Terms of engagement.

These terms are issued by swan786 ventures ("we", "us", "our").

Our contact address is swan786ventures@gmail.com and our telephone number is 071 490 7856.

These are our standing terms. Each piece of work is also governed by an engagement letter, which sets out the services, the transaction volume band, the fee, the close date and the responsibilities of each party.

Where the engagement letter and these terms conflict, the engagement letter prevails. Together they are the whole agreement between us, and neither of us is relying on anything said outside them.

Information required by section 43 of the Electronic Communications and Transactions Act 25 of 2002 appears above and in the privacy notice.

The material on this site is published for general information about the practice. It is not accounting, tax, legal or financial advice, it does not take your circumstances into account, and you should not act on it without advice.

No engagement arises from reading this site, from submitting the enquiry form, or from any correspondence, until an engagement letter is signed by both parties.

Service descriptions and timescales here are indicative. No figures or fees are published on this site at all — every engagement is quoted individually after the inspection.

We take reasonable care to keep the site accurate and available, but we do not warrant that it is error-free or uninterrupted, and we may change or withdraw any part of it without notice.

The design, text, iconography, code and structure of this site belong to us and are protected by copyright. You may read, print and share it for your own purposes; you may not reproduce it commercially or present it as your own.

Working papers, schedules, templates and reconstruction memoranda we produce in the course of an engagement remain our intellectual property. You receive a perpetual licence to use them for your own business, including handing them to your accountant, auditor, funder or a successor bookkeeper.

Your own records and data remain yours throughout, without qualification.

We provide bookkeeping, payroll processing and statutory submission support, together with the management reporting and compliance work described in the engagement letter.

We do not audit. We do not act as accounting officer or independent reviewer. We do not provide tax planning, structuring, investment or other regulated financial advice. Annual financial statements we prepare are compiled, not assured, and carry no audit or review opinion.

Where a matter falls outside our scope we say so, and where we can we name someone whose scope it falls inside. We will not quietly do work we are not qualified to do.

Any work outside an agreed scope is quoted separately and is never started without your written approval.

Where the engagement letter includes submissions, we prepare returns from a reconciled ledger and submit them on your SARS eFiling or CIPC profile as an authorised user acting on your instruction.

The returns remain your returns. The legal obligation to file accurately and to pay on time remains yours, and cannot be delegated to us or to anyone else.

Timely submission depends on our receiving complete source records and answers to the questions list by the dates in the engagement letter. Where records or answers arrive late we will tell you in writing what the consequence is, and we are not responsible for penalties, interest or additional assessments arising from that delay.

We are not responsible for penalties, interest or assessments arising from periods before our appointment, or from information that was withheld from us, misstated to us, or that we were instructed not to correct.

Where we identify a filing position we consider incorrect and you instruct us to proceed regardless, we will record that instruction in writing and may decline to submit.

You remain responsible for the completeness and accuracy of the source records provided to us, and for the legality and commercial substance of the underlying transactions.

You are responsible for maintaining valid tax invoices meeting section 20(4) of the Value-Added Tax Act 89 of 1991 for any input tax claimed, and for providing them when a verification requires it.

You are responsible for approving payment runs before they are released, and for the accuracy of banking details you supply to us.

We rely on the information supplied. Where it is incomplete or contradictory we raise it on the questions list rather than resolving it by assumption, and the close date may move if material questions remain unanswered.

You remain the responsible party under POPIA for personal information processed on your behalf, including your employees’ information, as set out in the privacy notice.

Fees are quoted in South African Rand and are fixed against the transaction volume band recorded in the engagement letter. Nothing is billed by the hour.

Monthly fees are invoiced monthly in advance. Project work, including clean-up, catch-up and migration, is quoted as fixed scope after the inspection and invoiced as set out in that quotation.

Where volumes move you into a different band, we tell you in writing before the invoice changes, never after.

Where the practice is a registered VAT vendor, VAT is charged in addition at the prevailing rate and shown separately on a valid tax invoice.

Invoices are payable within the period stated on them. We may suspend work on an account that is materially overdue, having first given you written notice and a reasonable opportunity to bring it current.

We do not assert a lien over your accounting records. Whatever the state of your account, your own books, source documents and data are yours and will be released to you.

This is deliberate, and it is unusual enough to be worth stating plainly. A dispute about a fee is a dispute about a fee; it is not a reason to make a business unable to trade, file or be audited.

Client information is confidential and is disclosed only to parties you nominate, to revenue and regulatory authorities where a statutory return requires it, to software providers under written operator agreements, or where we are legally compelled.

Personal information is processed in accordance with POPIA and our privacy notice, which forms part of these terms.

These obligations survive the ending of an engagement.

We will not knowingly participate in, facilitate or conceal tax evasion, money laundering, the falsification of records, or any other unlawful activity, and nothing in an engagement obliges us to.

Where we form a reasonable belief that we are being asked to do so, we may suspend or terminate the engagement immediately, and we will comply with any reporting obligation the law places on us.

Nothing in these terms excludes or limits liability that cannot lawfully be excluded or limited, including liability for fraud, for gross negligence, or under the Consumer Protection Act 68 of 2008 where it applies to you.

Subject to that, our total liability arising out of or in connection with an engagement, whether in contract, delict or otherwise, is limited to the fees paid to us under the engagement in the twelve months preceding the claim.

We are not liable for indirect or consequential loss, loss of profit, loss of business, loss of goodwill or loss of anticipated savings.

We are not liable for loss arising from information withheld from us or misstated to us, from your failure to act on written advice we gave, or from the act or omission of a third party you appointed.

A claim must be brought within the period stated in the engagement letter or within the period prescribed by law, whichever is shorter.

You indemnify us against claims, losses and costs arising from information you supplied that was materially inaccurate, incomplete or misleading, and from instructions you gave us to proceed on a basis we had advised against in writing.

This indemnity does not extend to anything caused by our own gross negligence, wilful misconduct or fraud.

Either party may end an engagement on thirty days written notice. There is no exit fee and no penalty.

Either party may terminate immediately on written notice if the other commits a material breach that is not remedied within fourteen days of being asked to remedy it, or becomes insolvent, is placed under business rescue, or is liquidated.

On termination, fees for work already performed remain payable. Your data is exported to you in full, together with a handover memo describing the state of the ledger, outstanding returns and anything your next bookkeeper will need to know. Our authorisation on your eFiling and CIPC profiles is removed at the same time.

Clauses that by their nature should survive termination — confidentiality, data protection, intellectual property, liability and indemnity — do survive it.

Neither party is liable for failure or delay caused by something genuinely beyond its reasonable control: sustained loss of electricity or connectivity, failure of a revenue authority’s own systems, natural disaster, civil unrest, or a change in law that makes performance impossible.

We will tell you promptly, do what can reasonably be done to limit the effect, and resume as soon as we are able. Where such an event continues for more than sixty days, either party may terminate on written notice.

If something goes wrong, raise it with us first, in writing. Most disputes are a misunderstanding about scope and are settled in a conversation.

If that does not resolve it, the parties will attempt mediation in good faith before either issues process, unless urgent interim relief is genuinely needed.

Nothing here prevents either party from approaching a court for urgent relief, or from exercising a right the law gives it.

If any provision is found unenforceable, it is severed and the rest continues in force.

A failure or delay in enforcing a right is not a waiver of it.

Neither party may cede or assign its rights under an engagement without the other’s written consent, which will not be unreasonably withheld.

Nothing in these terms creates a partnership, joint venture or employment relationship between us.

Notices must be in writing. Email to the addresses in the engagement letter is accepted as writing, and both parties consent to transacting and communicating electronically under the Electronic Communications and Transactions Act 25 of 2002.

We may amend these terms. Material amendments affecting a live engagement take effect only on written notice to you, and never retrospectively.

These terms and every engagement are governed by and construed in accordance with the law of the Republic of South Africa.

The parties consent to the jurisdiction of the High Court of South Africa, in the division stated in the engagement letter.