Octobooks Terms of Service

Version of 9 October 2026.

1. Who we are

Octobooks is run by its founder as a sole trader in the United Kingdom, trading as Octobooks ("Octobooks", "we", "us"). Email: support@octobooks.ai. The full name and address of the operator are added here before paid plans start.
If a company later takes over Octobooks, we will tell you by email and these terms continue with that company.
These terms, the Refund Policy, the Privacy Notice and the Data Processing Agreement are the whole agreement between you and us.

2. Who can use Octobooks

Octobooks is for businesses only: companies, partnerships, sole traders and other people acting in the course of their trade. It is not offered to consumers.
By signing up you confirm you act for a business and that you are allowed to bind that business to these terms.
You must be at least 18.

3. What Octobooks is, and what it is not

Octobooks is bookkeeping software. It keeps a double entry ledger for your business, stores your documents, produces reports, drafts and issues invoices, and prepares tax returns for you to check and release.
Octobooks is a tool, not an adviser. We are not accountants, tax advisers, auditors or lawyers, and nothing in Octobooks is accounting, tax, legal or financial advice. Octobooks does not give individual tax advice in the sense of the German Tax Advisers Act (StBerG) or any similar law.
Using Octobooks does not replace an accountant or tax adviser where the law requires one or where your situation calls for one. If you are unsure about a booking, a tax treatment or a filing, ask a qualified adviser.

4. How AI works in Octobooks

AI makes mistakes. Every AI system, ours and yours, can misread a document, pick the wrong account, apply the wrong VAT rate or misunderstand a question. Treat every AI suggestion as a draft until you have checked it.
Most decisions come from your side. Octobooks is built to work with the AI assistant you choose and connect (for example through an MCP connector). That assistant works on your instructions and with your own context. Bookings, answers and rules it sends to Octobooks are your instructions to us.
Octobooks mainly helps set up rules. Our own AI features mostly propose rules ("this supplier is always marketing", "this customer pays in EUR") and point out what looks wrong or missing. Each rule is shown to you in plain words, you approve it, and you can change or remove it at any time. Once approved, a rule is applied by ordinary code, the same way every time.
Everything is traceable. For each booking Octobooks records where it came from (a rule, your AI, our AI suggestion, or a person) and keeps the source document next to it, so you can check and correct it.
You choose how much is approved by hand. You decide the approval mode: release each item yourself, release in batches, use a confirmation code, or let your AI release on your behalf. Whatever mode you pick, anything released through your account counts as released by you.
Releases. Anything that leaves your business (an issued invoice, a filing, a payment instruction, a message to a third party) only happens after a release under the approval mode you set.
Your AI provider is a third party. We do not control it. Its terms, its data handling and its mistakes are between you and that provider.
We do not use your data to train AI models, and we only send your data to an AI provider to deliver a feature you use. The providers we use are listed in the sub-processor list linked from the Data Processing Agreement.

5. What we take care of

Keeping the software running with reasonable care and skill, and fixing faults we find or you report within a reasonable time.
A ledger that balances: every entry posts equal debits and credits, and reports are calculated from the ledger by code, not by AI.
A full audit trail: who or what created, changed or released each item, and when. Released entries are corrected by a new entry, never silently overwritten.
Storing your documents and data securely, on servers in Germany, with nightly encrypted backups.
Processing personal data only on your instructions, as set out in the Data Processing Agreement.
Telling you without undue delay about a security incident that affects your data.
Reminding you of open items and upcoming deadlines that Octobooks knows about. Reminders are a help, not a guarantee.
Letting you export your books and documents at any time, in standard formats.

6. What you take care of

Checking what is booked and released, and the correctness of your books, accounts and tax returns. The legal responsibility for your bookkeeping, your tax returns and your statutory accounts stays with your business and its directors.
Meeting your filing and payment deadlines.
Giving complete and true information and documents, and only uploading data you are allowed to share.
Keeping your records for as long as the law requires (for example 6 years in the UK, up to 10 years in Germany), including by exporting them before you close your account.
Keeping your logins, passkeys, connector tokens and AI assistant secure, and deciding who you invite. Activity through your account is treated as yours.
Choosing an approval mode that fits your risk, and the consequences of the mode you choose.

7. Filings and submissions to authorities

Where Octobooks offers filing (for example VAT returns), it prepares the return from your ledger and shows it to you. It is only submitted when you release it, in your name and with your credentials or authorisation.
You are the person filing. We transmit what you released. We do not check that your return is correct or complete in law.
If a submission fails or is rejected, Octobooks shows you the reason. It remains your job to make sure the return reaches the authority on time.
Not every filing is available in every country yet. Only what is shown as available in your account can be filed from Octobooks.

8. Early access and new features

Some features are marked early access or beta, and Octobooks as a whole may be offered as early access. These features are provided as they are, may change or stop, and may have more errors than finished features.
Early access may be free. We will tell you at least 30 days before free early access turns into a paid plan, and you can leave before then without paying anything.

9. Your data

Your business data stays yours. You give us the right to use it only to run Octobooks for you, to keep it secure, and to meet our legal duties.
For personal data inside your books (customers, suppliers, staff), you are the controller and we are your processor. The Data Processing Agreement forms part of these terms.
We may use anonymous, aggregated usage figures (for example how many invoices are issued per month across all users) to improve Octobooks. These never identify you or your business.
When your account ends, you can export your data for 90 days. After that we delete it, except where the law requires us to keep something, and backups roll off within a further 35 days.

10. Connected services

Octobooks works with services you connect: your AI assistant, bank data, payment providers, tax authority portals, email. Those services are run by others under their own terms.
We are not responsible for their availability, their errors, or changes they make that affect Octobooks. Where a connected service is down or wrong, we will help where we reasonably can.
Payments for Octobooks are handled by our payment provider, see section 12.

11. Fair use

You must not use Octobooks to:

break the law, including tax evasion, fraud or money laundering, or to keep false books;
enter information you know is false or misleading;
try to break into, overload, copy or reverse engineer Octobooks, or get round its limits or security;
resell or share access outside your business without our written agreement;
upload malicious code.

We may suspend access straight away if we reasonably believe one of these is happening, and we will tell you why unless the law stops us.

12. Fees and billing

Prices are shown on octobooks.ai and in your account. Prices exclude VAT unless stated.
Paid plans are billed through Paddle.com Market Ltd, who acts as merchant of record and reseller. Paddle's buyer terms apply to the payment itself.
Plans renew automatically each month or year until cancelled.
We give at least 30 days' notice by email of any price increase. You can cancel before it takes effect.
If a payment fails and is not fixed within 14 days, we may limit your account to read only and export until it is paid. Your data is not deleted during that time.
Refunds are covered by the Refund Policy.

13. Ending the agreement

You can cancel at any time in your account or by email. Your plan runs to the end of the period already paid.
We can end the agreement with 30 days' notice by email, or straight away if you seriously or repeatedly break these terms or do not pay.
If we end the agreement without you being at fault, we refund the unused part of any prepaid period.
Sections 6, 9.4, 14 and 15 continue after the agreement ends.

14. Liability

The cap. Our total liability to you for everything arising from or connected to Octobooks in any 12 month period is limited to the fees you paid us in the 12 months before the event that caused the claim. If you use Octobooks for free, it is limited to £100.
Losses we are not liable for. We are not liable for: loss of profit, revenue, business, contracts, goodwill or anticipated savings; indirect or consequential loss; tax, interest, penalties or surcharges owed by your business; or loss arising from entries, rules or filings that were released through your account.
AI. We are not liable for errors in suggestions or content produced by your AI assistant or any third party AI, or for errors in our own AI suggestions that you or your AI approved or released.
What we never limit. Nothing in these terms limits or excludes liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, or for anything else that cannot be limited by law. Where German law applies to these terms or a claim, we are also liable without limit for intent and gross negligence, and for breach of an essential contractual duty our liability is limited to the typical, foreseeable damage.
No other promises. Apart from what is written in these terms, Octobooks is provided without warranties, including that it is error free, always available, or suitable for a particular purpose.
You will reimburse us for reasonable costs and losses caused by your breach of section 11, or by claims from third parties about data you uploaded without the right to do so.

15. Other terms

Changes to these terms. We may update these terms. We will email you at least 30 days before a change that affects you materially takes effect. If you do not agree, you can cancel before then.
Changes to Octobooks. We improve Octobooks continuously. We will not remove a core feature you pay for without 30 days' notice.
Transfer. We may transfer this agreement to a company that takes over Octobooks. You may not transfer it without our consent.
Severability. If a part of these terms is invalid, the rest stays in force.
Law and courts. These terms are governed by the law of England and Wales, and the courts of England and Wales have jurisdiction. Mandatory rules of the country where your business is based still apply where the law says they must.
Complaints. Write to support@octobooks.ai. We reply within 5 working days.

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