Merchant Agreement

This Agreement governs a Merchant's subscription to the Platform. It is not the contract on which the Merchant sells to its Customers. The Data Processing Agreement is Schedule 1 and part of this Agreement. The Privacy Policy also applies. It is one agreement for businesses everywhere; clauses 17 and 18 add what applies when you sell outside India or your business is established outside India.

1. Definitions

Words defined in clause 1 of the Terms of Service (Cuscato, Platform, Merchant, Storefront, Finder, Customer, Order, Booking, Invoice) mean the same here. You means the Merchant. In addition:

• Merchant Content: everything you or your staff put into the Platform, including your catalogue, prices, images, declarations, Customer records and notes.
• Subscription Fee: the fee for your plan (which may be zero), including any charge for extra outlets and for storage above your plan's allowance (clauses 7.5 and 7.6).
• Tax Suggestions: GST rates or classifications the Platform proposes for your products.
• Term: the period your subscription is active.

2. What Cuscato provides

2.1 Cuscato licenses software. You use it to run your own Storefront, under your own brand, selling your own goods and services, at your own prices, on your own terms.

2.2 Cuscato is not a party to your sales. Every Order and Booking is a contract between you and your Customer only. You are the seller. Cuscato is not the seller, not your agent for any purpose (including receiving payment), and does not prepare, deliver or serve anything.

2.3 No commission, no payment handling. Cuscato's only charge is the Subscription Fee. It takes no commission or share of Order value, and does not collect, hold, settle or pass on money from your Customers. Your Customers pay you directly - in cash, by cash on delivery, or in advance to you by UPI, card or net banking - through payment arrangements that are yours and under your own contracts; you choose in your settings which of these your own checkout offers. If Cuscato ever offers online payment itself, it will be under a contract between you and a licensed payment provider, and this Agreement will be updated under a new version first. Cuscato is not responsible for any payment, refund, chargeback, or failed or disputed payment between you and a Customer, and never makes refunds to Customers: refunds are yours to make where they are due.

2.4 The Platform keeps a record of each payment recorded for an Order or a Booking, or for a sale you never entered on the Platform (an Other Sale, recorded with a note of what it was for) - the amount, the method, when it was received and any payment reference (for a card, its last four digits, issuer and authorisation code) - for reconciliation only. Keep them accurate. It has no field for a full card number, card expiry date, CVV, UPI PIN, or a payer's UPI ID or bank account number, and you must not record them anywhere in it (a screenshot a Customer sends under clause 2.4K may show them; it is the Customer's). If you connect your own payment provider account in Settings > Payment Setup (Razorpay, Cashfree, PhonePe, Paytm or Stripe), the account, its contract and its fees stay yours: the provider pays you directly. You give Cuscato your account's API keys; they are stored encrypted, never shown again, and used only to: make payment links on your account for your Orders, each with the Order's number, the amount owed and your business's or outlet's name, and, where the provider requires a phone number, your outlet's phone; where you switch it on for a connection, make a UPI QR code for one Order (Razorpay, PhonePe) or a payment link that offers UPI only (Cashfree) with the same details, which your provider must first enable on your account and for which its fees apply; ask the provider whether a link or QR code was paid; cancel an Order's other open links once one of them is paid, its open links when your team changes the Order's price or the Order is cancelled, and those asking more than is still owed when your team records a payment for it, where the provider allows it, so the Order is not paid twice or at an old amount; and check the keys when you ask. A payment the provider reports for a link may be recorded on the Order, including one made on a link before it was cancelled. Cuscato does not promise that every payment is recorded, or when: check your provider's dashboard against the Payments list, record any payment that is missing, and tell us at support@cuscato.com if they differ. Give the keys the least access your provider allows (a restricted key where it offers one); test keys may be used only on a demo business. Cuscato's connection to each provider follows the provider's published documentation and, like the rest of the Platform, may change (clause 10.4). You are responsible for your provider account, its settings (including any webhook you add there) and any refund made through it. You may switch a connection off at any time (the Platform may still ask about links already made), and remove it while no payment has been recorded through it and none of its links can still be paid; removing it deletes its keys and its links, and closing your business deletes its keys and all its links, while the payments they brought stay in your records. You may also record a refund you gave a Customer (cash back or a transfer you made): it records what you did and reduces the Order's paid amount and payment status; no money moves through the Platform. You may publish your own UPI ID, a payment link from your own payment provider and a note on how Customers pay you, for the business and separately for any outlet that takes its own payments, and choose whether Customers see the UPI ID, the link or both; your owners, administrators and staff may attach a payment link to an Order. The Platform shows them on your Storefront, after an Order and in the Customer's order emails with the link's address, and for UPI as a link that opens the Customer's UPI app and a QR code, with the amount owed and the Order number. They must name you, or your own payment account (for an outlet that takes its own payments, that outlet's), as the payee, never Cuscato. A link must be your own payment page at a provider you contract with; you are responsible for it, for what the page asks for and for any payment made there. Cuscato does not check where a link leads and never routes payments, and refuses a link that is not https, has a user name or password, a port or an IP address, or is on Cuscato's own domain.

2.4A Advances. You may ask Customers for an advance on a product (a percentage of what the Customer pays for it, including tax and chosen options, or an amount per item) or for a Booking (per booking or per person, for the business or for a seating or booking area). The Platform shows it, with your note on how to pay it, before a Customer orders or books on your Storefront, and to your team when it takes an Order or Booking for a Customer, who you must then tell; it keeps the amount asked on the Order or Booking and marks the payments taken as an advance; it does not collect, hold or enforce it. An advance is part-payment of the Order, or a deposit towards the bill for a Booking, and never a separate booking fee. You must count a Booking deposit towards the Customer's bill: the Platform does not carry it from the Booking to a later Order. Your note must name you, or your own payment account, as the payee, never Cuscato. You are responsible for any receipt voucher, tax on the advance and invoice adjustment the law requires, and for your policy on returning advances, which you must make known to Customers.

2.4B Custom orders. Your owners and administrators may let an outlet take custom orders, with a short note to Customers. A Customer then asks for something not in your catalogue, with a description, pictures, a needed-by date and a budget if they wish; your team may decline it with a reason or send a quote. You choose the quote: the price, whether it includes GST, the GST rate from your tax rates, the HSN or SAC code and any advance (clause 2.4A), and how long it holds (1 to 30 days); you may change it before the Customer accepts, and only the latest one can be accepted. A GST rate can be quoted only while the outlet charges GST (a checked GSTIN on the regular scheme), and the quote's total - the price, with GST added if you quoted it without - is exactly what the Customer pays for the item: accepting places an Order at that total, with the outlet's delivery fee where it delivers, and an Invoice as for any Order, the GST included in that total being split by the place of supply. If the outlet no longer charges GST when the Customer accepts, the same total is charged without GST. Clause 4.1 applies to the rate and code you choose. A request is not an Order, does not count towards your plan's monthly Orders until accepted, and commits neither you nor the Customer. Unanswered requests expire after 30 days without a new note, quotes on their date; requests that do not become Orders are deleted 90 days after they close.

2.4C Offers and orders for later. You set ready times, delivery times, discounts, samples (free, or at a sample price below the product's price), a minimum and maximum per product and a maximum for your whole business (5,000 of a product per Order where you set none; 10,000 at most), and seasons, and you are responsible for them being accurate and lawful, including that a price is never above the MRP and that a list price is one you really charge. The Platform applies them for the time an Order is for (when it is placed, or the time an order for later is for), on your outlet's clock; a sample is the product as it comes, without choices that cost extra, one per Order and once per customer account on Orders Customers place themselves (your team may give more when it enters an Order), and only your staff (not a salesperson) or the Customer can add one; and the Platform records the list price, the discount and the price charged on the Order and the Invoice; a discount shown on the Invoice reduces the taxable value (CGST Act s.15(3)(a)). Free samples appear as zero-value lines on your Invoices and GST pack; a paid sample appears as a line at its sample price, with GST on that price and the list price shown, no discount applies to a sample, and your team cannot change its price; any other GST treatment of free supplies, such as input tax credit you may not claim on goods given away as free samples (s.17(5)(h)), is your responsibility. If you let an outlet take orders when closed (orders for a later time), you must be able to fulfil them at the chosen time or decline them; any advance you ask for is shown to the Customer and paid to you directly. You may set a large-order threshold (10 unless you change it): an Order with more items than it, all its lines together, is marked "Large Order" for your team when it is placed; a change applies to later Orders, and Customers do not see the mark. The per-product "For large orders" mark is withdrawn.

2.4D Delivery tracking. You may record, for an Order, the carrier, its tracking code, a live tracking link and the delivery driver's name and phone number, and post delivery updates for the Customer; a delivery person may post updates only for the Orders assigned to them. You are responsible for their accuracy and for where the link leads. You may share a driver's name and phone number only where the Customer needs them to receive the Order and you have a lawful basis to share them (for example, the carrier gave them for that purpose), and you must not put personal data in an update beyond what the delivery needs. The Platform shows them only to the Order's Customer and your team, hides the driver's details from the Customer when the Order is finished, and erases them and the link 30 days later. (b) Live position: you, an administrator or staff member may assign an Order to a delivery person. The device position of the person carrying an Order is shared automatically from the moment it is marked picked up (by them or your team) until it is marked delivered or not delivered, while the Deliveries page is open on their device. Only the latest position is kept; your team and that Order's Customer see it on a map with an estimated arrival time, and it is deleted when the delivery ends or at most two hours after the last update. Your team sees when a delivery person is not sharing (location blocked, or no position for 3 minutes). You are the controller of your delivery staff's data: before anyone delivers for you, tell them in writing that their position is shared automatically during each delivery, with whom and for how long, and rely on a lawful ground for it (for an employee, the employment purposes of section 7(i) of the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023; otherwise their consent). Cuscato does not track them outside a delivery or in the background. The arrival time is an estimate from a straight-line distance, which Cuscato does not warrant, and the maps come from OpenFreeMap, a free service without a service commitment, which may be unavailable.

2.4E Product insights. Your owners, administrators and staff see which products sell most, and how many visitors opened each product or added it to a basket, per day and outlet (sales values are shown to owners and administrators only). Views and basket adds are indicative: they count each visitor's network once a day, exclude visitors identified as automated and your signed-in team, and may be affected by shared networks or automated traffic we cannot detect; they may include some repeat visits. Sales figures come from your Orders that are not cancelled. Cuscato does not warrant the accuracy of view and basket counts.

2.4F Prices your team sets. Your owners, administrators and staff (not a salesperson or a delivery person) may charge a Customer a price for an item other than the listed one. They may do this when they take an Order, and after an Order is placed, with a reason. You are responsible for every such price being lawful and agreed with the Customer. A price is never above a pre- packaged product's MRP; the Platform refuses that. The Platform charges GST on the price charged (CGST Act section 15). It shows the listed price, the difference and the price charged on the Order and the Invoice. When a price changes after the Platform generated an Invoice, the Platform issues in your name, against that Invoice, a credit note (price lowered) or a debit note (price raised) under CGST Act section 34 and Rule 53(1A). Each note is numbered in its own series for each GSTIN (or for the business while it has none) and financial year. It shows the line, the old and new price, the tax difference split as on the Invoice, and the reason. A note revising a bill of supply shows no tax. You are its issuer. You are responsible for it, for reporting it in your returns, and for any refund or further payment it leads to, which is between you and the Customer. The Platform does not issue a credit note after 30 November following the end of the Invoice's financial year (section 34(2)). An earlier annual-return date is your responsibility. For an Order the Platform generated no Invoice for, only the Order changes, and you bill the Customer directly. Cancelling an Order cancels its notes with its Invoice.

2.4G Invoices at handover and advance vouchers. For an Order for a later date, the Platform issues your Invoice when you mark the Order handed over (out for delivery, shipped, collected, delivered or served), dated that day. It names the supplier as it stands that day: the outlet's GSTIN the Platform has checked, otherwise your business's, with the legal name and address then recorded. If charging GST, the composition scheme or the supplier's State has changed since the Order was placed, or a receipt voucher was issued for it, the Invoice keeps the supplier and tax the Order was priced under, and correcting it is yours to do. An Order cancelled before then is not invoiced. A table's bill (Customers ordering in rounds from a table's QR code onto one Order for the visit) is invoiced the same way, with every round on it, when its bill is asked for - a Customer's Pay Now or your Close Bill - or when you mark it served, whichever comes first, dated that day; after that no round is added to it. An Order never marked handed over is not invoiced; you must mark or cancel it, and the GST screen and GST pack list such Orders. Under a GSTIN the Platform has checked, the Platform issues in your name a receipt voucher for each advance recorded on such an Order before its Invoice, and a refund voucher for any part of such an advance given back that no Invoice has adjusted (CGST Act section 31(3)(d) and (e), Rules 50 and 51), in a series of its own for each GSTIN and financial year. How an advance is split over the Order's lines and taxed are the Platform's defaults; you remain responsible for your returns and should confirm them with your tax adviser. A composition business's vouchers carry no tax; a business not registered for GST receives none. The payment line on an Invoice (not paid, paid with a balance, fully paid, or paid more than the total) is information beside the Invoice, not part of it. Paid more than the total is not a refund owed: money given back is recorded as a refund, and an amount kept as part of the price must go through a price change (clause 2.4F), which issues a debit note. A refund you record is final: what the Platform shows as still owed on an Order is its total less what was received, refunds aside, so money given back is never asked for again, even if the price later rises. An advance kept on a cancelled Order, or above the Invoice, stays a receipt voucher with no Invoice; billing it as a charge is yours to do outside the Platform.

2.4H Cost prices and Your Day, Explained. (a) A cost price you enter for a product is your confidential business information: only your owners and administrators can see or change it; it is never shown to Customers, to the rest of your team or on your Storefront, and each order line keeps the cost price that applied when the order was placed. It is in your export and is cleared when your business closes. (b) Your Day, Explained is an indicative summary of your own figures, generated automatically, by a fixed template or by an AI model. AI summaries can be wrong and can differ each time; check the figures before you act on them. The figures are computed from your records as they stand when the summary is written. It is not accounting, tax or business advice, Cuscato gives no warranty of its accuracy or completeness, and every decision you take on it is yours.

2.4I AI suggestions. Suggestions made by AI (for example a product's name, category, description, label details or a GST rate) are yours to check and to accept or change. They can be wrong and can differ each time. You remain responsible for what you publish, including the declarations the Legal Metrology (Packaged Commodities) Rules require on a pack, FSSAI labelling and licence numbers, and the GST rate and HSN/SAC code you charge. A GST suggestion is never applied by itself. A photo you submit for suggestions is not kept unless you add it to the product.

2.4J Tables, table codes and wait estimates. (a) You may record your tables in a seating area, each with its own QR code. A table's code is a random code the Platform makes; it opens your menu for that table, and a Customer signed in to the Platform can order from it, as a dine-in Order at that table's outlet that records the table; your team can also choose one of your tables for an Order it enters. Your team (owners, administrators and staff, never a rider or a salesperson) may also open a table's bill and add rounds to any open bill of your tables from the Tables screen, for example on a waiter's tablet; a bill your team opens is under no guest's sign-in (if your team enters the guest's phone, it is kept on your customer record for that phone, as for a Counter sale; the invoice names the guest if your team enters a name, otherwise a walk-in customer), each round records who on your team placed it, and your team may give the guests a join code so they can order on it from the table's QR code too. You are responsible for what your team adds to a bill. A table's bill that still owes is marked completed only once its payment is recorded, or with a reason your team gives for completing it without one; your team may also leave such a bill unpaid to free the table for the next guests, with a note. Either way the bill keeps its invoice (the supply was made) and the amount still owed, and the reason or note is kept in the Order's history, where your team can see it; a payment can still be recorded on it later. You are responsible for the reasons and notes your team gives. You choose which products are on the table menu. Issuing a new code for a table, retiring or deleting the table, or deleting its seating area ends its code at once; do so if a card is lost or copied. Turning a seating area off stops Bookings there but not its tables' codes. (b) You set how long a party usually sits in each seating area; once enough Bookings there have been completed, the Platform uses instead the typical time from seating a party to your team marking its Booking completed, so mark Bookings completed when the party leaves. From it and the other Bookings for that area, the Platform shows a Customer, before and after booking, and your team, when the Customer's table is expected to be ready and how long it is usually held. These are estimates, labelled as such, worked out when shown and not stored; they do not count walk-in guests or late arrivals. (c) You are responsible for these settings, for the Orders placed from your tables and for honouring the Bookings you accept; Cuscato gives no warranty that an estimate is accurate.

2.4K Pay page links and Customers' payment details. (a) Your owners, administrators and staff may share a link to a pay page for an Order that still owes something. It shows your business's name (or, for an outlet that takes its own payments, that outlet's), the Order number, the amount owed and your UPI ID, with a UPI QR code and a link that opens the payer's UPI app; it shows nothing else about the Customer. Anyone holding the link sees the same: stop the link, or make a new one (which stops the old one), if it was sent to the wrong person. (b) A Customer may send the UPI reference of a payment they say they made, from that page, or signed in on the Order with a screenshot of the payment. These are the Customer's statements, not payments: record a payment from them only after you see the money in your own UPI app or bank account, and turn them down, with a short reason the Customer (and anyone holding the pay link) sees, if you cannot find it. Details you have not recorded or turned down within 7 days close by themselves, and the Customer is shown that they were not checked in time; you can still record a payment you later find, with its UPI reference. Details on an Order that is cancelled close too; a payment for a cancelled Order cannot be recorded, so settle it with the Customer outside the Platform. Pending details keep an unconfirmed self-service Order from cancelling itself for 24 hours after the first of them was sent, at most. Cuscato does not check a reference with any bank, NPCI or UPI app and verifies nothing about it. (c) A UPI reference can be on only one live payment of your business: the Platform refuses it a second time when your team records it; when your provider reports a payment with a reference already recorded, it is matched to that payment (on the same Order) or recorded without the reference, with a note to check both. (d) A screenshot is kept as a Customer's picture on the Order (clause 9 and the Data Processing Agreement) and may show the payer's name, UPI ID and bank; use it only to check that payment.

2.4L Who is coming and areas without kids. (a) A Booking may record how many of the party are men, women and kids, as the Customer or your team gives them; they are optional, add up to the party size, and are cleared when the Customer deletes their account or your business closes. (b) You may mark a seating or booking area as not taking kids. The Platform then refuses a Booking there that includes kids, from your team as from Customers, and shows Customers "No Kids" on that area; Bookings already accepted stay. It applies to Bookings only, not to Orders placed at a table. (c) The setting is an aid, not a check: a Customer may leave the numbers out. You remain responsible for any age rule that applies to your premises (for example under excise law) and for applying it at the door.

2.4M Services, the people who do them, and reminders. (a) You may give a product a length and list who serves at each outlet, with their working hours, the services each does and time they are away. Customers then see the names you list and may pick a person or Anyone; the Platform books a person only when they are free for the whole service and never twice at once. You choose the names: use ones your people agree to show, and keep the list current. (b) The Platform sends each Customer who booked for themselves a reminder before the Booking, as your Booking settings say (the day before by default), to their verified email or, in India and if you switch it on, by SMS to a Customer who asked for text updates. A reminder is an aid: you remain responsible for keeping or changing a Booking and for telling the Customer yourself where it matters.

2.5 You must not state or imply that Cuscato is the seller, a party to an Order, responsible for fulfilment, or the recipient of payment.

2.6 Cuscato as an intermediary. For the information you, your team and your Customers publish or send through the Platform, Cuscato is an intermediary under section 2(1)(w) of the Information Technology Act, 2000. It does not start the transmission of that information, choose who receives it, or choose or change what it says, except to disable access to it where the law or this Agreement requires, and it has no duty to monitor or approve it beyond the checks in clauses 13 and 14. Carrying out those checks does not make Cuscato responsible for your content, goods or services. Cuscato claims, and nothing in this Agreement waives, the protection of section 79 of that Act.

2.7 The Storefront Notice. Every page of your Storefront carries a notice, shown by the Platform, naming your business as the seller and stating that sales, payments, delivery and warranties are between you and the Customer and that Cuscato is not the seller. You must not remove, hide or contradict it in your content, messages, packaging or anywhere else.

2.8 Disputes with your Customers are yours to resolve. Complaints about your goods, services, prices, deliveries, cancellations and refunds, and your own claims against a Customer - such as an unpaid Order, a Booking nobody attended, a false order or abuse of your staff - are between you and that Customer. Cuscato does not investigate, decide or settle them, does not collect or guarantee payment for you, and cannot make a Customer pay or return anything. You handle your Customers' complaints yourself (clause 3). If a complaint reaches us, clause 16.6 applies, and we may act under this Agreement or the Terms of Service against an account that breaks them.

3. You are responsible for what you sell

You are solely responsible, as seller, for:

• your goods and services, their quality, safety, description and legality;
• food safety, at each outlet that sells food: holding a valid FSSAI licence or registration for its premises, complying with food safety law, and showing your licence number on your Storefront and bills;
• packaged goods and label details: you may show label details on any product (such as its ingredients, a "Contains" line, the FSSAI number printed on the pack, the batch number, best-before or use-by date, storage instructions and up to three photos of the label). If you sell pre-packaged goods, you must mark them as packaged and give at least the MRP inclusive of all taxes, the net quantity, and the name and address of the manufacturer, packer or importer (for imported goods, the importer and the country of origin), with every other declaration the Legal Metrology (Packaged Commodities) Rules, 2011 or other law requires for the goods, such as the common or generic name and the best-before or use-by date; your customer-care contact is shown with them. You are solely responsible for every detail and label photo being accurate and matching the package, and you must never charge more than the MRP. Wherever you give an MRP, the Platform requires a price in Indian rupees that includes GST and refuses a price above the MRP, but it does not check the details or photos against the goods;
• allergen and dietary declarations, where you sell food: declaring, for each food item and option, its allergens and its vegetarian, egg, non-vegetarian (chicken and meat, or seafood) or vegan status, and any Jain or Halal tag you give an item, accurately and kept up to date. The "Veg only" filter relies on these: it shows an item marked vegetarian or vegan only where it can be ordered without an option marked egg or non-vegetarian, and hides those options, so an option containing egg or meat must be marked as such. What you tick under What You Serve, for your business and for each outlet, decides which marks and tags your items may carry; it never hides an item from an outlet's menu, and a badge such as Pure Veg or Vegan is shown to Customers as your declaration and must be true of every item served there; a Jain or Halal tag is your own claim about that item, which Cuscato does not check or certify. When you untick a kind your items carry, the items you confirm are switched off or lose that mark or tag, as you choose;
• prices: you may enter a price before tax; Cuscato shows Customers the final price including the GST you charge on it (and, for a delivery, a delivery fee you set under "fulfilment", which is shown before the Order). Do not add a packaging, handling, convenience or similar fee after that price, any service charge must be optional and off by default, and any earlier or crossed-out price you show must be genuine;
• Invoices: the Platform generates an Invoice for each Order in your name when the Order is placed, from the details you and your Customer provide - a tax invoice if you have recorded a GSTIN that we have checked (the GSTIN on the GST certificate marked checked in your verification) and are not on the composition scheme, otherwise a bill of supply (on the composition scheme, once your GSTIN is checked, it carries your GSTIN and the declaration the law requires, and charges no GST). Until we have checked your GSTIN, including while your Storefront is open before verification, your Orders carry no GST and get a bill of supply without a GSTIN (it shows "GSTIN: N/A"; where you have recorded no GSTIN at all, your Storefront also shows your prices as "No GST"); if you are in fact registered, you remain responsible for the tax due on those sales and for any document the law requires. An outlet registered under a GSTIN of its own is invoiced under that GSTIN only once we have checked a GST certificate for that outlet carrying it (or your business's certificate, if it carries the same number); until then that outlet's Orders carry no GST and get a bill of supply without a GSTIN, and if you change an outlet's GSTIN this applies again until the new number is checked. A GSTIN covers only places of business in its own State: an outlet in another State charges GST only under its own GSTIN for that State, once we have checked its certificate, and otherwise its Orders carry no GST. If you edit or upload again a certificate we have checked, your Orders keep charging GST under the number we last checked until that certificate's valid-up-to date while we review it again; a new GSTIN is charged only once we have checked it. Whether you are on the composition scheme is recorded by you, for the business and, where it differs, for each outlet. You are its issuer, and you are responsible for its correctness (including your name and GSTIN, rates, HSN or SAC codes and place of supply), for any correction the law requires, and for keeping it as tax law requires. To issue a tax invoice to a Customer who gives a GSTIN, every item on the Order must carry its HSN or SAC code; until it does, the Platform does not take such an Order (one you record as handled offline is recorded, but not invoiced). An Order you record as handled offline - paid and delivered outside the Platform - gets an Invoice from the Platform only if you generate one for it, which you may do until it is cancelled (not for an offline Order recorded before this was possible). It is issued in your name under the rules above (an Order those rules would refuse is not invoiced), dated the day you generate it, with your GST details read again that day as for an Order for a later date (clause 2.4G); generating it in time is for you. Otherwise you bill it yourself. You may record the payments you receive for it and attach a payment link to it, as for any Order; no receipt voucher is issued on the Platform for an advance on it. A counter sale may name no customer; its invoice is made out to "Walk-in Customer". A sale of Rs 50,000 or more needs the customer's name and address (CGST Rule 46(e)) and is entered from the shop with them;
• payment, cancellations and refunds: the payment methods you accept, publishing your own cancellation and refund policy (the Platform shows the one you enter on your Storefront and before a Customer places an Order; it must not contradict the law or these terms), honouring it, and making any refund yourself - no refund is made through the Platform. A Customer can cancel their own Order on the Platform while you have not yet confirmed it and no payment has been recorded for it; after that, only you can. An Order a Customer placed themselves that you have not confirmed, and for which no payment has been recorded, is cancelled automatically after a period the Platform sets (a shorter one when it holds places at a sitting), and the Customer is told;
• fulfilment: the outlets, and the pickup, delivery or dine-in options, you offer, and delivering Orders yourself or through a delivery provider you choose. For each product, and on your quote for a custom order, you may set a Shipping charge (charged on a delivery) and a Handling charge, per item; they form part of the price of that item for GST, at its rate and HSN, are shown to the Customer before they order, and are charged and kept by you. For each outlet you may set a delivery fee, an amount above which delivery is free, a minimum order for delivery, the PIN codes you deliver to and a distance; none applies unless you set it, and each is shown to the Customer before they order. The PIN codes are checked on every delivery Order; the distance only when the Customer chooses to share their location and your outlet is on the map, and the Customer is told only whether you deliver there. Only your owners and administrators can set or change these terms, switch delivery on or off, or move an outlet on the map while a distance is set. The minimum and the area also apply to Orders your team enters; none of them, nor the fee, applies to offline Orders. The fee is paid to you. The Platform bills the fee as a line of the Order, taxed at the rate of the Order's main item or not at all when the sale carries no GST; whether that is the right treatment for your supply is for you to decide. The delivery records your delivery staff capture (the recipient's signature, a handover photo, a remark and whether cash was collected) are for your own audit and for looking into a delivery that went wrong or is disputed; the Platform never shows them to the Customer, and you use them only for those purposes. They are kept until you delete them (clause 7.7). A picture a Customer attaches to an Order, and every note you or a Customer adds to an Order, stay with it: neither you nor the Customer can remove or change them, except that a Customer's pictures are deleted after a year (clause 7.6), and a Customer who deletes their account removes the pictures and notes they added, and their name or number is then removed from your notes on their Orders. Your Customer sees the notes you add. You may remove only the pictures your own staff attached, and what your staff add stays with the Order if they later delete their own account;
• customer service: handling your Customers' questions and complaints. The Platform publishes on your Storefront, as "Seller information" beside the Verified badge: for your business, its name, legal name (once verified, the one we checked), registered address, GSTIN (or that it is not GST-registered, or is on the composition scheme), FSSAI number where you sell food and, where recorded, CIN; the phone and email you give as your contact for Customers, which you must give, and any customer-care phone and email; the name, email and phone of your grievance officer for your customers' complaints, whom you appoint and keep current in Settings > Business > Seller Details; for each outlet, its own legal name, postal address, GSTIN, trade licence and (where that outlet sells food) FSSAI number where it has its own, or that it uses the business's; and your cancellation policy and what you say about refunds (no refunds, or refunds allowed, with your own note), which must not contradict the law. It never publishes your PAN or your owner's own sign-in email or phone. Keep these details accurate: Customers rely on them to reach you, and the checkout names your customer care, else your contact for Customers. Refunds are yours to give; Cuscato never makes one. The outlet's address is published whatever its location setting says, so use a business address, not a home address. On the bills it generates, the Platform prints the outlet's own FSSAI number, and for an outlet that sells food and drink and has none, yours; and the supplier address the tax law requires. For an outlet offering pickup or dine-in, a map link, directions and its phone number are shown to Customers on the Storefront and at checkout only if an owner or administrator switches that on for the outlet; with it off, the Storefront and checkout show the outlet's name and city only and you tell Customers where to collect or come. The Verified badge shows the city and State of your registered address, never the street or PIN (clause 13.4);
• Bookings: confirming or declining Booking requests, or having a Customer's Booking confirmed automatically when it is made (Settings; a Booking that asks for a deposit or advance still waits for you). A Booking you have not confirmed is released automatically after the hold you choose in Settings (15 minutes unless you change it), which the Platform shows the Customer; one with a payment recorded for it is not released this way and keeps its places until you confirm or decline it. Bookings are free to Customers on the Platform; do not present any charge you make as a Cuscato or Platform booking fee. A deposit or advance you ask for (clause 2.4A) is paid to you directly, you must count it towards the Customer's bill, and you may record it against the Booking. Anything pre-ordered with a Booking is an Order from you;
• accuracy of your catalogue, stock, opening hours, holidays and closures and the places you offer for Bookings; and
• every licence, registration and permission your business needs, and any information the law requires you to show for what you sell.

4. Tax

4.1 You choose your tax. For a business established outside India, clause 18.2 applies in place of the GST features this clause 4 describes, and the rest of it applies as far as it can. You decide the GST rate and classification for each product and service you sell, and you are responsible for charging, collecting, reporting and paying tax on your sales, for your GST registration and returns, and for the GSTIN you record against each outlet. Only your owners and administrators can set or change an outlet's GSTIN, composition scheme, legal name, FSSAI number or trade licence. Whether CGST and SGST or IGST applies depends on the place of supply, and getting it right is your responsibility. The Platform treats goods, and services performed at your premises (food and drink, salons and wellness, classes, events and venues), as supplied at your premises for a pickup or dine-in Order and where they are delivered for a delivery, except that goods delivered to a customer who gives a GSTIN are supplied in that GSTIN's State (IGST Act s.10(1)(b)); and a service sold by a shop or an "other" business (an item whose code starts 99) as supplied in the State of the customer's GSTIN where one is given, else of the billing address, else of the delivery address, else at your premises (IGST Act s.12(2)). An item with no HSN or SAC code is treated as goods unless your business is a services or events and venues business. When you charge GST, items that would have different places of supply cannot be ordered together. The Platform does not let a business on the composition scheme supply to another State, or a business without a checked GSTIN deliver goods to another State (CGST Act sections 10 and 24).

4.2 Tax Suggestions are not tax advice. Where the Platform proposes a rate or classification, it is an informational default to save you typing. It may be wrong, out of date or unsuited to your business. You must check and confirm every rate before you use it, and once confirmed it is your rate. Cuscato accepts no responsibility for a Tax Suggestion. Take advice from a tax professional if you are unsure.

4.3 Invoices, credit notes and debit notes for your sales are yours: the Platform generates them in your name and Cuscato is not their issuer. Cuscato does not collect or pay tax on your sales. The only documents Cuscato issues in its own name are the receipts, invoices and credit notes for the Subscription Fee (clause 7.11). Invoices, bills of supply, credit and debit notes, receipt and refund vouchers, the GST documents, the Reports page and the counter bill (on screen, on paper and when printed to a Bluetooth printer) show a small line at their foot, "Generated by Cuscato · cuscato.com", with Cuscato's mark (a Bluetooth printout prints the words without the mark; data files such as CSV downloads carry neither); it says which software made the document and does not make Cuscato its issuer or the supplier. If your turnover requires e-invoicing, an Invoice the Platform generates for a sale to a GST-registered buyer is not valid until you register it on the Invoice Registration Portal; the Platform does not do that for you.

4.4 Reports are an aid. Your owners and administrators can see sales reports, download sales by day, an invoice register and an HSN summary, and download a GST filing pack: for each of your GSTINs, sheets laid out for GSTR-1 and a GSTR-3B summary, or a CMP-08 summary for a GSTIN under the composition scheme. The register, the HSN summary and the pack are prepared from the invoices and the credit and debit notes as issued on the Platform, and the sales reports from the Orders recorded on it, offline Orders included. A payment you record for no Order or Booking (an Other Sale) is counted in the payments received those reports and the pack show, but it is not an Order: the Platform issues no Invoice or other GST document for it, and it is in no invoice register, HSN summary or GSTR-1, GSTR-3B or CMP-08 sheet; account for that sale yourself. They include the credit and debit notes the Platform issued (clause 2.4F): sheets laid out for GSTR-1 table 9B (cdnr and cdnur) and table 13, with table 7, the HSN summary and the GSTR-3B and CMP-08 summaries net of them. They also include the receipt and refund vouchers the Platform issued for advances (clause 2.4G): sheets laid out for GSTR-1 tables 11A and 11B, with the GSTR-3B and CMP-08 summaries taking them into account. They do not include sales you record elsewhere, credit or debit notes or vouchers you make outside the Platform (for example for a return, or a refund on an Order whose price did not change), or e-invoices, which the Platform does not make; check them before you file. An invoice cancelled after the end of the period it was issued in stays in that period's sheets, and is listed in the pack for the period it was cancelled in, so you can decide whether to issue a credit note yourself. A buyer's GSTIN entered by a Customer at checkout is checked for its format only, not against the GST register; the pack lists such invoices separately so that you can check them before you file. Your GST returns remain your responsibility.

4.5 Swiggy and Zomato orders. If you connect an outlet to Swiggy or Zomato through Cuscato, your contracts with those platforms and with UrbanPiper are your own. Cuscato relays orders and your menu between them and your account; it does not sell on the platforms, take their payments or settle with you, and an order shown as "Paid to Swiggy" or "Paid to Zomato" is paid to that platform, which pays you under your contract with it; when your team cancels such an order, that record is voided (unless a refund is recorded on it), since the platform refunds its customer. Your opening hours, closures, pauses and locks usually reach the platforms within about five minutes. You are responsible for your menu, prices and availability on the platforms and for accepting or cancelling their orders in time. Cuscato records a restaurant order from a platform without GST on your bill because the platform pays that GST under section 9(5) of the CGST Act, and lists such sales in your GST filing pack; confirm this treatment, and the GSTIN of each platform you enter, with your tax adviser. Cuscato connects an UrbanPiper business id to your account only after it has checked that the id is yours; until then nothing is sent to the platforms for it. Switching a connection off, removing it or closing your business tells the platforms your store is closed.

5. The Finder

5.1 While your Storefront is open to the public (clause 13.3), you permit us to list your business name, your logo, the kinds of business and the cities your Storefront shows, your country, and a link to your Storefront in the Finder, a directory of businesses that use the Platform, with a tick once your business is verified. The Finder does not show, compare or sell your products and takes no Orders; Customers order only on your Storefront.

5.2 Listings are shown in alphabetical order of business name. No Merchant can pay for a position. A listing is not an endorsement.

5.3 We may remove a listing while your account is suspended or after it ends. You may ask us to remove your listing at support@cuscato.com.

6. Licence and acceptable use

6.1 During the Term you may use the Platform for your own business. The licence is non-exclusive and non-transferable.

6.2 You must not: copy, modify or reverse engineer the Platform (except where the law allows); resell or sublicense it; get round its security, rate limits or the separation between Merchants; scrape it; use it to build a competing product; or upload or publish anything unlawful, misleading, infringing or harmful. You must remove unlawful content once you become aware of it, and we may remove it ourselves.

6.3 You are responsible for everything done under your account and your staff's accounts, for keeping sign-in access secure, for removing access from people who leave, and for telling us of unauthorised access at support@cuscato.com with "Security" in the subject. Each change to an Order is recorded with the account that made it and when, for your records. Your business and its web address are created only when the code we email to the owner's address is entered, or by us when you ask us to set the business up for you (clause 10.5), and logins for your team need addresses that can receive mail, are not from temporary or disposable email services and have no "+" alias (such as name+shop@); the owner's address follows the same rule. When your owner or an administrator adds someone to your team, we email that person once with who added them, your business, their role and the sign-in link; your owner can hand the business to an administrator of your team who has signed in, confirmed by a code we email to the owner's address; the former owner becomes an administrator, both are signed out, and we email both. If your owner cannot do this (for example, the owner's mailbox is lost or the owner has left), we may make another person the owner on a written request from your business - a member of your team, or a new login with the name and email address you give - recording who asked, why and what changed, and we email the new owner and the former owner; a business can add up to 20 people to its team in a day. When the UPI ID or payment link customers are asked to pay to (the business's or an outlet's), or the business's name, GSTIN, PAN, legal name, State, registered address or GST scheme, is changed on the Platform, we email every owner whose email address is verified, saying who made the change, when and what changed (a UPI ID partly hidden, a link by its host, a PAN by its last four characters), and keep a record of the change in our logs. Your owners and administrators get an email for each Order a Customer places themselves (not ones your team enters), with what was ordered and a link to your order board, and for each Booking a Customer asks for themselves, with its time, number of people and area; both are on unless switched off in Settings. Your owners, administrators and staff can also turn on push notifications for the same Orders and Bookings on their own devices (Account, This Device), which stop when the sign-in they were turned on from ends; an alert shows the number and, for an Order, the amount, how it is fulfilled and any table, or, for a Booking, when it is for, the number of people and the seating area, with the outlet - never a Customer's name or contact details. Your owners and administrators also get push notifications reminding them that a document we checked is about to expire or has expired, naming the document and its date, never its number. The same emails and alerts go out for each custom order request a Customer sends (clause 2.4B), with its number, the outlet and the date it is needed by, and the Customer is emailed your quote or the reason you decline. Push notifications are carried by each device's own browser push service and can be late or not arrive: the order board is the record, not the alert. Customers are emailed when you confirm or decline a Booking they asked for themselves (with any reason you give), when it is confirmed automatically, or when such a Booking expires unconfirmed. Your staff can mark an item sold out until a time they choose; Customers then cannot order it, nor can your team.

6.4 Your Storefront address on a Cuscato domain is licensed to you for the Term only. When your business is closed it is released at once (clause 12.5), and anyone may then sign up for it. The links and QR codes the Platform makes for your Storefront and outlets hold only its public address, the outlet and any table you enter; they are made in your browser. The QR code of a table you record on the Platform (clause 2.4J) holds its public address and a random code the Platform makes for that table, and nothing else. A device that opened your Storefront keeps a read-only copy of your public catalogue for up to 30 days to show offline, marked as possibly out of date; Orders are always priced from your live catalogue.

6.5 Prohibited items. You may offer any lawful goods or services - products of every kind, food and drink, machines and appliances, appointments, treatments, classes, events and the like - but you must not offer:

• narcotic drugs or psychotropic substances;
• medicines that need a prescription, or any scheduled drug;
• alcoholic drinks;
• tobacco or nicotine products, including electronic cigarettes and vapes;
• arms, ammunition, explosives or fireworks;
• wild animals, or their parts or products, that the law protects;
• counterfeit goods, replicas presented as a brand's goods, or forged currency, certificates or identity documents;
• obscene or pornographic material;
• lottery tickets, betting or gambling;
• anything for finding out the sex of an unborn child; or
• anything else whose sale is unlawful, that needs a licence or permission you do not hold, or that clause 8 of the Terms of Service forbids.

When you save an item or a category, the Platform checks its name, description, choices and options against a list of such items and of offensive words, and refuses one that matches. The check is automatic and incomplete: an item that passes it is not approved by us, and you remain responsible for what you sell under clause 3. If the check refuses an item that is lawful, write to support@cuscato.com. We may remove a prohibited item, and suspend a Storefront that offers one, under clauses 12 and 14.

7. Fees

7.1 The Subscription Fee is the one published on our pricing page for your plan and your region when you pay for each billing period, or otherwise agreed with you in writing. It is payable in advance for each billing period. Prices are published in Indian rupees for businesses established in India, and in other currencies for businesses established elsewhere (clause 18); the price that applies follows where your business is established, not where you, your staff or your Customers are. Cuscato is not registered under GST, so no GST is charged on the Subscription Fee: the published price is the whole amount you pay, and our invoice shows no GST. Whatever changes later, the amount the Platform shows before you pay is the amount you pay, and our invoice shows any tax it includes (clause 7.2). A business established outside India that pays through Paddle (clause 18.3) buys from Paddle, which may add the sales tax, value added tax or goods and services tax of your country to the published price; Paddle shows the total at its checkout before you pay, and its invoice shows that tax.

7.2 Our prices, our plans and what each plan includes are set by us at our sole discretion and may change at any time, with or without prior notice; you have no right to be consulted about or to approve a change. A period you have already paid for keeps the price you paid: a higher fee or a new charge applies only from your next payment, and the Platform shows the price before you pay. If you do not accept it, you may end the Agreement instead of paying it. A lower fee, or a new optional paid feature, may apply at once.

7.3 We may suspend the Platform for unpaid fees after giving 14 days' written notice.

7.4 No refunds of plan payments. A plan payment is not refundable once it has been applied to your business: this includes a payment made ahead for a later billing period, and any part of a period you did not use, whether or not you used the Platform. We refund a payment only: (a) if it failed - money left your account but your plan was not given: a payment that never reached us is reversed by your bank or the payment gateway under its rules (in India, the Reserve Bank of India's rules on failed transactions), and one that reached us but was not applied to your plan we refund, or apply to your plan if you ask us to; (b) if it repeated a payment for the same plan and the same period; (c) if we do not apply it to your plan (clause 7.11), or it reached us after your business was closed (clause 7.12); or (d) if we end this Agreement under clause 12.3, or you end it under clause 7.2, 10.2 or 16.2, in which case we refund the unused part of the current billing period. Whether a payment failed or repeated another is decided by us, after checking it against our payment gateway's records. A refund goes back to the account the payment came from, through the payment gateway, or by the method you paid by. The extra days a plan change adds (clause 7.11) are time on the Platform, not a refund or a credit of money. A payment made through Paddle (clause 18.3) is refunded by Paddle, under its buyer terms as well as this clause: any right those terms give you is not reduced by this clause. When we or Paddle refund a plan payment, we may also remove from your plan the time that payment paid for, or the same share of it for a part refund.

7.5 Plans and their limits. Each plan has the limits published on our pricing page when you are on it: products, photos per product, team logins, outlets, Orders and Bookings a month, and storage. Up to three photos of a product's label, and up to two photos of each of its options, may be added besides its photos; they count towards storage. Every Order and every Booking counts, however it arrives - online, entered by your staff at the counter, by phone or on WhatsApp, or recorded as handled offline - and one allowance covers all your outlets. A month is the calendar month in your business's time zone. When the month's allowance of Orders (or Bookings) is used, no new one can be placed - online or entered by your staff - until the next month or until you change your plan, and your Storefront says so to Customers; nothing already placed is affected. A limit shown as "no limit" or "unlimited" is subject to fair use: it does not cover automated or test Orders or Bookings in bulk, keeping files unrelated to your business, or reselling the Platform. Each outlet after the first is charged at the price published for your plan; Starter has one outlet. A payment must cover every active outlet after the first: to pay for fewer outlets, pause the others first.

7.6 Storage. Storage is the files you and your staff upload for your business: photos (including photos of product labels and of product options), logos, delivery photos and signatures, and the pictures your staff attach to Orders. Orders, Bookings, Invoices and your other records never count towards it, however many you keep, and nor do the documents you give us to verify your business. We take a reading every day. Above your plan's included storage, extra storage is charged at the price published for your plan for each started GB, worked out from the average of that month's daily readings and billed after the month. We do not charge for extra storage until we tell you, by email and in the Platform, at least 30 days before the first month it is charged for. On any plan, one business may keep at most 20 GB of files, or its plan's included storage if that is more; above it new uploads are refused until files are deleted or we agree otherwise. We may also pause uploads for every business for a time, to protect the Platform's storage. Pictures your Customers attach to their Orders are not your storage: they never count towards it, are never charged and are never refused because of it. You cannot delete them on the Platform; they are deleted one year after the later of the day they were added and the day the Order ends (completed, delivered or cancelled; for an Order that never ends, the day it was placed), and kept while a complaint to us about the Order is open, or deleted earlier if the Customer deletes their account or an erasure instruction under the Data Processing Agreement covers them. To prevent misuse, a Customer may add at most five pictures to an Order, and a limited number to your Orders in any 24 hours and in any 30 days, and their pictures are kept at a smaller size than yours. Orders, Bookings and your delivery staff's delivery records are never refused because of storage.

7.7 Delivery records. Delivery photos and signatures are kept until you delete them. An owner may delete those older than a number of months they choose, from Settings; they cannot be recovered afterwards, and keeping the evidence you need is your responsibility. Invoices and Order records cannot be deleted this way: they are kept as the law requires.

7.8 Changing plan. If you move to another plan with lower limits, products and team logins beyond the new plan's limits become private: customers no longer see those products, and those logins cannot sign in (their sign-ins end and their devices stop receiving alerts). Nothing you created is deleted, and renewing the same plan changes nothing. Before you pay we show you what will become private, and you choose which products and logins stay (owners always stay); if you do not choose, products stay in the order your catalogue shows them and logins with administrators first, then those added earliest. Private items cannot be changed or used. If you move up to a plan with room, they become available again, as many as the new plan allows; you can choose different ones at any time in Settings. When anything becomes private we tell the owners by email, and Settings shows it. Monthly Orders and Bookings, photos per product and storage are limited by the new plan as before. If you stop paying, your Storefront is paused under clause 7.12. While an Enterprise period runs, it is changed by writing to us, not by paying online for another plan.

7.9 Annual billing. A plan paid a year in advance costs 10% less than twelve months, on the plan and its extra outlets; storage is still billed by the month on what you use. Clause 7.4 governs refunds.

7.10 Free trial. A new business gets a free trial of 30 days on the Scale plan. No payment details are needed and nothing is charged during it. To continue after it, you choose a plan and pay for it under clause 7.11. You can pay at any time during the trial or after it ends. Every new business starts with the free trial, except one set up with an owner email address, or with a phone number an owner has verified with us, that a business closed on the Platform was opened with: it starts without one, on the Starter plan, with its Storefront paused under clause 7.12 until a plan is paid (and closed under that clause if it stays unpaid). We keep a record of the businesses opened with each owner email address and each verified phone number (Privacy Policy, section 8), and count each on its own: while one of them has 3 or more businesses still open and none of them has a paid plan, no further business can be opened with it until one of them is paid or our support sets one up after a review, and we may review those businesses and lock them under clause 12.2A. Nor can a business be opened with an owner email address while a business opened with it is locked under clause 12.2A or suspended under clause 12.2, or, for 3 years after that business was opened (Privacy Policy, section 8), once it was closed while it was locked or suspended; write to support@cuscato.com to have it reviewed.

7.11 Paying and renewing. Each billing period, monthly or yearly, is paid in advance by a one-off payment that you make yourself from Settings, through our payment processor (Razorpay or Cashfree in Indian rupees; in US dollars or euros, PayPal or Razorpay, or, once we offer it for your region, Paddle as our reseller, clause 18.3), or by another method we agree. You can pay only while signed in to your business as its owner or an administrator; each payment link is for that one payment and expires after 48 hours, or at the closing date under clause 7.12 if that comes first (but never sooner than 20 minutes after you start it). We do not save your card or set up any automatic debit. Only one payment link is open at a time: starting a new one, or a payment we record for you, closes the earlier one. The plan and number of outlets you pay for apply as soon as the payment is confirmed; only the dates follow the rules below. A renewal - the same plan, billing period and number of outlets as the payment behind your current paid time - or any payment while no paid time is running (the free trial before you have paid anything, the 10 days after a period ends, or a pause) adds one period after the current period or trial ends, or from the payment if that is later. A payment for a different plan, billing period or number of outlets while paid time is running (including paid time due to start when the free trial ends) is prorated: a new period starts when the payment is confirmed, or when that paid time starts if later, so the rest of the free trial is kept, and any days we gave you on top of what you paid are added at its end; the unused part of what you paid is added to it as extra whole days on the new plan, worth the same at the new plan's price. Settings shows the result before you pay. Nothing is paid back for a change (clause 7.4). A payment through a link that was closed before it was paid, or one that can no longer apply when it is confirmed - an Enterprise period agreed with us is running, or it does not cover the outlets then active (clause 7.5) - does not change your plan: it is added to your current plan as extra time, worth the same at the rate you paid for it, and we contact you - unless a payment made since that link was started already pays for your plan, in which case it is not applied and we refund it. If your plan has no end date (one we agreed with you), such a payment cannot add time: it is not applied by itself; we check it, then apply it or refund it. A payment we record for you on a plan with no end date gets its receipt and invoice for one billing period after the paid time already recorded, or, for another plan, changes your plan from that day as any change does; either way your plan keeps no end date. A payment that does not match the link it was made through (another amount or currency), or a second payment through a link already paid, is not applied by itself: we check it, then apply it or refund it. A payment we do not apply under this clause (another amount or currency, a second payment through a link already paid, a late payment another payment already covers, or one that cannot add time to a plan with no end date) is refunded in full and gets no receipt, no invoice and no credit note; one we apply instead is recorded and invoiced like any other. Each payment we record gets a receipt number, and we email a payment receipt to your owners; you can see your receipts later in Settings, under Plan. A receipt's number states the financial year, the date and time of the payment and a running number. A receipt records the payment. For each payment we record, other than a test payment or a payment through Paddle (Paddle issues that invoice, and any credit note for it, clause 18.3), we also issue an invoice under the name Cuscato (one that applies the reverse charge also gives our postal address), marked paid, in the currency you paid, numbered with the financial year and a running number; its lines add up to the amount paid, and it charges no GST (clause 7.1); an invoice in another currency says that no tax is added and, for a business in the European Union, the United Kingdom or the Isle of Man, prints its VAT number and "Reverse charge" (clause 18.3). The receipt is the payment's email: the invoice is not emailed (except one issued after your business closed, below), and you can see, print and email it to your owners in Settings, under Plan. While our payment processor is in test mode, a payment takes no money: it gets a test receipt, marked as such, and no invoice. While it is in test mode only demo businesses can pay online; a test payment for any other business, or one confirmed after we have switched that processor to live payments, does not change your plan. A payment or payment link made in test mode is not a subscription payment under clauses 7.12, 12.4A and 12.5: it does not stop a business with nothing else to keep from being deleted when it closes, and is deleted with it. Payments made with a processor's test keys before we took live payments keep the receipt number they were given, are marked as test payments and get no invoice. A payment received after your business is closed is not applied: its invoice says so, is emailed to the contact kept when the business closed, with no link to the Platform (keep that email as your copy), and the payment is refunded (clause 7.12). When we refund all or part of a payment, we issue a credit note against its invoice and email it to your owners (or that contact); the invoice then shows the refund. A refund takes the time it paid for with it: a full refund removes the time that payment paid for, and a part refund the same share of it, so the end of your plan moves back accordingly; days carried over from earlier payments stay, and refunded money is not counted again when you change plan. We make refunds through the payment processor, or by the method you paid by.

7.12 Grace and pause. We email the owner 15 days and 10 days before a period or trial ends, then every day until it is renewed or the Storefront pauses (in the 10 days after it ends, marked urgent, with an urgent notice in the Platform for your owners and administrators), once on the day it pauses (with the closing date below), and once 7 days before the closure. For 10 days after it ends, the Platform keeps working as before. After that, until you renew, your Storefront is paused: Customers cannot see your products, order or book, and no new Order or Booking can be entered by you or your staff. You can still sign in, see and export your records, change your settings and renew. Your Storefront reopens once your payment is confirmed. Orders, Bookings and payments that could not be taken while it was paused are not recovered by the Platform: after you renew, you deal with them yourself, for example by entering the Order or Booking or recording the payment by hand (payments your own payment provider reports to the Platform keep being recorded during a pause). If it stays paused for 30 days (40 days after the period or trial ended), the business is closed as if you had closed it yourself (clause 12.5) and its web address is released; one with no Orders, Invoices or subscription payments is deleted at once, or once no payment for a payment link it started can still arrive (up to 5 days). We never close it sooner than 7 days after the last of those emails, counted from when it is sent (if every email to the owners fails for 3 days, from the first attempt). A payment link started before the closing date postpones the closure by at most 5 days. A payment received after the business is closed is not applied, and we refund it. Only a payment stops it - a confirmed payment, or our recording one or changing your end date; signing in or editing does not. Demo businesses and businesses we have suspended are not closed this way. A pause is not a suspension under clause 7.3. We may, at our discretion, extend your trial or paid period without payment (for example for a pilot); doing so once does not oblige us to do it again, and the extra time is not a credit of money.

8. Content, intellectual property and confidentiality

8.1 Cuscato owns the Platform and the Cuscato name. You own your Merchant Content and give us the licence needed to host, process, display (including in the Finder, and in the preview picture of your Storefront's link that apps such as WhatsApp show, made from your business name, logo, web address and what you offer) and back it up in order to provide the Platform.

8.2 You confirm you have the rights to your Merchant Content, including every image you upload.

Every picture uploaded to the Platform is saved as a new copy made from the picture alone, without hidden details such as where it was taken. Before a product photo, a photo of one of its options or of its label, an outlet photo, a logo or a profile photo is saved, an automated check looks at it and refuses it if it appears to show nudity, gore, weapons or drugs, or if words in it are offensive. A PDF document is refused if it carries scripts, embedded files or other active content. These checks are automatic and can be wrong in either direction: a picture they accept is not approved by us, and if they refuse one that is lawful, write to support@cuscato.com. A refused picture or document is not kept.

8.3 Neither party may use the other's name or logo in publicity without consent, except for your listing under clause 5. We may use feedback you give us about the Platform freely.

8.4 Each party will keep the other's non-public business information confidential and use it only for this Agreement, unless the law requires disclosure.

9. Data protection

9.1 For your Customers' personal data you decide the purposes and Cuscato processes it on your instructions, under the Data Processing Agreement. For your staff accounts, sign-in, security and technical records, and the Finder, Cuscato decides the purposes, as described in the Privacy Policy. Where the data-protection law of another country applies to you because you offer goods or services to people there (for example the GDPR, if you sell to people in the European Economic Area), you are responsible for meeting it as controller, and clause 13 of the Data Processing Agreement gives the processor terms that law requires of Cuscato.

9.1A Guest Orders. Customers may also order from your Storefront as guests, without a Cuscato account, after confirming their mobile number (by SMS in India) or email address with one code. Their name and contact details come to you with the Order and are kept as your customer record - the one you already have for that contact, or a new one marked as a guest; you are their controller as for every Customer. A guest pays you by your own UPI ID, cash or as you agree with them; online payment providers are offered only to signed-in Customers.

9.2 You confirm you have a lawful basis for all personal data you record in the Platform - about Customers, about people you record as leads or who were referred to you (who may never have used the Platform), about signed-in customers the Platform shows you as leads when they leave an item in a basket on your Storefront without ordering for the time you set (one hour unless you change it; contact them about that basket only, unless they have agreed to more; you may switch basket leads off in Settings, and while they are off nothing is recorded and baskets not yet shown are removed), and about walk-in, phone and WhatsApp customers your staff enter, and about people you import from a spreadsheet, a contacts file or your phone's contacts (they are recorded as not having agreed to marketing, and Cuscato sends them nothing because they were imported) - that you give them the notices the law requires, that you contact them only where you lawfully may, and that you will answer their requests about their data. Give each member of your team only the role their work needs: a salesperson sees the leads assigned to them and the Orders they took, and staff see your whole customer book. The Platform shows the members of your team which of them are online, worked out from their live connection and never stored. Your own privacy notice must say that your Storefront runs on software supplied by Cuscato. Do not record health, religion, caste, sexual orientation, biometric or financial information in free-text fields.

9.3 Cuscato decides where and when the Platform uses artificial intelligence, and may add, change or stop any AI feature at any time, as section 4.3 of the Privacy Policy describes; today it is used, for example, for the picture check (clause 8.2), Your Day, Explained (clause 2.4H), AI suggestions (clause 2.4I) and the assistant's Ask box, which only reads what the person asking can already see and never changes anything. Results that AI produces can be wrong and can differ each time; check them before you rely on them. Today nothing you, your team or your Customers put on the Platform is used to train any model, except the questions typed in the Ask box that the assistant could not answer, kept 90 days with contact details and ID numbers removed and used, without who asked, to improve the services Cuscato provides to Customers and Merchants, for which Cuscato is the Data Fiduciary (Privacy Policy section 4.2D). Cuscato may decide to train or improve models in future; before any data is used for that, this Agreement and the Privacy Policy will be re-published under new versions saying what is used and how, and personal data will be used only with what identifies a person removed or on a lawful basis of Cuscato's own (Data Processing Agreement clause 3.2). Otherwise your Customers' data will not be used for any purpose of Cuscato's own without your instruction and a lawful basis.

9.4 Your owner or an administrator may connect an AI assistant of your choice (for example Claude or ChatGPT) to your business, from the approval page it opens, and disconnect it in Settings > AI Assistants at any time. A connected assistant acts as the login that approved it: it can read what that login can read, including your Customers' names, phone numbers, addresses and notes, and, if changes were allowed, change an Order's status, a product's price (to between half and double of it, once an hour per product) or stock, or mark a product sold out, at most 30 changes an hour. It cannot cancel an Order, record or refund a payment, or delete anything. What it does is done by you; check its changes as you would a team member's. You choose its provider and are responsible for your terms with it and for having a lawful basis to make your Customers' data available to it (clause 9.2); it is not Cuscato's Sub-processor (Data Processing Agreement clause 5.3), and AI can be wrong (clause 9.3). Cuscato does not run a connected assistant and is not responsible for what it, or its provider, does with the data you let it read; the approval page shows the site it connects to, marked unverified when Cuscato does not know it. A connection lasts 30 days, after which the assistant asks to be approved again. Cuscato may limit or switch off connections to protect the Platform, your Customers or you.

10. Availability and support

10.1 The Platform is provided as it is and as available. We do not promise uninterrupted or error-free service, and no uptime figure applies. We may carry out maintenance, with notice where practicable.

10.2 The Platform and its plans are ours to decide. We may add, change, limit, suspend or remove any feature, limit, integration or plan, at any time, for any reason, with or without notice, and you have no right to be consulted about or to approve such a decision, or to require us to keep any feature. If a change materially reduces a paid plan during a period you have already paid for, we will tell you beforehand where we reasonably can, and you may end this Agreement and receive a refund of the unused part (clause 7.4). A change needed for security, to stop fraud or abuse, or to comply with the law or an order of a court or authority may be made at once.

10.3 Support is by email at support@cuscato.com. Sign-in codes and service emails come from noreply@cuscato.com, which cannot be replied to. If you switch on the daily summary in Settings, your owners and administrators with a verified email get one each morning with the previous day's orders, sales, payments and top products, beginning with Your Day, Explained (clause 2.4H), with no Customer's name or contact details in it; it is off until you switch it on. Where offered, Cuscato sends SMS and WhatsApp messages for authentication and service purposes to you, your team and your Customers and, only with the consent your owner gives by ticking the separate box at sign-up or switching it on in Settings, for promotional and marketing purposes to that owner (never to your team or your Customers), up to a daily number Cuscato sets across the Platform. SMS goes to numbers in India only, and WhatsApp never to numbers of the countries clause 18.1 lists (which include those under comprehensive sanctions), told apart by their calling code and, for Russia, which shares +7 with Kazakhstan, by the number's national prefix. Each message carries only what it is for, Cuscato chooses the wording and the provider, and sends none of your own marketing. Your owner and your Customers can switch off what they asked for at any time (your owner in Settings), and we can on request. Services you use from other providers, including your payment and delivery providers, are between you and them.

10.4 A service we keep improving. The Platform is a live service: your Storefront, Orders, Bookings, Invoices and records are real, and you remain responsible for them and for what you sell (clauses 3 and 4). We keep building it, so features, screens and limits may change (clause 10.2) and some may have defects; tell us about them at support@cuscato.com. This changes none of this Agreement, the Data Processing Schedule or our policies, and neither adds to nor takes away from your rights under clause 7 or the law. Plans and prices may change at any time with or without prior notice (clause 7.2).

10.5 Help from us. When you ask us to, we may set your business up on the Platform for you, or change its name, legal name or registered address. We act only on a request from your business, record each change with who made it, why and what changed, and email your owners what was changed. A business we set up starts with Orders and Bookings switched off, and its owner accepts this Agreement for that business at their first sign-in there, even if they have accepted it for another business (clause 15.3), and the Privacy Policy unless their Cuscato account has already accepted its current version. We never accept these terms or give a consent for you, and never change your GSTIN, PAN, State, GST scheme, FSSAI number, plan or billing, payment details, team (except making another person the owner on your written request, clause 6.3), or any sign-in email or phone number, or close or export your business. Check what we set up: your business's details and what you sell remain your responsibility (clauses 3 and 4). You can change your business's name yourself in Settings, and ask us once to change its web address (clause 14.7); Invoices and receipts keep the name they were issued under.

11. Liability and indemnity

11.1 The Platform is provided as it is and as available. Except as stated in this Agreement, and as far as the law allows, Cuscato gives no warranty, express or implied, including of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, uninterrupted or error-free operation, or any level of sales or custom. As far as the law allows, Cuscato is not liable for any information, goods or services published, offered or supplied by you or any other Merchant.

11.2 Cuscato is not liable for your Orders, Bookings, goods, services, food safety, declarations, prices, tax, Invoices, payments, refunds, deliveries, or the acts of your staff or Customers - including anything unlawful done by you, your staff or a Customer, or arranged between you and a Customer, on or off the Platform. Whoever does it is responsible for it; clause 12.2 lets us suspend the accounts involved, and we report it where the law requires.

11.3 Neither party is liable for indirect or consequential loss, or for loss of profit, revenue, business, goodwill or data.

11.4 Cap. Each party's total liability under this Agreement is limited to the greater of the Subscription Fees you paid in the 12 months before the claim arose and ₹5,000.

11.5 Clauses 11.3 and 11.4 do not limit: liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence; fraud; gross negligence or wilful misconduct; your obligation to pay fees; your indemnity in clause 11.6; or anything the law does not allow to be limited.

11.6 Indemnity. You will defend, indemnify and hold harmless Cuscato, its directors, officers, employees and agents against every claim, demand, proceeding, penalty, fine, tax, loss, liability and reasonable cost (including legal costs) brought or imposed by a Customer, any other third party or an authority, to the extent it arises from: your goods, services, Orders or Bookings; any dispute with a Customer; your Merchant Content, including any claim that it infringes a trade mark, copyright or other right, impersonates any person or business, or is false or misleading; any document, statement or authorisation you give us that is false, forged, altered, expired or not yours to give; your declarations, prices or tax (including any tax assessed on Cuscato because of your sales); or your breach of clauses 2.7, 3, 4, 6, 9, 13 or 14 or of any law that applies to your business. This does not apply to loss caused by Cuscato's own breach, negligence or wilful misconduct.

11.7 We will tell you of a claim we ask you to cover, let you control its defence and settlement with counsel reasonably acceptable to us, and give you reasonable help at your cost. You must not settle a claim in a way that admits fault by, or puts an obligation on, Cuscato without our written consent. We may take part with our own counsel at our own cost. Clauses 11.6 and 11.7 survive the end of this Agreement.

12. Suspension, termination and exit

12.1 The Term renews at the end of each billing period until either party ends it. You may end it at any time, effective at the end of the current billing period, or at once by closing your business under 12.4.

12.2 We may suspend your account or listing immediately if you breach clause 3 or 6, if we reasonably suspect unlawful activity, or if the law or an authority requires it. We may end this Agreement for a serious breach, or for a breach you have not fixed within 14 days of our notice. Clause 14 governs impersonation, false documents and fraud.

12.2A Locking a business. On the grounds in clause 12.2, or where an owner's email address or phone number has several businesses on free trials and none is paid (clause 7.10), we may lock a business. While it is locked, you and your team can still sign in and see its records, manage your own account, pay for a plan (and choose what stays on it, clause 7.8) and close the business under clause 12.4, and Orders and Bookings already placed can still be fulfilled, cancelled and refunded on the Platform, but nothing else in the business can be changed, and Customers cannot see the Storefront, order or book. While it is locked we help you with any request from a Customer about their personal data (Data Processing Agreement). We email the business's owners when we lock it, with our reason, and you can ask us to review it at support@cuscato.com. Where our email says a plan payment for that business resolves the reason, the business unlocks by itself once that payment is recorded; otherwise paying does not unlock a business by itself: write to us once you have paid, and we unlock it when the reason no longer applies. Closing a locked business does not end the lock's effect on opening another business (clause 7.10).

12.3 We may also end this Agreement for any reason on 30 days' notice.

12.4 Closing your business. The Owner can close the business on the Platform at any time: download its data first (its settings, outlets, tax rates, categories, products with their options, allergens and outlets, Customers and leads with their addresses and the notes about them, Orders with their lines, Invoices, history, notes and payments, Bookings, seating, tables and sittings, your team, as CSV files, and the photos, documents, attachments and delivery proofs themselves; if you cannot sign in, an owner can write to support@cuscato.com from their verified email address and we send the same copy), then choose Close business, type the business's web address name and enter the code we email. Closing ends this Agreement and cannot be undone. If we end the Agreement instead, we will tell you how to download your data and when the business will be closed.

12.4A Businesses nobody uses. If no one uses your business on the Platform for 12 months - no sign-in by you or your team, no Order or Booking, no subscription payment and no change to your products or settings; renewing a "stay signed in" sign-in counts as a sign-in - we may close it. We email every owner with a verified email address, and close it at least 30 days after the email is sent (or, if every email fails for 3 days, after the first attempt), saying the date; any of that activity before the date cancels the closure. The business is then closed as if you had closed it yourself (clause 12.5); one with no Orders, Invoices or subscription payments is deleted at once, or once no payment for a payment link it started can still arrive (up to 5 days). This applies only to a business with no plan end date (one we agreed to leave open-ended); a business with an end date is instead closed under clause 7.12 if it is not paid. We do not close this way a demo business or one we have suspended.

12.5 What closing does. At once: the business's web address is released and anyone may sign up for it, nobody can sign in to the business again, and the business leaves the Finder. Straight after, in steps: every login - yours, your team's and your Customers' - is deleted; and your Customers' personal data (except the buyer's details printed on each Invoice), every photo and file, and every note on an Order are deleted. A step that is interrupted is finished automatically. Kept, read-only and reachable by nobody through the Platform: each Order's items, amounts and taxes, each Invoice exactly as issued, and the history of changes without personal details, because tax law requires these records to be kept. They are deleted automatically eight years after closure. If you need a copy in that time, for example for a tax assessment, write to support@cuscato.com; we will first confirm it is you, and send the copy only to the business email address on record. The duty to keep your business records under tax law stays yours; this archive helps you meet it. Deleted data leaves backups as they are overwritten.

12.6 Cuscato keeps its own record of your business - its legal name, GSTIN, PAN, State and registered address, and our billing records for your subscription - as our own business record, for as long as the law requires us to. The business email address and phone number are kept with the archive in 12.5, only so we can confirm it is you and send you a copy, and are deleted with it.

12.7 Demo businesses. A demo business is one we set up for someone to try the Platform. It is reset to its sample data every day at 00:00 UTC, unless we switch that off for it, and whenever we choose: its Orders, Bookings, requests, payments, Invoices and other documents, Customers, leads, notes, reviews, and the pictures and files added to it are deleted for good, and its products, outlets and areas are made again. The business, its settings and logo, its logins and the records of who accepted these terms are kept. We may also delete any one of those kinds of content from it at any time, and delete the whole demo business when it is no longer needed. Complaints about a demo business are kept like any other. A demo business that has paid, or started to pay, a Subscription Fee is not reset, cleaned or deleted this way; it is closed like any other business (clause 12.4). A test payment, which takes no money, does not count, and may be deleted with the demo's content, except an unpaid test payment link that can still be paid, which stays until it closes, unless the whole demo business is deleted. A payment made with a processor's test keys before we took live payments (clause 7.11) does not stop the daily reset or a clean-up either, and they never delete or change it; but it is kept, so a demo business that has one is not deleted this way.

12.8 Test businesses. We may permanently delete, at once and with all its records, a business set up only to test the Platform: one that has made no payment of a Subscription Fee except test payments, and holds no Invoice for an Order that was paid. A business with either of those is never deleted this way; it is closed like any other business (clauses 12.4 to 12.6).

13. Verification of your business

Verification under this clause 13 is offered only to businesses established in India (clause 18.2); a business established elsewhere does not upload these documents, and its Storefront is open without a Verified tick, as clause 13.3 describes.

13.1 Documents. Before your Storefront is open to the public you must upload, through the verification page: one identity document (any one of your GST registration certificate, the PAN card of the business, or your Aadhaar card with its first 8 digits hidden - a masked Aadhaar, of which we keep only the last 4 digits; one that shows the full number is rejected and its file removed as soon as it is read); every licence or registration the law requires for what you sell, including, for a food business, your FSSAI registration or licence; and, if you are not the proprietor, partner or director named on those documents, proof that you are authorised to act for the business. A business or trade licence or registration (such as a Shops and Establishments registration, municipal trade licence, Udyam registration, certificate of incorporation or registered partnership deed) is optional; if you upload one we check it too. We may ask for more.

13.2 Your promises. You confirm that every document and statement you give us is genuine, complete, current and yours to give, and that the business named in them is the business that runs your Storefront. You will upload a renewed document before one expires, and tell us within seven days if any of them is cancelled, suspended or changed. Your business is responsible for its own documents and details: you must keep giving us the latest version of each one, and give every detail truthfully. Each time you send documents for review you confirm this by ticking a declaration on the verification page; we record that you did, when, and which version of the declaration and of this Agreement it was. Documents you upload are read automatically to fill in your form and to show you and our reviewers anything that does not match; you remain responsible for the details you send for review.

13.3 Our checks and when your Storefront is public. We check your documents against the issuing authority's records (a masked Aadhaar only against the document itself: we do not look it up with UIDAI), by hand or through a service provider, and may refuse or withdraw verification if a document cannot be confirmed, has expired or does not match the name you trade under. Your Storefront is open to the public whether or not your business is verified: until it is verified, including while we check your documents and after we have refused verification, it carries no Verified tick and its seller details say it is not verified. A name that is waiting for the brand check in clause 14.2 is the exception: your Storefront opens only after that check. We remind your owners and administrators 30 days, 7 days and 1 day before a document we checked expires (not while documents you have sent are waiting for our review), by email, in the app and, on devices where they have turned on alerts, by a push notification. If a verified document expires and is not renewed, your business is shown as not verified from the day after it expires until we have checked the renewed one; your Storefront stays open. You may replace a document and send your business for review again at any time, also after it is verified; until you send it, and while we review it, your business stays shown as verified only while the documents we checked are in date. If a verified business starts selling food or drink, we send it back for review ourselves, with any document you have changed but not yet sent, because its FSSAI licence has not been checked. If we refuse a re-verification, your business is shown as not verified at once. You may also replace a document while we are checking your documents, which sends them back to be checked again, and after we have refused or removed verification, when you may send new documents for review.

13.3A Removing verification. We may remove your business's verification at any time, also long after we verified it, if a document or detail turns out to be untrue, misleading, forged, cancelled or no longer valid, or if you break clause 13.2 or 14. We tell your owner and administrators why by email; the Verified tick goes at once and your seller details say your business is not verified, but your Storefront stays open (unless its name is still waiting for the brand check in clause 14.2), and you may send new or corrected documents for review.

13.4 The badge. When your business is verified, your Storefront shows a Verified business badge that displays your verified legal name, trade name and type of entity, the city and State of your registered address or principal place of business as it appears on your documents, and the number, status and dates of the documents we checked (never your PAN, and never the documents themselves). You consent to that display. The badge means only that we checked those documents; it is not a statement by Cuscato about you, your goods or services, prices, hygiene or conduct, and you must not describe it as one.

13.4A Documents per outlet. Each outlet uses your business's documents ("Same as the Business") unless you choose, on the verification page, that it has its own. An outlet with its own documents needs its own premises documents - for an outlet that sells food or drink, its own FSSAI registration or licence, and otherwise at least one business or trade licence or registration for that outlet - uploaded for it and sent for review like your business's; clauses 13.2, 13.3 and 13.3A apply to them as to your business's documents, including the reminders before one expires. That outlet shows the Verified badge only while your business is verified and every document of that outlet we checked is in date; it shows as not verified while one waits for our review, after we could not accept one, and from the day after one expires until we have checked the renewed one. Your business's own badge, and your other outlets', are not affected. If an outlet that has its own FSSAI document records no FSSAI number of its own, we record the number on that document as the outlet's, for its bills and seller details.

13.5 We keep your documents while you use the Platform; like every other file, they are deleted when your business closes (clause 12.5). The record of our checks - document numbers and dates, what our reviewers saw and decided - is kept for eight years after your account ends, as the Privacy Policy describes. On your side only your owner and administrators can upload or see them; at Cuscato only our reviewers see them, and each time one is opened it is recorded. We email your owner and administrators about each decision and before a document expires.

13.6 If you ask us to fill it in. You may send your documents to support@cuscato.com and ask us to upload them, enter their details and your business details, and send them for review for you. Clauses 13.1 to 13.5 then apply as if you had done it yourself, except that no declaration is ticked for a send we make for you; you give it at your own next send: you remain responsible for the documents and details being genuine and correct, and you can see and change them on your verification page. Each step is recorded under the name of the Cuscato reviewer who took it. We use the copies you send only for this, and delete them from our mailbox once they are uploaded.

14. Names, brands, notices, impersonation and your web address

14.1 Your name. You may trade on the Platform only under your own legal name or a trade name you are lawfully entitled to use. You must not use a name, web address, logo, trade mark, trade dress or other material that belongs to another business or person, or that is likely to make anyone think you are, or are connected with, endorsed by or franchised from, another business, unless you hold that business's current written authorisation and we have approved it.

14.2 Protected names. Some well-known brand names are protected on the Platform. A web address that matches one is not available. A business, trade or outlet name that matches one can be used only after two of our reviewers have checked your trade mark registration or the brand owner's written authorisation for your outlet. A name that only resembles a protected one is looked at by a reviewer authorised to clear it. Until the name is approved or cleared your business cannot be verified. If you change the name so that it no longer matches, the requirement falls away. We may refuse any name without giving a reason.

14.3 Notices. We operate the Notice and Takedown Policy published on the Platform. When we receive a court order, a notice from an authorised government agency, or a notice that meets that Policy, we may disable access to the information concerned or close your Storefront to the public without first telling you. We will send you a copy of the notice (with the complainant's details where the law and the Policy allow) and tell you how to respond, and you must co-operate with us, the complainant and any authority.

14.4 Zero tolerance. If we reasonably believe that you have impersonated any business or person, traded under another business's name, mark or get-up without its current written authorisation, given us a forged, altered, false or misleading document, statement or authorisation, engaged in fraud or an unfair or deceptive trade practice towards Customers, or received three valid infringement or impersonation notices within twelve months, we may, immediately and without notice: freeze your account and close your Storefront to the public, withdraw your verification and remove your Finder listing; terminate this Agreement; and delete your Storefront, catalogue and other Merchant Content, subject to clause 14.6. On termination under this clause no Subscription Fee or other amount you have paid us is refunded, and any unpaid amount becomes due at once. You agree that this is a genuine pre-estimate of the cost to Cuscato of investigating the conduct and handling the notices, claims and harm to its reputation that follow, and not a penalty.

14.5 We will tell you what we did, unless the law, an authority, or the protection of Customers or others prevents it, and you may ask the Grievance Officer to review it. If we find that the action was not justified, we will restore your account and Storefront and credit the Subscription Fee for the time you lost.

14.6 We keep information we have removed, and the records needed to investigate it, for as long as the law requires (at least 180 days under the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021), and your Orders, Invoices and verification records for the periods in clauses 12.5 and 13.5, and then delete them. We may give them to an authority lawfully entitled to them. Termination does not end your duties to your Customers, your indemnity in clause 11.6, or any liability you have already incurred.

14.7 Your web address. Your business's web address (its name on cuscato.com) can be changed once. Your owner or an administrator may ask for it from the Platform, saying why; we may agree or refuse, and a refused or withdrawn request does not count. We may also change it ourselves - when you ask us to, to correct a mistake, or under clause 14.1 or 14.2 - and a change we make counts as that one change. The new name must be one a new business could choose. The moment it changes, the old address stops working and is released, so anyone may later choose it; printed QR codes, table QR stickers, shared links and saved shortcuts to it stop working, devices signed in on it are signed out and their push notifications stop, and search engines may take time to show the new one. You are responsible for replacing what you printed or shared. We keep the request, its reason and our decision with your business's records.

15. Electronic acceptance and records

15.1 You accept this Agreement by ticking the acceptance box: at signup, followed by the one-time code we email you to verify your email address; or, for a business you are signed in to with a one-time code, on its acceptance screen. That acceptance forms a binding contract under section 10A of the Information Technology Act, 2000.

15.2 Each acceptance is recorded as the Privacy Policy describes, signed digitally by Cuscato, and a receipt is emailed to you. You agree that the record and the receipt are evidence of your acceptance, of the version accepted and of when it was accepted.

15.3 Each business accepts this Agreement for itself, because each may be a different legal person. An acceptance is made by the business's owner, signed in to that business, and its record names the business. It does not cover any other business you run on the Platform, including one we set up for you at your request (clause 10.5): there, its owner is asked to accept it for that business. Until a business has accepted the current major version (clause 16.2), its team can sign in, look around and manage their own accounts, and its owner can close it, but no other change can be made, so its orders and bookings cannot be confirmed, changed or completed; and it takes no new orders or bookings: its Storefront shows that it is not taking them until it has accepted. A business that, when this clause took effect, was run with a Cuscato account that had already accepted this Agreement is treated as having accepted it, and its record names the acceptance it relies on.

16. General

16.1 Law and disputes. This Agreement is governed by the laws of India. The parties will first try to settle a dispute by good-faith discussion; if that fails, it is decided by the courts in India that have jurisdiction. Either party may ask a court for urgent relief at any time. Nothing in this clause removes any right you have as a consumer, if you are one.

16.2 Changes. This Agreement is ours to write, and we may change it at any time and for any reason; you have no right to be consulted about or to approve a change. We give at least 30 days' notice of a material change to this Agreement that applies without a new acceptance, and the new version applies from your next billing period; if you do not accept it you may end the Agreement before then. A new major version applies to a business once its owner accepts it; until then clause 15.3 applies. A change required by law or to deal with fraud, abuse or a security risk may apply immediately. Each version carries a number at the top of this page in the form major.minor.patch; the major number goes up for a material change, and you are asked to accept a new major version when you next sign in. Before the Platform's public launch, every change, whatever its size, was published as a patch; since the launch, each change takes the number its size calls for. The version you accepted is recorded.

16.3 Force majeure. Neither party is liable for a failure caused by events beyond its reasonable control. This does not excuse a failure to pay. Either party may end the Agreement if such an event continues for 30 days.

16.4 Notices. Notices to Cuscato go to support@cuscato.com with "Legal notice" in the subject. Notices to you go to the email address on your owner account.

16.5 You may not transfer this Agreement without our consent. Making another person the owner of your business on the Platform (clause 6.3) changes who manages your account; it does not by itself transfer this Agreement to another business or person. You agree that we may transfer it, with notice, to a company that takes over the Cuscato business, or on a merger or sale of that business. The parties are independent: no partnership or agency is created. If any part is unenforceable, the rest applies. Not enforcing a clause is not a waiver. This Agreement, with its Schedule, is the whole agreement about the Platform, and gives no rights to anyone else, including Customers. The English text governs.

16.6 Complaints go to the Grievance Officer; see the Grievance Officer page. You may complain about a Customer through our complaint form. When a Customer complains to us about you, we may send you the complaint, with the Customer's name and any files they attached, and ask you to respond to the Customer, and you must do so. Your own complaint may likewise be shared with the Customer concerned. Passing a complaint on does not make Cuscato a party to the dispute or its judge (clause 2.8). Questions, feature requests and enquiries about a plan go through our contact form.

17. Selling outside India, exports and imports

17.1 Customers outside India. Anyone, in any country, may browse your Storefront and order from it. You decide whether to accept an Order from, or deliver to, a Customer outside India. If you do, you alone are responsible for meeting the law that applies to that sale - in India and in the Customer's country - including consumer, food safety, product safety, labelling, tax, customs, sanctions and data-protection law (clause 9.1). Your prices, Orders and Invoices on the Platform are in your business's currency: Indian rupees for a business established in India (clause 18.2 for one established elsewhere).

17.2 Exports and imports. You may record your business's Importer-Exporter Code (IEC) issued by the Directorate General of Foreign Trade, and mark outlets that export or import. Upload the IEC certificate (and, if you hold one, your Registration-cum-Membership Certificate) through the verification page; our reviewers check it as they check your other documents (clause 13), and clause 13.2 applies to it. Your Storefront may then show that you export or import, and that your IEC is on record or has been checked by us. We never publish your IEC number. The mark is not a statement by Cuscato about your goods, your right to export or import them, or your compliance.

17.3 Your responsibility. You alone are responsible for export and import law, customs clearance and duties, foreign exchange law (including the Foreign Exchange Management Act, 1999 and the rules on receiving payment from abroad), any letter of undertaking or zero-rated supply under GST, export documents, and the rules of the buyer's country, including whether a product may be sent there. Cuscato does not ship, clear customs, receive or convert foreign currency, or issue export or shipping documents. Orders and Invoices generated on the Platform stay in your business's currency; any other document an export needs is yours to prepare.

18. Businesses outside India

18.1 Where sign-up is open. The Platform is offered to businesses established in India and in other countries, except those named below; the sign-up page shows whether it is open for your country. We may stop or resume new sign-ups from any country at any time; stopping does not by itself end this Agreement for a business already established there. While sign-up is stopped for a country, a business established there may ask to join our early-access list, which is not an offer or a contract; we choose whom to invite, when and where, and may decline without a reason. The Platform, and the early-access list, are not offered to businesses established in Afghanistan, Belarus, the Central African Republic, Cuba, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Haiti, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Mali, Myanmar, Nicaragua, North Korea, Russia, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, Venezuela, Yemen or Zimbabwe, or in the Crimea, Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson or Zaporizhzhia regions of Ukraine. By signing up you confirm that your business is not established in any of these places; we may refuse a sign-up, or act under clause 12.2, where a business is established there or uses the Platform in breach of sanctions law. The country you give at sign-up must be the country where your business is established.

18.2 Your currency, your tax and your local law. A business established outside India has its prices, Orders and bills in the currency of the country it signed up from. Instead of the Indian tax features, it names its own tax (for example VAT or Sales Tax) and sets its own rates, each under a name you give it that says what that tax is (for example "VAT 20%" or "City Tax 2%"); its bills then show the tax as one line for each rate, under the name you set. Features built for Indian law - GST invoices and the CGST, SGST and IGST split, the place of supply, the composition scheme, GSTIN and FSSAI numbers, UPI payments and the UPI pay page, the Indian payment gateways for your Storefront (Razorpay, Cashfree, PhonePe and Paytm), reports for Indian returns and the verification of your business with Indian documents (clause 13) - are offered only to businesses established in India; a Storefront elsewhere carries no Verified tick. You are responsible for every law of each country where you trade, including value added tax, sales tax or goods and services tax on your sales (whether to register, which rate applies, whether prices include it, and filing and paying it), invoicing, receipt and record-keeping rules (including any electronic invoicing or till rules), consumer protection, food safety, labelling and licensing, and data protection. The Platform's bills and reports may not meet the law of your country, and you must not rely on them for it. Cuscato is not your tax adviser: it does not tell you which tax or rate applies, and does not register for, collect, file or pay tax on your sales. For a business established in the European Union or the United States, the Platform suggests published reference rates to start from (the standard and reduced VAT rates of your country, or your state's base sales tax rate), which you may rename and change before adding, or not use at all; they are general figures that may be out of date, leave out county, city and other local rates, and do not say which rate applies to what you sell. A rate you add from them is your own rate, and you must check it. A VAT number you record is printed on your bills; Cuscato checks only its form, not that it is registered or valid. Clauses that rest on Indian law apply to you as far as they can.

18.3 Prices, and paying through Paddle. The Subscription Fee for a business established outside India is the one published for its region on our pricing page - in euros for a business established in the European Economic Area or Switzerland, in pounds sterling for one established in the United Kingdom, Jersey, Guernsey or the Isle of Man, and in US dollars elsewhere - or otherwise agreed with it in writing; it may be in a different currency from your Storefront. A business that already pays in another of these currencies keeps paying in it. Way (b) applies when Settings offers you Paddle's checkout; otherwise way (a) applies. (a) Paying Cuscato directly: Until we offer Paddle for your region, you pay Cuscato in that currency from Settings through PayPal or Razorpay, or against a payment request we send you; Cuscato is then the seller, and you get our receipt and invoice in the currency you paid in. We add no tax of your country to that price; any tax your own law asks you to account for on a purchase from abroad (for example under a reverse charge) is yours to account for. A business established in the European Union, the United Kingdom or the Isle of Man adds its VAT number in Settings before it pays this way: you confirm you buy for your business, and the invoice prints your VAT number and "Reverse charge". (b) Paying through Paddle: Once we offer Paddle for your region, you pay from Settings through Paddle (Paddle.com Market Limited, or the Paddle company its checkout names), which then sells the subscription to you as our reseller and merchant of record, and the other ways to pay online are no longer offered to you. For that purchase: Paddle's buyer terms, shown at its checkout, apply as well as this Agreement; Paddle works out, adds and accounts for any sales tax, value added tax or goods and services tax due in your country, and may ask for your address and tax number to do so; Paddle takes the payment and issues the invoice; and refunds, chargebacks and payment questions go through Paddle (clause 7.4). Cuscato issues no invoice or credit note for a payment through Paddle, and does not receive your card or bank details. We apply the payment to your plan once Paddle's own records show it paid, as clause 7.11 describes. Clause 7 applies otherwise. This Agreement, not Paddle's terms, governs your use of the Platform.

18.4 Your data. The Data Processing Agreement, including its clause 13 for the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, the United States and the United Arab Emirates, applies to the personal data of your Customers. Where that data is held is set out in the Privacy Policy, section 13.

18.5 Your Customers' rights. You are the seller to your Customers (clause 3). The rights the law of their country gives them - for example to cancel a distance contract, to a refund or repair, or to information before they order - are owed by you, not by Cuscato, and you must meet them.

18.6 Law and disputes. Clause 16.1 applies, without taking away any right the law of your country gives you that cannot be excluded by agreement.