Terms of Service

1. Who these terms are with

These terms are between you and Meridian Advisor. Using this site, creating a portal account or purchasing a service means you accept them. If you are accepting on behalf of a business, you confirm you are authorised to bind it.

2. What we provide, and what creates an engagement

Nothing on this website creates a professional relationship. A tax, accounting or business credit engagement begins only when a written engagement letter is signed by both parties and the agreed payment has cleared. The engagement letter defines the scope; where it and these terms conflict, the engagement letter governs.

3. Fees, payment and refunds

Fees are quoted in writing before work begins and are not contingent on any score, rating, credit decision or tax outcome. Payment is taken through a PCI-DSS compliant processor; we do not store card numbers.

If we have not begun work, fees are refunded in full. Once a diagnostic or deliverable has been issued, fees cover work performed, with one exception set out below. A disappointing bureau or lender outcome is not a refundable event, which is why we tell you before you buy whether a programme is worth it for your business.

3.1 The Audit Refund Rule

If the written Audit report contains no action you can take, the Audit fee is refunded in full within 10 business days of your request. Ask within 30 days of delivery. Scores, ratings and lending decisions are not ours to promise and are not what this rule is about; it is about whether the report gave you something to do.

For this rule, an “action you can take” is a line in the report's next-best-actions section that names a specific change, an owner and a date. General advice such as paying on time is not an action. Whether a line qualifies is decided by the adviser who signed the report, and that decision is recorded against the report so the rule can be audited. A refund under this rule is paid to the original payment method within 10 business days of your request, which must reach us within 30 days of the report's delivery date shown in your portal. This rule applies to the Business Credit Audit only; it does not apply to any other package, and it is not a statement about scores, ratings or decisions, which are not ours to make.

3.2 The Capital Workspace

Where an engagement includes capital readiness, we compute readiness indicators from your records, write and sign a readiness opinion, check your records for consistency, and lay out your figures in the order a lender's form asks for them. You choose the loan program and the lending institution, complete the lender's forms yourself, submit the application yourself and record the lender's questions and decision. We do not contact lenders, negotiate terms, recommend an institution, submit applications or communicate with a lender on your behalf, and we receive no payment, commission or other benefit from any lender. Fees are for accounting work performed and are not contingent on any application, approval or funding. We do not collect or store Social Security numbers, dates of birth or government identification numbers; you complete those fields at signing. The directory of institutions is compiled from public sources, each record carrying its source and the date it was read, and is provided as information only.

4. Subscriptions and automatic renewal

Monitoring is a monthly subscription. The next charge date is shown in your portal and you may cancel at any time; cancellation takes effect at the end of the current period and no further charge is taken. Where an annual term has been prepaid and you cancel part way through, we refund the unearned balance and you keep the discount on the months already served. Fixed-scope programmes do not auto-renew.

5. Your obligations

You agree to provide accurate and complete information, to supply documents through the secure portal rather than email, to keep your portal credentials confidential, and to tell us promptly if anything material about the business changes. We rely on what you give us; we do not audit it unless the engagement says so.

6. What we do not do

We do not guarantee any credit score, rating, file change, supplier or lender decision, financing approval or terms, or any particular tax result. We do not sell, place or broker tradelines, supply shelf or aged corporations, or alter, fabricate or misrepresent data held by any bureau. We are not a lender and not a loan broker. Business credit services concern commercial files and are not consumer credit repair.

7. Third-party data

Business credit data is provided by Dun & Bradstreet under their terms and is accessed only with your written consent. Scores and reports are produced under D&B's methodology and remain their property and responsibility. We do not redistribute their data, and we cannot compel them to accept a correction.

8. Intellectual property

The platform, its software, the Meridian Business Health Score, our templates, reports and methodology remain ours. You receive a licence to use the outputs prepared for you, for your own business purposes. The deliverables we prepare for you — your reports, your plan, your filings — are yours to keep and to share.

9. Limitation of liability

To the fullest extent permitted by law, our total liability arising out of or relating to the services is limited to the fees you paid us for the engagement giving rise to the claim in the twelve months preceding it. We are not liable for indirect, incidental, special or consequential loss, or for lost profits, lost financing or lost business opportunity. Nothing here limits liability that cannot lawfully be limited.

10. Suspension and termination

Either party may terminate an engagement on written notice. You remain liable for work performed to that date. We may suspend or end an engagement where fees are unpaid, where we are asked to do something we consider unlawful or contrary to professional standards, or where information provided to us proves materially false.

11. Disputes

These terms are governed by the laws of the State of Georgia, without regard to conflict of law rules. The parties will attempt in good faith to resolve any dispute before commencing proceedings.

12. Changes

We may update these terms. Material changes will be notified through the portal or by email before they take effect, and continued use after that constitutes acceptance. The engagement letter in force when you signed it is not changed by an update to these terms.