Terms of Service

1. Who these terms are with

These terms are between you (the organization that creates an account or otherwise uses Tutelium) and Tutelium Corp., a Delaware corporation (EIN 42-4484663). Our Delaware registered office is 8 The Green, Suite B, Dover, Delaware 19901. Notices go through our contact page unless we give you another address in writing.

If someone accepts these terms for an organization, they confirm they have authority to bind that organization. Your users, volunteers, and anyone you invite must follow these terms. You are responsible for what they do in the service.

These terms apply to every offer, early access, paid plan, and related website, web app, mobile app, and volunteer portal we provide as Tutelium. Your purchasing terms do not apply unless we sign them. If an order form or signed agreement conflicts with these terms, the signed document wins for that conflict.

Related documents form part of this contract where they apply: the Privacy Policy, Data Processing Agreement, Cookie Policy, Responsible AI Use policy, and Acceptable Use Policy.

2. What Tutelium is

Tutelium is software for churches, charities, and other organizations. It helps you keep books, match bank activity, store receipts, prepare reports, manage people and volunteers, collect gifts through your payment account, and prepare a Form 990 series pack from data you enter.

Solon is our in-product assistant. It can suggest, extract, or draft. A person in your organization must review and approve anything that changes the books or goes out the door. Output is not tax, legal, or accounting advice. See the AI policy.

Early access and preview features may change, have gaps, or be withdrawn. They are still covered by these terms. We do not promise a specific trial length unless the product shows you one.

3. What Tutelium is not

4. How the contract starts

The contract starts when you create an account, start a paid plan, or otherwise click to accept these terms. That click is your electronic signature under the federal E-SIGN Act and the Delaware Uniform Electronic Transactions Act. We may keep a record of acceptance (who, when, which version).

Reading the marketing website, by itself, does not create a paid contract. Offers on the website are invitations to deal, not binding until you accept and we activate the service. We may refuse or close an account if we reasonably believe there is fraud, sanctions risk, abuse, or a legal problem.

We may send you service emails (billing, security, product, and legal notices) to the address on the account. Those are needed to run the service. Marketing emails go only to people who asked (for example the waitlist) and include a way to unsubscribe.

5. Accounts, users, and acceptable use

Keep login details secret. Use MFA where we offer it. Tell us promptly if you think an account is compromised. You decide who gets access, including organization admins, staff, and volunteers in Church Center or the expense portal.

You must not: break the law; probe or bypass security; overload the service; scrape in a way that harms others; send spam or unlawful texts; impersonate anyone; upload malware; or use a custom domain you do not control. The full rules are in the Acceptable Use Policy.

We may suspend a feature or an account if we reasonably believe these terms or the Acceptable Use Policy are being broken, or if we need to protect the service or other customers. We will try to tell you first unless we need to act immediately.

6. Plans, payment, and taxes

Prices are on our pricing page or on an order form, in US dollars, billed in advance. Tutelium Corp. is merchant of record for subscription fees. Payment is usually through Stripe. Partners who refer you are not merchant of record for those fees.

If we change prices, we will give at least 30 days’ notice before the new price applies to you. If you do not cancel before the next billing date after that notice, the new price applies. Late payment may lead to suspension. You are responsible for sales, use, or similar taxes we must collect, unless you give us a valid exemption certificate.

Fees are non-refundable except where the law requires a refund or we agree in writing. If a chargeback is opened on subscription fees, we may suspend access until it is resolved.

7. Canceling and what happens to your data

Unless an order form says otherwise, you can cancel at the end of the current monthly billing period, in the product or through the contact page. You remain responsible for fees through the end of that period.

After cancellation or termination we give you a reasonable window to export your data. Then we delete or anonymize customer content as described in the Data Processing Agreement and our retention rules. Soft-delete in the product is not the same as legal erasure. Financial records may be kept for the period the law requires (our baseline for books-supporting data is seven years, or longer if your state or a legal hold requires it).

We may terminate for cause if you materially breach these terms and do not fix the breach within 15 days after notice (or immediately for unpaid fees, AUP abuse, or legal risk).

8. Availability

We work to keep the service up. We do not promise uninterrupted access. Maintenance, third-party outages, and attacks can cause downtime. A service level agreement applies only if we sign one with you.

9. Your responsibilities

You are responsible for the accuracy and lawfulness of data you put in Tutelium, including donor, member, volunteer, and employee information. You confirm you have the right to process that data and to instruct us as your service provider. You must follow laws that apply to you, including nonprofit, fundraising, employment, privacy, and tax rules.

You decide your chart of accounts, funds, approvals, and who may pay or publish. Dual control in the product does not replace your own governance.

10. Features that need extra care

Expenses, reimbursements, and the volunteer portal

Where enabled, people you invite can submit expense claims through a portal or Church Center. Church Center is not a licensed staff account. It does not grant organization-admin, approval, or payment-export powers.

On Tutelium we do not offer a US bank payment file that pays claimants for you. You reimburse outside the product and use “mark paid” to close the claim in the app. Marking paid updates status. It is not by itself a ledger posting. You check payee identity and bank details before you pay.

Bank connections

If you connect a bank, you do that through the bank-connection provider we support (for example Plaid) and you accept that provider’s terms. We do not store your online banking password. Linked account and transaction data is processed so we can show and match activity in your books. You can disconnect. A connection is not a payment order and not a guarantee that your bank data is complete.

Giving and Stripe

Where enabled, you connect your organization’s own Stripe account. Donors can give on your public giving page or through fund links and QR codes. You are the merchant of record for those gifts. Funds settle to your Stripe account and bank under your Stripe agreement. We provide software (settings, checkout, and posting into your books from webhooks). We do not hold gift funds and we are not your payment service provider for those gifts.

Subscription fees for Tutelium remain billed by Tutelium Corp. as merchant of record. That is a different Stripe path.

You are responsible for your Stripe account; lawful solicitation and any state charitable solicitation registration that applies to you; donor notices; refunds, disputes, and chargebacks in your Stripe account; and any tax acknowledgment your donors need. We do not guarantee tax deductibility. A checkout confirmation in our portal is not by itself a complete IRS contemporaneous written acknowledgment for gifts of $250 or more. Where the Internal Revenue Code requires that acknowledgment, you (the donee organization) must provide it. See IRS Publication 1771.

Card numbers are handled by Stripe. We are not a card processor. PCI obligations for the gift checkout sit with Stripe and with you under your Stripe terms, when the Payment Element is used as designed.

Form 990 / 990-EZ / 990-N pack preparation

Where enabled, the service can help you prepare a Form 990, 990-EZ, or 990-N pack from books and fields you enter. That is pack-preparation tooling. “Complete” or “pack ready” means you marked the pack ready for your own filing workflow. It is not IRS accepted and not e-file.

Tutelium is not an IRS e-file provider and does not submit those forms. We do not preserve exemption. We do not replace the IRS or a state charity regulator. You (or your CPA) remain the filer. You choose the form variant and eligibility. You finish any required IRS or state filing outside Tutelium unless a later product expressly e-files and these terms are updated. We do not claim donor-level Schedule B processing. Overviews Reports are board packs, not a Form 990 filing pack.

Reports and board packs

Period results, and (if you use balance mode) the balance sheet view, are operational tools from data you entered. They are not a statutory annual account, an auditor’s report, or an assurance engagement. We do not claim they comply with FASB ASC 958, Form 990, or any other external framework unless a separate product says so in writing.

Freeze stores a point-in-time snapshot for board use inside the service. Freeze is not a filing with the IRS or any other authority. Blocking deletion of a frozen pack is a product control. It is not privacy-law erasure.

Custom domain

On eligible plans you may connect one subdomain so the books app is reachable at that hostname. Login stays on our brand login hosts (the login.tutelium.com pattern) unless we later say otherwise in writing. Apex domains, multiple hosts, and login on the custom host are out of this version.

You configure DNS. We issue and renew TLS certificates. We never ask you to upload certificate files or private keys. You warrant you have the right to use the hostname. We may refuse or remove a hostname for security, plan lapse, acceptable-use breach, trademark risk, or operational need. The brand books URL remains the fallback. Custom domain is the same books, not a second administration, not general website hosting, and not a Form 990 filing.

Text messages

Where enabled, the service may send care SMS to contacts you manage, and one-time login codes by SMS. You are responsible for message content and for consent under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act and carrier rules. Do not send marketing or fundraising SMS through People care without documented consent. Do not present care SMS as a tax receipt, gift acknowledgment, or government letter.

Before the first care SMS to a person, consent must be recorded in the product. You must honor opt-out, including STOP, in any reasonable manner and within the time the FCC rules require. We may block sends when consent is missing. We do not guarantee delivery. Login codes are transactional. Do not reuse login numbers for campaigns without a separate consent design.

11. Privacy, security, and AI

How we handle personal information is in the Privacy Policy. For data you put in the books (donors, members, volunteers, claimants, officers), you are the business / controller and Tutelium Corp. is the service provider / processor. The Data Processing Agreement applies and is part of this contract.

Solon is a tool. You stay in control. See the AI policy. We do not use Solon to make significant legal decisions about a person (hiring, lending, housing, or similar) on our own behalf. Suggestions that touch the books still need a human in your organization.

12. Intellectual property, your data, and feedback

We and our licensors own the service, including software, brands, models, prompts, and documentation. You receive a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable right to use the service during the term, for your organization’s internal nonprofit or church administration. You may not copy, resell, or reverse engineer the service except where the law says we cannot stop you.

You own your customer content. You grant us a limited license to host, display, and process it only to provide and secure the service, and to create de-identified operational metrics that do not include names, account numbers, or donor details.

If you send feedback, we may use it to improve the service. That does not transfer ownership of your books to us.

13. Confidentiality

Each side will keep the other’s non-public information confidential and use it only to perform this contract, except information that is public, independently developed, or required by law. We may disclose to subprocessors who are bound to protect it. This section survives termination.

14. Warranties, indemnity, and liability

Your indemnity. You will defend and indemnify Tutelium Corp. and its people against claims arising from: your content; your fundraising and solicitation; your SMS; your custom domain; your Stripe account and gifts; your users’ misuse; and your breach of law or these terms. We will give you prompt notice and reasonable cooperation.

Our IP indemnity. We will defend you against a third-party claim that the unmodified Tutelium software, as we provide it, infringes a US copyright or trademark, and we will pay damages finally awarded. This does not cover claims that come from your content, a combination with something we did not supply, or use after we told you to stop. If the service is enjoined, we may replace it, modify it, or refund prepaid unused fees and end the contract. This is your exclusive remedy for IP infringement claims against the software.

Limitation of liability. To the fullest extent allowed by law, neither side is liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages, or for lost profits, lost donations, or lost data, even if advised of the possibility. Except for (a) your payment obligations, (b) your indemnity obligations, and (c) fraud or willful misconduct, each side’s total liability under this contract is limited to the fees you paid to Tutelium Corp. for the service in the twelve months before the claim. Some states do not allow certain limitations. In those states, the limitation applies to the maximum extent the law allows. This is a B2B contract for organizational use, not a consumer purchase of household goods.

15. Events outside our control

If a party cannot perform because of events beyond reasonable control (including infrastructure or vendor outages, cyberattacks, labor disputes, or government action), that party is excused for the duration of the event. This does not excuse your payment of fees already owed.

16. Sanctions, export, and anti-corruption

You represent that you are not a sanctioned person and will not use the service for a sanctioned person or in a sanctioned country, in violation of US export or OFAC rules. You will not bribe anyone in connection with the service.

17. Changes to these terms

We may update these terms. For material changes we will give you notice (email or in-product). For material changes that affect Form 990 pack preparation, we ask an organization admin to acknowledge. We do not require every user to re-accept. If you keep using the service after the effective date, that is acceptance, except where the law requires a fresh consent. If you do not agree, cancel before the effective date.

18. Delaware law and disputes

These terms are governed by the laws of the State of Delaware, without regard to conflict-of-law rules, and except that US federal law applies where it must (including E-SIGN and bankruptcy). The state and federal courts located in Delaware have exclusive jurisdiction. Each side consents to those courts. To the extent the law allows, each side waives a jury trial and waives participating in a class or consolidated action against the other. If a court will not enforce the class waiver as to a particular claim, that claim must be brought individually in court, not as a class.

Nothing here limits a right that cannot be waived, including a regulator’s enforcement power or a data subject’s right to complain to a privacy authority.

19. Other legal terms

These terms, plus the related documents listed in section 1 and any order form, are the entire agreement. They replace prior discussions about the service. If a court strikes one clause, the rest stays. A waiver must be in writing. You may not assign this contract without our consent, except to a successor in a merger or sale of substantially all assets if the successor is not our competitor and assumes these terms. We may assign to an affiliate or in a corporate transaction. There are no third-party beneficiaries except as stated in the indemnity section. Headings are for reading only.

The United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods does not apply. The service is provided as a service, not as a sale of goods. If a court nevertheless applies the Uniform Commercial Code, the warranty disclaimer and liability limits in section 14 still apply to the maximum extent allowed.

Sections that by nature should survive ending the contract still apply after it ends. That includes intellectual property, confidentiality, warranties, indemnity, liability limits, Delaware law, and this sentence.

Bring a claim within one year after you knew or reasonably should have known of the facts, or the shortest period the law allows if that is longer. This does not shorten a period the law forbids shortening.

20. Contact

Questions about these terms? Use our contact page. Mark the message as a legal or contract question so we can route it.

Tutelium is offered by Tutelium Corp., a Delaware corporation. EIN 42-4484663. Delaware registered office: 8 The Green, Suite B, Dover, Delaware 19901.