosure of personal information to an overseas recipient, a consequence of your consent is that we, your internal accountants, will be required to take reasonable steps to ensure that Australian Privacy Principles are complied with by the overseas recipients of the personal information.

INVOLVEMENT OF OTHERS

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

PAYMENT TERMS

Our payment terms are: upfront payment is required in accordance with the Fees section of [proposal_type] #[proposal_number] and payment is due in full via direct debit through Integrapay on the date that the invoice is issued.If the direct debit is dishonoured, and the amount payable on the invoice is not paid within 30 days of the date of that invoice, then interest will be payable by you on the total unpaid amount calculated from the date the invoice is issued until the actual date of payment at the rate of 24% per annum calculated daily.

Payment in full must be made before we lodge your Business and/or Instalment Activity Statements with the ATO.In the event of you being in default of your obligation to pay us within the payment terms, as listed in the [proposal_type] #[proposal_number], the overdue invoice(s) will be referred to a debt collection agency and/or law firm for collection. You agree that the amount recoverable will be the full amount of the account less any discounts provided plus the total account of debt recovery or legal costs including all court costs. In simple terms the full account of our service will be claimable plus any legal recovery costs incurred in pursuant of our debt.

GUARANTEES

Any invoices and statements that are addressed in the entity’s name, that being either a company, trust, partnership, or non-profit organisation, are the responsibility of the Director(s) / Trustee(s) / Partner(s), to which each Director / Trustee / Partner gives their personal guarantee to pay these accounts. The Director(s) / Trustee(s) / Partner(s) provide a personal guarantee to Stream Accounting Pty Ltd to pay any outstanding account that is derived in either their personal name or the name of any company, trust, partnership, or non-profit organisation that they are either a director, trustee or partner. Any Director / Trustee / Partner will be equally and severally liable to pay the accounts of company, trust, partnership or non-profit organisation to which they are involved partially or in full.Furthermore, the Director(s) / Trustee(s) / Partner(s) will be equally and severally liable to pay the accounts of the company, trust, partnership or non-profit organisation including any and all legal costs in pursuing the matter through either a debt collection agency and/or law firm. The amount recoverable will be the full amount of the account less any discounts provided plus the total account of debt recovery or legal costs including all court costs. In simple terms the full account of our service will be claimable plus any legal recovery costs incurred in pursuant of our debt.