Terms of Service

1. Who We Are and What These Terms Cover

Alfasente is a product of Byte Village Limited, a company incorporated in Uganda (“we”, “us”). These Terms govern your use of the Alfasente ERP web platform (https://erp.alfasente.com), the Alfasente Business POS mobile application, and the Alfasente Circle mobile application (together, the “Services”).

By creating an account, or by using the Services on behalf of a business, you agree to these Terms. If you are agreeing on behalf of a business, you confirm you are authorised to bind that business, and “you” means that business.

These Terms work alongside our Privacy Policy, which explains what data we hold and why.

2. The Services

Alfasente is business management software: accounting, inventory, sales, point of sale, payroll, payments and — where enabled — financial services for members, savings and loans. What is available to you depends on your plan and on which modules have been enabled for your business.

Some modules are not self-service. Financial Services in particular is enabled by us for a specific business after a setup conversation, and is not switched on by buying a plan alone.

We improve the Services continuously. We may add, change or remove features. Where a change would materially reduce functionality you rely on, we will give you reasonable notice at the email address on your account.

3. Your Account and Your Team

You are responsible for everything done under your account. That includes the accounts of every user you invite, and the roles you give them — an owner, accountant, manager, cashier or loan officer can each do different things, and choosing who holds which role is your decision.

• Keep credentials confidential, and do not share logins between people.
• Remove users who leave your business promptly.
• Tell us at once if you believe an account has been compromised.
• Where two-factor authentication is available, we strongly recommend enabling it for every user who can move money or approve transactions.

You must give us accurate registration details and keep them current, including the business name, TIN and contact address we bill and communicate to.

4. Your Data Remains Yours

The business data you put into the Services — your customers, products, members, employees, transactions and ledger — belongs to you. We do not sell it, and we do not use it for advertising.

You grant us the limited permission to store, process and transmit that data as needed to operate the Services for you: to run your ledger, initiate payments you request, send messages you schedule, and provide support when you ask for it.

You are responsible for the accuracy and lawfulness of the data you enter, and for having the right to hold it — particularly the personal data of your employees, customers and members.

You may export your data at any time while your account is active. See account deletion for how to request removal, and our Privacy Policy for retention periods.

5. Acceptable Use

You agree not to:

• Use the Services to break any law that applies to your business.
• Attempt to access another business’s data, or to circumvent the controls that keep businesses separate.
• Attempt to bypass approval controls — including writing to the platform’s interfaces directly to record a transaction that the Services would have required a second person to approve.
• Probe, scan or load-test the Services without our written permission.
• Resell or white-label the Services without a written agreement with us.
• Upload malicious code, or content you have no right to upload.
• Use the messaging features to send unsolicited bulk messages, or any message that would breach Uganda’s communications rules.

6. Subscriptions, Trials and Billing

Paid plans are billed in advance, monthly or annually, in Ugandan Shillings, at the price shown when you subscribe. New accounts begin on a free trial of the length stated on the plan you chose.

What happens if an invoice goes unpaid

• When a trial ends without a paid invoice, the account enters a 7-day grace period.
• An active subscription enters the same grace period once its oldest unpaid invoice is more than 30 days overdue.
• If the grace period ends with no payment, the account is suspended.

Suspension is not deletion. Your data is retained, and access is restored when the outstanding balance is settled. We will contact you before suspending an account.

Changes and refunds

You may change or cancel your plan at any time; cancellation takes effect at the end of the period you have already paid for. Fees already paid are non-refundable except where Ugandan law requires otherwise, or where we have failed to provide the Services and cannot put it right. We may change prices with at least 30 days’ notice, effective from your next billing period.

7. Payments and Mobile Money

The Services can initiate mobile money collections and disbursements through our payment partners. We are not a bank, a mobile money operator or a payment service provider, and we do not hold your funds. Money moves between you, your counterparty and the mobile money operator; we instruct and record it.

• Operator limits apply and are outside our control. Mobile money transactions are currently capped at UGX 5,000,000 per transaction.
• Disbursements are irreversible. Once a payout instruction succeeds at the operator, we cannot recall it. Check the destination number before approving.
• Operator and partner fees may apply in addition to your subscription.
• A collection can take time to confirm, and a payment that has not been confirmed is not a payment. Do not release goods, cash or a loan on an unconfirmed transaction.

8. Financial Services: Members, Savings and Loans

This section applies only if the Financial Services module is enabled for your business. It matters, so please read it.

You are the financial institution; we are the software. Alfasente does not take deposits, does not lend, is not a party to any savings or loan agreement between you and your members, and gives no financial, legal or investment advice. Every product you configure, rate you set, loan you approve and fee you charge is your decision and your responsibility.

• You are responsible for holding whatever licence, registration or authorisation your activity requires under Ugandan law, including any obligation to the Uganda Microfinance Regulatory Authority, and for meeting the reporting duties that come with it.
• You are responsible for compliance with laws on interest rates and charges, consumer protection, anti-money-laundering, know-your-customer obligations and data protection.
• Figures the Services calculate — interest, schedules, ageing, portfolio-at-risk, credit scores — are tools to support your decisions, not a substitute for your own judgement or your own review. A credit score produced here is derived from the history you hold and is not a credit reference bureau report.
• Where the Services offer four-eyes approval on transactions that move money, you are responsible for configuring it and for who you appoint as approvers. If you disable or narrow those controls, the consequences are yours.
• You are responsible for the accuracy of member records, and for the lawful basis on which you collect member identity documents, photographs and location.

9. Support Access to Your Account

To resolve a problem you have reported, an authorised member of our staff may need to access your account as a support session. When this happens it is time-limited, it is recorded in an audit log, and a banner is shown in the account for the duration of the session so it is visible to your team.

We access your account for support and for security investigations, and for no other reason.

10. Availability and Support

We work to keep the Services available and to keep your data safe, but we do not currently offer a contractual uptime guarantee. Planned maintenance is announced in advance where practical.

Support is available at support@alfasente.com. Response times depend on your plan and on the severity of the issue.

Parts of the Services depend on third parties — hosting, mobile money operators, SMS gateways and email delivery. An outage at one of them can interrupt the Services, and we are not liable for their failures beyond acting promptly to restore your service.

11. Suspension and Termination

We may suspend or terminate an account where:

• Fees remain unpaid after the grace period described in section 6.
• The account is being used in breach of section 5, or unlawfully.
• Continued operation poses a security risk to other customers or to the platform.
• We are required to do so by law.

Except where the law or an immediate security risk prevents it, we will give you notice and a reasonable chance to put the matter right. You may close your account at any time.

After termination we retain your data for the period set out in our Privacy Policy so you can retrieve it, after which it is deleted. Export anything you need before then.

12. Intellectual Property

The Services, including the software, interface, documentation and the Alfasente and Byte Village names and logos, belong to Byte Village Limited. These Terms give you the right to use the Services for your business while your subscription is current, and nothing more.

You may not copy, decompile or reverse-engineer the Services, except to the extent Ugandan law expressly permits.

If you send us feedback or suggestions, we may use them to improve the Services without obligation to you.

13. Disclaimers

The Services are provided “as is”. To the extent permitted by law, we exclude implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose and non-infringement.

Alfasente is not an accountant, an auditor, a tax adviser or a lawyer. The Services calculate figures — including VAT, PAYE, NSSF, LST, withholding tax, interest and depreciation — from rates and rules we maintain and from the data you enter. You remain responsible for reviewing your books, for what you file with the Uganda Revenue Authority or any other authority, and for the accuracy of any return or report you submit.

You are responsible for keeping your own records and backups of anything you are required by law to retain.

14. Limitation of Liability

To the maximum extent permitted by Ugandan law, neither party is liable for indirect or consequential loss, loss of profit, loss of business or loss of goodwill.

Our total liability arising out of or relating to the Services in any 12-month period is limited to the subscription fees you paid us in the 12 months before the event giving rise to the claim.

Nothing in these Terms limits liability that cannot be limited by law, including liability for fraud, or for death or personal injury caused by negligence.

15. Changes to These Terms

We may update these Terms. Where a change is material, we will notify you by email or in the application at least 14 days before it takes effect. Continuing to use the Services after the effective date means you accept the updated Terms. If you do not accept them, you may cancel before they take effect.

16. Governing Law

These Terms are governed by the laws of the Republic of Uganda, and the courts of Uganda have jurisdiction over any dispute. Before starting proceedings, we each agree to try in good faith to resolve the matter by discussion.

17. Contact

Byte Village Limited
Kampala, Uganda
Support: support@alfasente.com
Legal: legal@alfasente.com