1. About Engineer Certificate Suite
Engineer Certificate Suite is an online software service designed to help engineers and trade businesses manage engineering records, including customers, properties, appliances, certificates, signatures, photographs and related job information.
ECS provides software and record-management tools. It does not carry out engineering work, inspections or certification on behalf of its users.
2. Your ECS account
You must provide accurate information when creating an ECS account.
You are responsible for:
- Keeping your login details secure.
- Ensuring people given access to your business account are authorised to use it.
- Keeping your business and engineer information accurate.
- Activities carried out through accounts belonging to your business.
- Removing or deactivating engineer access when it is no longer required.
Accounts must not be shared with unauthorised users.
3. Business accounts and engineers
ECS accounts operate as business accounts.
The account Owner controls the business account and may add authorised engineers subject to the limits of the selected subscription plan.
Information created by authorised engineers forms part of the relevant business account.
Engineer limits depend upon the subscription plan.
Current plan limits are:
ECS Solo — up to 1 user
ECS Business — up to 5 users
ECS Business+ — up to 10 users
We may introduce additional plans or change available plans in the future.
4. Free trial
Eligible new customers may receive an introductory 30-day free trial.
A valid payment method may be required when starting the trial.
Unless cancelled before the end of the trial, the selected subscription will automatically continue as a paid monthly subscription.
The introductory free trial is intended for new ECS business accounts and is not automatically repeated following cancellation, reactivation or plan changes.
We reserve the right to prevent repeated or abusive use of introductory trials.
5. Subscription prices
Current monthly subscription prices are:
ECS Solo — £8.99 + VAT per month
ECS Business — £14.99 + VAT per month
ECS Business+ — £19.99 + VAT per month
Subscriptions are billed monthly unless another billing period is specifically offered.
Prices may change in the future. Where required, existing customers will be given appropriate notice before a price change applies to their subscription.
6. Payments and Stripe
Payments and subscription billing are processed using Stripe.
By subscribing to ECS, you authorise recurring subscription charges to your selected payment method according to your chosen plan.
Payment-card information is handled through Stripe’s payment infrastructure.
ECS does not need to store your complete payment-card number.
7. Failed payments
If a subscription payment fails, your account may become Past Due or otherwise restricted.
We may temporarily restrict access to ECS until outstanding payment issues have been resolved.
Your business records will not ordinarily be immediately deleted solely because a payment has failed.
Once payment has been successfully resolved and the subscription becomes active again, access may be restored.
8. Cancelling your subscription
You may cancel your ECS subscription using the subscription-management facilities provided through your account.
Cancellation does not automatically delete your business records.
Where the subscription remains paid until the end of the current billing period, access may continue until that period expires.
After your subscription ends, access to some or all ECS functionality may be restricted.
If you later reactivate your account, another introductory free trial will not normally be provided.
9. Changing plans
Where available, the account Owner may upgrade or downgrade the business subscription.
Engineer limits will change according to the new plan.
If a business has more active engineers than permitted by the requested lower plan, ECS may prevent the downgrade until the number of active users has been reduced.
Stripe may calculate billing adjustments or prorated amounts when a subscription changes.
10. Your business data
Your business remains responsible for the customer and engineering information entered into ECS.
This may include:
- Customers
- Properties
- Appliances and equipment
- Certificates
- Inspection and test results
- Engineering notes
- Signatures
- Job photographs
- Engineer information
ECS does not claim ownership of your underlying customer or engineering records.
You grant ECS the rights necessary to host, store, process, back up and transmit this information for the purpose of providing the service.
11. Your responsibilities as an engineer or business
ECS is a record-management and certificate-generation tool.
You remain responsible for:
- Carrying out engineering work correctly.
- Holding any qualifications, registrations or authorisations required for the work you undertake.
- Entering accurate information.
- Performing appropriate tests and inspections.
- Determining whether equipment or installations are safe.
- Selecting and completing the correct certificate or record.
- Checking certificates before issuing them.
- Complying with applicable laws, regulations, standards and industry requirements.
- Maintaining any records you are legally required to retain.
ECS does not determine whether an installation, appliance or piece of equipment is safe or compliant.
Software prompts, calculations or certificate fields must not replace the professional judgement of a competent engineer.
12. Certificates and PDFs
ECS can generate electronic certificates and PDF documents from information entered by users.
You are responsible for checking that information is complete and correct before issuing a certificate.
ECS does not guarantee that entering information into a certificate automatically makes the underlying work compliant with any particular regulation or standard.
Certificate templates may be updated as ECS develops or requirements change.
Users remain responsible for ensuring that the certificate or document they use is appropriate for the work being recorded.
13. Signatures
ECS may allow customer and engineer signatures to be captured electronically.
You are responsible for ensuring that signatures are obtained appropriately and that the person signing has authority to do so where required.
14. Job photographs
ECS may allow engineers to upload photographs relating to properties, appliances, defects, remedial work and other job records.
You must only upload photographs you are entitled to collect and store.
You must not use ECS to store unlawful, inappropriate or unrelated material.
Job photographs are intended as private business records unless a feature specifically allows them to be included or shared elsewhere.
15. Acceptable use
You must not use ECS to:
- Break the law.
- Access another business’s information without authorisation.
- Attempt to bypass ECS security or account controls.
- Introduce malware or harmful code.
- Interfere with the operation of ECS.
- Store unlawful or seriously inappropriate material.
- Misrepresent qualifications or certifications.
- Use another person’s account without permission.
- Attempt to obtain ECS services without paying applicable subscription charges.
We may suspend accounts where we reasonably believe ECS is being misused or security is at risk.
16. Availability
We aim to keep ECS available and reliable, but no online service can guarantee uninterrupted availability.
ECS may occasionally be unavailable because of:
- Maintenance.
- Software updates.
- Hosting problems.
- Internet or network failures.
- Third-party service outages.
- Security incidents.
- Circumstances outside our reasonable control.
Where practical, we will seek to restore service as quickly as reasonably possible.
17. Backups and data loss
We use reasonable backup and recovery measures to protect ECS information.
However, no computer system or backup system can guarantee against every possible form of data loss.
Businesses should retain copies of particularly important records where required by law, regulation, professional standards or their own business procedures.
18. Data protection
Each party must comply with applicable UK data-protection legislation, including the UK GDPR and Data Protection Act 2018 where applicable.
For information that you provide directly to ECS for your account, subscription or dealings with us, ECS will generally act as a data controller.
For personal information entered into ECS by your business about your own customers, employees, properties or jobs, your business will generally act as the controller and ECS will generally act as a processor on your behalf.
19. Data processing terms
Where ECS processes personal information on behalf of your business as a processor:
Your business instructs ECS to process that information as reasonably necessary to provide, maintain, secure, support and improve the ECS service.
ECS will:
- Process personal information only on documented instructions from the controller, except where processing is required by law.
- Ensure persons authorised to process the information are subject to appropriate confidentiality obligations.
- Implement appropriate technical and organisational security measures.
- Take reasonable steps to assist the controller with appropriate requests concerning data-subject rights.
- Provide reasonable assistance concerning applicable security, breach and data-protection obligations.
- Use sub-processors where reasonably necessary to provide ECS.
- Require appropriate data-protection obligations from relevant sub-processors.
- Notify the controller where reasonably appropriate of a personal-data breach affecting information processed on its behalf.
- On termination of the service, delete or return personal information where reasonably required and technically practicable, subject to legal obligations and normal backup-retention processes.
- Make available reasonable information necessary to demonstrate compliance with applicable processor obligations.
The nature and purpose of processing is the provision of the Engineer Certificate Suite service.
Processing may include collection, storage, organisation, retrieval, consultation, transmission, backup and deletion of information.
The categories of individuals may include customers, property owners, tenants, engineers, employees, contractors and other people whose information is legitimately recorded by the subscribing business.
The types of personal information may include names, addresses, contact information, signatures, photographs, property/job information and certificate records.
Processing normally continues for the duration of the ECS subscription and any appropriate retention period afterwards.
20. Sub-processors
ECS may use trusted third-party providers to help deliver the service, including providers of hosting, payment processing, email delivery, backups, storage and technical infrastructure.
You authorise ECS to use appropriate sub-processors where reasonably necessary to provide the service.
We remain responsible for selecting providers appropriate to the services they perform and applying relevant data-protection requirements where required.
21. Security
We take reasonable measures designed to protect ECS accounts and information.
Users must also take reasonable security precautions, including using appropriate passwords and protecting devices used to access ECS.
You should contact us promptly if you believe an ECS account has been compromised.
22. Intellectual property
The ECS software, branding, interface, certificate templates, website content and underlying technology remain the property of ECS or their respective licensors.
Your subscription gives you permission to use ECS while your account is entitled to access the service.
It does not transfer ownership of the ECS software or intellectual property to you.
23. Suspension and termination
We may suspend or terminate access where reasonably necessary, including where:
- Subscription charges remain unpaid.
- ECS is being misused.
- There is suspected fraud.
- Security is threatened.
- These Terms are seriously or repeatedly breached.
- We are legally required to do so.
Where reasonably possible, we will seek to give appropriate notice.
24. Limitation of liability
Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits liability where it would be unlawful to do so, including liability that cannot legally be excluded under applicable law.
Subject to that:
ECS is not responsible for the quality, safety or compliance of engineering work carried out by users.
ECS is not responsible for losses caused by incorrect information entered by users, failure to carry out required inspections or tests, or the inappropriate issue of a certificate.
We are not responsible for indirect or consequential business losses where exclusion is permitted by law.
Where permitted by law, our total liability arising from the provision of ECS will be limited to the subscription fees paid by the affected business during the 12 months immediately preceding the event giving rise to the claim.
This section does not affect statutory rights that cannot lawfully be excluded.
25. Changes to ECS
We may improve, modify or add features to ECS over time.
We may also retire features where reasonably necessary.
Where a change materially affects the service being purchased, we will seek to provide appropriate notice where practical.
26. Changes to these Terms
We may update these Terms to reflect changes to ECS, our business, legal requirements or regulatory requirements.
The latest version will be published on our website.
Where changes materially affect existing subscribers, appropriate notice will be provided where required.
27. Governing law
These Terms are governed by the laws of England and Wales.
The courts of England and Wales will have jurisdiction over disputes arising from these Terms, subject to any rights that cannot lawfully be restricted.
28. Contact
Questions about these Terms can be sent to:
Engineer Certificate Suite
admin@engineercertificatesuite.co.uk