Terms of Service

Who we are

ParagonBooks is provided by Altumo Software Inc. (“we”, “us”), a company incorporated in British Columbia. Our address for legal notices is 99603 Market Crossing, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada. You can reach us at hello@altumo.com.

These terms are an agreement between you and Altumo Software Inc.. They cover the website at https://paragonbooks.net, the app at https://app.paragonbooks.net, the ParagonBooks API and MCP server, and Paragon, the assistant inside the app. Together we call these “the service”. By using the service, you agree to these terms. If you don’t agree, don’t use it.

Who can use the service

You must have reached the age of majority in your province or territory. If you add an organization, such as a business, a trust or a nonprofit, you confirm that you have the authority to act for it and to accept these terms on its behalf. In that case “you” also means the organization.

For now, you join by invitation, or by requesting early access and being approved from the waitlist.

Your account, organizations and roles

You sign in with a one-time code sent to your email address. ParagonBooks never asks you to create a password and doesn’t hold one. You can add a passkey or an authenticator app for extra protection. Keep your email account secure, because whoever controls it can sign in as you. Tell us right away at hello@altumo.com if you think someone else has used your account.

Records live in organizations. Your own books are one organization, and each business or other entity you keep books for is another. Each person in an organization has one of five roles: Owner, Admin, Bookkeeper, Accountant or Read-only. The role decides what that person can see and change, and ParagonBooks checks it on every request.

The Owner decides who is invited and with what role, and is responsible for those choices. Anyone you invite can see and change what their role allows. When someone should no longer have access, remove them.

Your records

Everything you put into ParagonBooks remains yours: your books, documents, receipts, conversations and the rest. You give us permission to store, copy and process it only as needed to provide the service to you and to the people you share it with, and as described in the Privacy Policy.

You can export everything at any time. The complete export holds the books, every source document and the audit trail, with a fingerprint for each file so the export can be checked without ParagonBooks. Exports need the Owner, an Admin or the Accountant. Each person can also export their own information and their conversations with Paragon.

You are responsible for having the right to add what you add, including information about other people such as employees, customers and suppliers.

What Paragon is, and what it isn’t

Paragon answers questions, explains rules, and prepares records, returns and plans from your books. It gives information. It isn’t legal, tax, accounting or investment advice, and it doesn’t replace a licensed professional where the law or your situation calls for one.

When Paragon proposes a change to your records, the proposal is a draft. It does nothing until a person with the right role confirms it. The screens always show what Paragon did and what a person confirmed.

There is one exception you control. An organization can let ParagonBooks code routine bank lines on its own: only when it is highly confident, the vendor has been seen before, and the amount is under a limit (by default $500). These lines are posted, marked as coded automatically, and can be undone. This setting is on by default, and the Owner or an Admin can change the limit or turn it off.

ParagonBooks prepares returns, slips, remittances and year-end packages. You remain responsible for checking what you file and pay, and for filing and paying on time. ParagonBooks prepares the evidence a professional needs; reviews, audits, sign-offs and other assurance are given by professionals, never by ParagonBooks.

Paragon’s answers cite their sources. Laws, rates and deadlines change, and an answer can be wrong. Check anything you rely on, especially before you file, pay or sign.

What the tamper-proof ledger proves

Every posted entry is chained to the one before it, and the chain is anchored to a public timestamp. This lets anyone check two things: that a record existed no later than a given time, and that it hasn’t been altered since it was chained. It doesn’t prove that a record is correct, complete or lawful, and it doesn’t give your records any special legal status.

Plans

There are two plans. Personal is free and covers your own books, taxes and planning, with no caps. Business covers sole proprietorships, corporations, trusts and nonprofits. Moving between plans is the Owner’s choice.

No plan ever withholds deadlines and reminders, preparing and filing returns, slips and remittances, payroll, your books, the audit trail, the tamper-proof ledger, export, backups or account security.

We don’t charge for the service today. Before any plan costs money, we will publish its price and billing terms and tell you in advance, and you will choose whether to pay. Nobody is charged without agreeing to it.

Acceptable use

The Acceptable Use Policy is part of these terms. In brief: use the service lawfully, keep honest books, and stay within the organizations you belong to.

Services we rely on

We use a small number of outside companies to run the service, for hosting, sign-in, Paragon’s answers and email. The Subprocessors page lists each one, what it does and where it is.

We work to keep the service available and your records safe, but we don’t promise any particular uptime. The service can be interrupted for maintenance, by a provider’s outage, or by events outside our control. If Paragon is unavailable, the rest of the app keeps working.

Suspension and closing

You can stop using the service at any time. An Owner can close an organization in the app; to close your account, write to hello@altumo.com.

We may suspend or close access if you break these terms or the Acceptable Use Policy, if the law requires it, or to protect other people or the service. Unless the law or a security risk prevents it, we will tell you why first and give you a chance to fix the problem and to export your records.

Canadian tax law requires books and the documents behind them to be kept for at least six years from the end of the last tax year they relate to (Income Tax Act, section 230). When an organization is closed, you receive the full export, and the books and their documents are frozen and kept until that period ends, then destroyed. Everything else is removed. Keeping your own copy for as long as the law requires is your responsibility, so export before you close.

Disclaimers and limits

We provide the service with care, but as it is and as available. To the extent the law allows, we don’t give any warranty beyond what these terms state, including any warranty that the service will be uninterrupted or error-free or that its information fits your situation.

To the extent the law allows:

• We aren’t liable for indirect or consequential losses, such as lost profits, lost opportunities, or penalties and interest that result from your filing or payment decisions.
• Our total liability for any claim about the service is limited to the amount you paid us for it in the twelve months before the claim, or $100 if you paid nothing.

You agree to compensate us for claims made against us by someone else that arise from your breach of these terms or your unlawful use of the service.

Nothing in these terms limits any right you have under the consumer protection law of your province or territory. If you are a consumer in Québec, the Consumer Protection Act applies, and the clauses in this section don’t apply to you to the extent that Act forbids them.

Governing law and disputes

These terms are governed by the laws of British Columbia and the federal laws of Canada that apply there.

If you have a problem, write to us first at hello@altumo.com; most problems can be solved that way. If not, the courts of British Columbia can hear the dispute, and you may also use the Civil Resolution Tribunal or small claims court where they have jurisdiction. If you are a consumer, you can also bring a claim in the courts of your own province or territory where its law gives you that right.

Changes to these terms

The effective date and version are at the top of this page. If we make a material change, we will tell you by email and in the app before it takes effect. If you keep using the service after that, the new terms apply. If you don’t accept them, you can export your records and stop using the service.

If any part of these terms can’t be enforced, the rest still applies. These terms, with the policies they refer to, are the whole agreement between you and us about the service.