Legal

Terms of Service

The agreement that covers cpgautomate.com, the CPG Automate hub and the services we offer through them.

These Terms of Service ("Terms") are an agreement between you and CPG Automate, LLC ("CPG Automate," "we," or "us"). They apply when you use cpgautomate.com, the CPG Automate hub at hub.cpgautomate.com, and the services we offer through them (together, the "Services").

Please read them. By creating an account, ticking the box to accept, or using the Services, you agree to these Terms. If you use the Services for a company, you confirm that you may accept these Terms for it, and "you" means that company as well as you.

If you and CPG Automate have also signed an agreement, such as a Services Agreement or a Statement of Work, the signed agreement wins wherever the two cover the same thing.

1. Your account

• Who may use the Services. The Services are for business use by people 18 or older. You may use them for your company, or for yourself in your own work.
• Accurate details. Give us accurate sign up details and keep them current.
• One person, one login. Each login belongs to one person. Do not share it. Keep your password safe and tell us at once if you think someone else has used your account.
• Company accounts. The account owner and the admins they appoint control who can join, what each person can see and do, and the account settings. They are responsible for the people they let in. Coworkers join a company account by invitation only.
• Individual accounts. An individual account belongs to the person who opened it. If you later link it to a company, your content moves only if you choose to move it.
• We may refuse or close an account that gives false details or breaks these Terms (see section 17).

2. The Services

• The Services available to you, what each includes and its price are shown in the hub when you choose them.
• We keep improving the Services. We may add, change or retire features. If we retire a paid service you are using, we will tell you in advance and add any unused prepaid amount for it to your account credit balance.
• Some services are marked free, trial, early access or "coming soon." Those are offered as they are and may change or end.
• Some services include work by people on our team, such as a CPG Automate review, Ask CPG Team answers and support. Turnaround times shown in the hub are targets. If we miss a promised turnaround on a paid item, section 8 says what happens.
• Support and setup sessions are recorded and transcribed so we can keep accurate notes of the work. Our Privacy and Disclosures page explains how recordings are kept.

3. Your content

"Your content" means the SOPs, documents, org charts, answers, edits, messages and other material you or your users put into the Services.

• You own your content. These Terms do not give us ownership of it.
• Your right to upload. You confirm that you have the right to upload your content and to have it processed by CPG Automate and by the service providers we use to run the Services, including our AI providers, and that doing so does not break any duty you owe to anyone else. This applies even when a document is marked confidential, internal or do not copy.
• What not to upload. Do not upload payment card numbers, bank details, government ID numbers, health information about individuals, or personal information beyond what your documents normally contain, such as names, job titles and roles.
• What you allow us to do with it. You give us permission to store, copy, process and display your content only as needed to provide the Services to you, to support you, to protect the Services (for example, by checking uploads for viruses and stopping misuse) and to meet the law. This permission ends when your content is deleted, except for copies we must keep by law.
• Who sees it. People on your account, according to the access your account owner and admins set. Our own people and the vetted contractors who work for us, under written confidentiality terms, only when needed to deliver something you asked for, such as a review, an Ask CPG Team answer or support. The service providers that run the Services for us, under their own confidentiality and security terms.
• No sharing with other clients. We never share your content with, or show it to, another client.
• No AI training on your content. We do not use your content to train AI models, and our AI providers do not train on what we send them. If that ever changes, we will tell you first and ask for your permission.

4. How we use information about use of the Services

We record how the Services are used: features used, choices made, edits and corrections, and the questions asked through the Services. We use this data and these interactions to improve the Services and to guide what we build next. Information we use this way does not identify you personally or your company.

We own what we learn from use of the Services. It is not your content.

5. Files and other materials we make for you

• They are yours. The files and other materials we produce for you from your content (your "files") belong to you once you download them. You may use, copy, change and share them in your work or business, including with the contractors, customers and auditors you work with.
• What stays ours. We keep ownership of the Services and everything behind them: our software, templates, file structures, prompts, methods and know-how. Where a file contains parts of our templates or structure, you may keep using those parts as part of that file, in your work or business.
• Please do not sell or license the files, or our format, to others as a product or service, or use them or the Services to build a competing service.
• Keep our information on them. Leave the "Created by CPG Automate" line on the files. It tells readers where they came from.

6. AI prepared files: what they are and what they are not

• How they are made. Files are prepared by AI from your SOP and from the record of it that you confirm, then checked automatically. Unless you buy a review, no person at CPG Automate looks at them. Each file is labelled "Checked automatically by CPG Automate. Not reviewed by a person."
• Paid review. If you buy a CPG Automate review, a person checks that the files match your SOP and the record you confirmed, and the label changes to "Reviewed by CPG Automate against your SOP." A review checks consistency with your SOP. It is not an approval of your process, which we do not know as you do.
• Errors and omissions are possible. AI can make mistakes or leave things out, even after checking or review. Content that arrives as an image or a scan is more likely to be missed.
• Your SOP stays in charge. Your approved, controlled SOP is the governing document. Our files are a working aid built from it. They are not controlled documents. If a file and your SOP ever differ, follow your SOP.
• Check before you rely on them. You are responsible for reviewing the files before you use them, and for deciding, with whoever is qualified in your operation, whether they are right for use in any regulated activity, such as food safety, GMP, release decisions or records an auditor will see.
• Not advice and not a certification. The files, and anything else we provide through the Services, are not legal, regulatory, quality, financial or tax advice. They do not certify compliance with any law, regulation or standard, and they do not validate your process, equipment or methods.
• Our approvals are advisory. When a person on our team approves or reviews something in the hub, for example "Approved by [name]," that records an advisory review. It is not a signature in your records, it does not replace your own quality unit's approval, and it does not certify anything as ready for an audit.

The Guide to Using Your Files, linked in the hub, explains how to use the files well. If the guide and these Terms ever differ, these Terms win.

7. Credits, unlock codes, coupons and payments

• Prices. Prices are shown in the hub before you buy. Prices may change, but a change does not affect credits or services you have already paid for. For plans that renew, we will tell you at least 30 days before a price change takes effect.
• Credits. Some services are paid for with credits. The hub shows how many credits an item uses before you start. A credit is used when you submit an SOP for processing. A file we cannot process does not use a credit. Some items, such as scanned pages, may use extra credits as shown in the price list.
• Company credits. Credits bought for a company account are shared by its users, within any limits the account admins set.
• Account credit balance. Some refunds and re-credits are added to your account credit balance. You can use it on any service in the hub. It has no cash value.
• Free credits, unlock codes and coupons have no cash value, cannot be exchanged for cash, cannot be transferred or sold, and expire as stated when they are issued. Limits apply, such as one reward per action and limits per company or email domain. We may cancel codes that are obtained or used against these limits.
• Paid credits expire on the date shown in the hub when you buy them. The period depends on the service.
• Card payments. Payments are processed by our payment processor, Zoho, on its own secure system. We never see or store your card number. By paying, you authorize us to charge your card for the item you chose and, for plans that renew, for each renewal until you cancel.
• Plans that renew renew automatically each month until you cancel.
• Taxes. Prices do not include taxes unless the hub says so. You pay any sales or similar taxes that apply.
• Failed payments. If a payment fails, we may pause paid features until it is resolved.

8. Refunds and cancellations

• Free credits, unlock codes and coupons are not refundable.
• Unused paid credits can be refunded within 30 days of purchase.
• Used credits are not refundable. A credit is used when you submit an SOP for processing.
• Files we cannot process never use a credit. If one is ever charged by mistake, we return it.
• A wrong file. If a file contains an error that we confirm from our processing records, we return the credit to your account and tell you what to change. Omissions are not credited: something left out of a file is possible, especially where the SOP arrives as an image or a scan.
• Paid help from our team (such as a CPG Automate review or Ask CPG Team) starts as soon as you submit it, so it cannot be cancelled after that. If we miss the turnaround promised in the hub, we add the amount you paid to your account credit balance.
• Support chat is charged as shown in the hub. If you were charged for a chat in error, or for a problem caused by a fault in our service, we return the charge.
• Plans that renew. You can cancel at any time in the hub, under Account, Billing. Your plan stays active until the end of the month you have paid for, then stops. We do not refund part of a month. If we raise the price of a plan, we tell you at least 30 days before it takes effect, so you can cancel first.
• Early access. When you pay in advance for a service marked early access, you can cancel for a full refund within 30 days of payment. After that, your payment is not refundable; it helps us build the service, and your access opens when the service goes live.
• Service engagements under a signed Statement of Work, such as the Auditor Service, follow the payment, cancellation and rescheduling terms in that Statement of Work and the Services Agreement.
• Closing your account. When you close your account, you can ask for a refund of paid credits that are unused and less than 30 days old. Other unused credits and any account credit balance end when the account closes.
• Disputed charges. Please contact us before you dispute a charge with your card issuer. Most issues are fixed the same business day. While a dispute with a card issuer is open, paid features on the account may be paused.
• How to ask. Email info@cpgautomate.com, or use the help board in the hub, with the account, the item and the date of the charge. We reply within 5 business days. Approved refunds go back to the original payment method, and usually appear on your statement 5 to 10 business days later.

9. Acceptable use

When using the Services, you and your users will not:

• upload content you do not have the right to upload, or anything unlawful, harmful or malicious;
• try to get into accounts, data or systems you are not allowed to access, or probe or test the security of the Services without our written permission;
• copy, scrape, reverse engineer or resell the Services, or use them to build a competing service;
• get around usage limits, credit rules or access controls, or share logins;
• use the Services in a way that breaks the law or harms the Services or other users.

10. Our platform and your feedback

• Ours. CPG Automate owns the Services, including the hub, our software, AI instructions, templates, file structures, methods and what we learn as described in section 4. These Terms give you the right to use the Services while your account is active, and nothing more.
• Feedback. If you send us ideas or suggestions, we may use them freely. We quote you or use your name in our marketing only if you say yes.

11. Confidentiality and security

• We treat your content as confidential and protect it with reasonable safeguards, including access controls, encrypted connections and a record of who opens client content on our side.
• Your content is stored with our hosting provider in the United States.
• No system is completely secure. If we learn that your content has been accessed without permission, we will tell you without undue delay and explain what we are doing about it.

12. Keeping and deleting your content

• While you want it. Your content and files stay in your account for as long as you keep them there, so you can come back and download them.
• You can delete. You can delete an SOP, its files or your whole account at any time. Deleted content cannot be restored.
• Inactive accounts. If no one signs in to an account for 120 days, we will email the account owner before deleting its content, with time to sign in and keep it. If no one signs in by the date in that notice, the content is deleted.
• After closing an account. Content is deleted within 30 days of closure. Backup copies kept by our hosting provider are removed on its normal backup cycle.
• Our AI providers delete what we send them within 30 days, except where their policies require longer to investigate misuse or where the law requires it.
• What we keep. We keep billing records as the law requires, a record of account activity that contains no document content (for example, that a file was uploaded and later deleted), and what we learn as described in section 4.
• Signed engagements. If your content is also being used in a service you have signed up for separately, such as an Auditor engagement, that agreement may set a longer period. The hub shows you when that applies.

13. Other companies' services

The Services rely on other providers, such as Zoho (hosting, payments, support and signatures), our AI providers, and Google or Microsoft if you sign in with them. We choose and may change these providers. We are responsible for the Services we provide to you, but not for outages or changes on the providers' side that we do not control.

14. Our promise and its limits

We will provide the Services with reasonable skill and care. Apart from that promise and anything else these Terms say, the Services and the files are provided "as is" and "as available." To the extent the law allows, we do not make other promises, including that the Services will be uninterrupted or error free, or that files will be fit for a particular purpose.

15. Limits on our liability

• Your remedy for a wrong file is set out in section 8. It is your only remedy for errors or omissions in a file.
• After you download. Once you download a file, you control how it is used, changed, shared and relied on. We are not responsible for how a file is used after download, for versions changed by you or others, or for files used after the SOP they came from has been revised.
• What we are not responsible for. Your business decisions, or products, recalls, deviations, audit findings, regulatory actions or other outcomes that follow from using a file or the Services. Responsibility sits with whoever controls the decision.
• No indirect losses. Neither you nor we are liable to the other for indirect, incidental, special, punitive or consequential losses, or for lost profits, revenue, data or goodwill, even if the possibility was known.
• Overall cap. Our total liability for any claim is limited to the amount you paid us for the service the claim relates to, and in total for all claims to no more than you paid us in the 12 months before the claim arose. For a free service, we have no liability beyond what the law requires.
• Time limit. Any claim must be brought within one year after you knew, or should have known, of the facts it is based on.
• Where these limits do not apply. These limits do not apply to liability the law does not allow to be limited, to fraud, gross negligence or willful misconduct, or to amounts owed under section 16.

16. Claims by others

• You will defend us against claims by others, and cover the resulting costs, to the extent they arise from your content (including a claim that you did not have the right to upload it), from how you used the files, or from your breach of section 9.
• We will defend you against claims by others, and cover the resulting costs, to the extent they claim that the Services themselves (not your content or how you used the files) infringe someone else's rights.
• The party asking for protection must tell the other promptly and cooperate reasonably.

17. Suspending or closing accounts

• You may close your account at any time in the hub. Download anything you want to keep first.
• We may suspend or close an account, or a user's access, if it breaks these Terms, does not pay, or puts the Services or other users at risk. Where we reasonably can, we will warn you first and give you a chance to fix the problem and download your files.
• Sections 3 (what not to upload), 5, 6, 10, 15, 16, 18 and 20 continue after an account closes.

18. Disputes, arbitration and venue

• Notice first. Before you bring any claim against CPG Automate, you must tell us about it in writing and give us 30 days to resolve it.
• Arbitration for claims against us. Any claim you bring against CPG Automate relating to the Services or these Terms will be resolved only by binding arbitration before a single arbitrator under the Commercial Arbitration Rules of the American Arbitration Association. The arbitration takes place in Boulder County, Colorado, or by video if we agree. There is no judge or jury.
• Our right to collect and protect. We may bring a claim for unpaid amounts, or to protect our intellectual property or confidential information, either in arbitration or in the state or federal courts located in Boulder County, Colorado.
• Venue. You agree that the state and federal courts located in Boulder County, Colorado have exclusive jurisdiction over any court matter between us, including enforcing an arbitration award, and you consent to their jurisdiction.
• One to one. Claims are brought only individually, not as part of a class or group action.
• Costs. Each side pays its own attorneys' fees. If we have to go to arbitration or court to collect amounts you owe, you also pay our reasonable collection costs and attorneys' fees.
• Law. Colorado law governs these Terms, without regard to its conflict of laws rules.

19. Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms. For changes that matter to you, we will give at least 15 days' notice by email or in the hub before they take effect, and the hub will ask you to accept the new version. The version and date you accepted are recorded on your account. If you do not agree to a change, you may close your account before it takes effect, and we will refund unused paid credits bought in the previous 30 days. Changes do not affect purchases made before the change takes effect.

20. General

• These Terms and the Privacy Policy are the whole agreement between us about the Services, except where a signed agreement applies (see the top of these Terms).
• Neither party is responsible for delays caused by events beyond its reasonable control.
• You may not transfer these Terms without our written consent. We may transfer them to a successor in a merger or sale of our business.
• If any part of these Terms cannot be enforced, the rest still applies. Not enforcing a term is not a waiver of it.
• We are independent of each other. These Terms do not create a partnership, employment or agency.
• We may send notices to the account owner's email address or show them in the hub. You may send notices to us at the contact details below.

21. Contact

CPG Automate, LLC
PO Box 270366, Louisville, CO 80027-4613
info@cpgautomate.com