Terms of Service.

The agreement

These Terms of Service ("Terms") are the agreement between your parish or organisation ("you", "the parish") and Ancient Designs LLC, the operator of Symphonia ("we", "us", "Symphonia"). By creating an account or using Symphonia, you agree to these Terms on behalf of your parish.

1. The service

Symphonia is a parish operating system: a single place for people and households, pastoral and sacramental records, communication, giving, and the parish's public website, with a member app. Every subscription tier includes all of Symphonia; the tier only sets the price by parish size. Optional add-ons (for example ParishBooks, Quill, Store, and Cemetery) extend it further.

Symphonia improves continuously. We may add, change, or retire features to make the whole better, and we will not remove something a parish depends on without reasonable notice and a path forward. Anything marked as a preview or "coming soon" is not yet part of the service.

2. Accounts and your users

To use Symphonia you create a parish account and invite the users who need it. You are responsible for:

• The accuracy of the information you provide, and keeping it current.
• Assigning roles appropriately, so each person sees only what their role should see.
• The activity of the accounts you authorise, and for keeping credentials secure.
• Notifying us promptly if you believe an account has been compromised.

An authorised user must be old enough to form a binding agreement in their jurisdiction. We provide two-factor sign-in and encourage every parish to use it.

3. Acceptable use

Symphonia is built for the honest work of a parish. You agree not to:

• Use it for anything unlawful, or to harass, endanger, or defraud a person.
• Upload malware, or attempt to breach, probe, or overload the service.
• Access another parish's data, or attempt to defeat the isolation between parishes.
• Reverse-engineer, resell, or sublicense the software except as these Terms allow.
• Send communications through Symphonia that the recipient has not agreed to receive, in violation of anti-spam law.

4. Your data and ownership

Your records are yours. The parish owns the data it puts into Symphonia. We claim no ownership of it. You grant us only the limited licence we need to host, process, back up, and display that data in order to run the service for you, and nothing more. Our handling of personal data is governed by our Privacy Policy and Data Processing Agreement, and the providers that help us are listed on our sub-processors page.

Export, anytime. You can export your members, giving history, and sacramental register whenever you like, in a portable format. There is no lock-in.

Feedback. If you send us ideas or suggestions, you allow us to use them to improve Symphonia without obligation. We will never publish your parish's private data as an example without permission.

5. Plans, billing and fees

• Subscription. Where your parish has a paid plan, Symphonia is billed as a recurring subscription. Your tier (Mission, Parish, or Cathedral) is set by parish size; every tier includes all of Symphonia.
• Onboarding. A one-time onboarding fee may apply when a parish joins. Any fee is shown to you before you agree to it, and may be paid once or rolled into the first year, at your choice.
• Add-ons. Optional add-ons are billed monthly alongside the subscription and can be added or removed as your needs change.
• Renewal. Paid subscriptions renew automatically for the same period unless you cancel. You can cancel at any time (see section 10).
• Price changes. We aim to hold the rate you registered at for as long as you are with us. We will give you clear, advance notice before any new charge or any change to what you pay. Your tier only moves if your parish grows past its size band.
• Taxes. Fees are exclusive of any taxes, which are your responsibility where they apply.

6. Giving and payments

Online giving is processed by Stripe on Stripe's own checkout pages, and gifts settle directly to the parish's own connected account. Symphonia is not a party to the gift and does not hold parish funds; we provide the tools that record and reconcile them. Standard payment-processing fees set by Stripe apply per transaction. The parish is responsible for issuing accurate donation receipts and for its own tax and charitable-solicitation compliance. Use of Stripe is also subject to Stripe's own agreements.

7. Third-party services

Some capabilities rely on third-party services, for example Stripe for payments, Plaid for bank feeds, or QuickBooks Online for accounting. Those services operate under their own terms, and we are not responsible for them. Where a third-party service is required for a feature, using that feature means accepting the relevant provider's terms. Every provider that handles parish data is listed on our sub-processors page.

8. Text messages (SMS)

A parish can send text messages to its members and friends through Symphonia. Each parish runs its own text program, sent through Symphonia, which is operated by Ancient Designs LLC. This section applies to the parish and to everyone who receives its texts.

For people who receive parish texts

• What you get. Recurring texts from your parish, such as service changes, reminders and urgent parish notices. Message frequency varies.
• Cost. Msg & data rates may apply, according to your mobile plan.
• How you join. Turn on text messages in your My Parish profile, ask your parish office to add you, or text START to your parish's number. You get texts only after you agree.
• How you stop. Reply STOP at any time. STOPALL, UNSUBSCRIBE, CANCEL, END, QUIT, REVOKE and OPTOUT work too. You get one text confirming that you are unsubscribed, and no texts after it. Reply START to join again.
• Help. Reply HELP or INFO for help, or contact your parish office or hello@symphonia.church.
• No condition. Agreeing to texts is not a condition of membership, of giving, or of any purchase.
• Delivery. Mobile carriers are not liable for delayed or undelivered messages.
• Privacy. How we handle your number and your consent is set out in our Privacy Policy. Mobile information is not shared with third parties or affiliates for marketing or promotional purposes.

For parishes that send texts

• Text only people who have agreed to receive your texts. Symphonia records when, how and in what words each person agreed whenever consent is given or entered in Symphonia.
• Do not import or text purchased, rented or borrowed lists.
• Honour every opt-out. When a number replies STOP, Symphonia stops texts to it from every parish, and you may not work around that.
• Send only the kind of texts people agreed to: parish news, service changes, reminders and urgent notices.

Texting is turned on for a parish only after its program is registered with the mobile carriers. Symphonia sends texts only between 8 AM and 9 PM in the parish's time zone, and never to a number that has opted out.

9. Availability and support

We work hard to keep Symphonia available and fast, and we back it with encrypted, off-site backups and a written recovery plan. From time to time we perform maintenance, and we schedule it to be as unobtrusive as possible. Our availability target and support response times are set out in our Service Level Commitment. They are targets, not a guarantee of uninterrupted service, and they carry no service credits.

Support comes from a real person, never a bot, and we answer parish questions within one business day.

10. Leaving Symphonia

You can cancel at any time; there is no long-term contract. On cancellation:

• You keep access through the end of your current paid period.
• You can export everything before you go.
• We return or securely delete your parish's data within thirty days of the end of service, at your choice, except where a specific record must be retained by law.

We may suspend or end an account that materially breaches these Terms (for example the acceptable-use rules) or that fails to pay after notice. We will always give you a chance to put things right first where the situation allows.

11. Intellectual property

Symphonia, including its software, design, and the Symphonia name and mark, is the property of Ancient Designs LLC and is protected by law. These Terms grant you the right to use the service, not to own it. Your parish's own content, name, and marks remain entirely yours.

12. Disclaimers

Symphonia is provided "as is" and "as available". To the fullest extent permitted by law, we disclaim implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and non-infringement.

Symphonia is a tool, not a professional adviser. It does not provide legal, tax, accounting, or canonical advice. Sacramental records remain the parish's own canonical responsibility, and the parish is responsible for the accuracy of what it enters and the decisions it makes with it.

13. Limitation of liability

To the fullest extent permitted by law, neither party is liable for indirect, incidental, special, or consequential damages, or for lost profits or lost data arising from the use of, or inability to use, the service. Our total liability for any claim relating to the service is limited to the fees you paid us in the twelve months before the claim arose. Some jurisdictions do not allow certain limitations, in which case the limitation applies only as far as the law permits.

14. Indemnification

You agree to defend and hold us harmless from third-party claims arising out of your unlawful use of the service, your breach of these Terms, or content you put into Symphonia that infringes another party's rights. We will do the same for you in respect of a third-party claim that Symphonia itself, as provided by us, infringes that party's intellectual-property rights.

15. Changes to the service and these Terms

We may update these Terms as Symphonia grows. When we make a material change, we update the date above and notify parish administrators. Continuing to use Symphonia after a change means the updated Terms apply. If a change is one you cannot accept, you may cancel and export your data under section 10.

16. Governing law and disputes

These Terms are governed by the laws of the United States and the state in which Ancient Designs LLC is organised, without regard to conflict-of-laws rules. Before any formal dispute, both parties agree to try in good faith to resolve the matter directly; the fastest route is almost always to talk to us.

17. Contact

Questions about these Terms are answered by a real person, usually within one business day. Write to us here. The contracting legal entity is Ancient Designs LLC, the operator of Symphonia.

We would rather earn a parish's trust than hold it by contract. If anything here reads as unfair, tell us.