Terms & conditions

1. Who these terms are between

“We”, “us” and “the firm” mean Abacus Accounting Oy, Business ID 0115454-6, registered office Harjukatu 30, 05900 Hyvinkää, Finland. “You” means the company or other legal person that engages us.

We contract with businesses only. Our services are offered to companies, partnerships, associations and other undertakings, not to consumers. Nothing on this site is an offer to provide services to a private individual for purposes outside a trade or profession.

2. How an engagement is formed

This website is an invitation to make contact, not an offer capable of acceptance. An engagement arises only when we and you have agreed its scope in writing — an engagement letter, a signed proposal or an exchange of emails recording what we will do, by when and on what fee basis.

Where the engagement letter and these general terms conflict, the engagement letter prevails.

3. What we do and do not do

We provide accounting, bookkeeping, financial-reporting, payroll, tax-compliance and business-advisory services within our registered field of activity (69201 — Accounting and bookkeeping activities; tax consultancy).

We do not provide, and nothing here should be read as an offer of:

• Statutory audit services. Under the Auditing Act (1141/2015) the statutory audit, and the titles HT, KHT and JHT, are reserved to auditors entered in the register kept by the Finnish Patent and Registration Office. We are not an audit firm. Where your company must appoint an auditor, that auditor is appointed by your shareholders and works independently of us; our role is limited to preparing the records and answering the auditor’s requests.
• Credit, lending or financing. We are not a credit institution, a payment institution or a registered provider of consumer credit, and we neither grant, arrange nor broker finance of any kind.
• Investment or insurance services. We are not an investment firm, fund manager or insurance intermediary, and we give no advice on the acquisition or disposal of financial instruments or insurance products.
• Legal representation. We are not an advocate’s office. We can work alongside your counsel, but we do not represent you in court or give legal opinions reserved to lawyers.
• Arrangements designed to mislead. We will not record a transaction that did not occur, backdate a document, or implement an arrangement whose main purpose is to conceal income, assets, ownership or the true nature of a transaction. We will resign from an engagement rather than do so.

4. What you are responsible for

• Delivering complete and accurate material — vouchers, bank data, contracts, payroll instructions — by the dates we agree. Statutory deadlines cannot be met from material that arrives after them.
• The accuracy and completeness of the information you give us, and of the decisions you take on the basis of our advice. The management of your company remains responsible for its books and its filings under the Accounting Act.
• Telling us promptly about changes that affect the work: new business activity abroad, a change of ownership, an ongoing tax audit, insolvency risk.
• Providing the identification material we are required to obtain under the Act on Preventing Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing (444/2017). We cannot begin work without it.

5. Fees and payment

• Fees are agreed in writing before work starts, based on the volume and complexity of the work — transaction counts, payroll headcount, reporting frequency and the like.
• We never charge a fee calculated as a share of a tax saving, a refund or any other tax outcome.
• Work outside the agreed scope is quoted separately and only carried out once you approve it, unless a statutory deadline makes immediate action necessary and we cannot reach you — in which case we tell you as soon as we can.
• Invoices are payable within 14 days net unless otherwise agreed. Late payment interest accrues at the rate set by the Interest Act (633/1982).
• Prices are exclusive of VAT, which is added at the applicable Finnish rate.
• Where invoices remain unpaid after a written reminder, we may suspend work. We will tell you before we do, and we will not let a suspension cause a statutory deadline to be missed without notice to you.

6. Deadlines and how we handle them

We meet the statutory deadlines that fall within the agreed scope, provided the material reaches us by the dates agreed. Where a deadline is at risk, we tell you in writing before it passes, along with what we recommend. Penalties and late-filing charges imposed because material arrived late are yours; those caused by our own delay are ours, on the basis set out in section 8.

7. Confidentiality

Everything you tell us about your business is confidential and stays that way after the engagement ends. There are three exceptions: disclosure required by law or an authority with power to demand it; disclosure to your auditor or another adviser at your request; and reports we are obliged to make under the anti-money-laundering rules, which by law we may not tell you about.

Personal data is handled as described in the privacy policy. Where we process personal data on your behalf, a written processing agreement under Art. 28 GDPR forms part of the engagement.

8. Liability

• We are liable for direct loss caused by our own negligent breach of an engagement.
• Our aggregate liability in any engagement is limited to the fees invoiced for the work in question during the twelve months preceding the event giving rise to the claim.
• We are not liable for indirect or consequential loss, lost profit, or loss arising from information that was incorrect, incomplete or late when you gave it to us.
• We are not liable for a tax outcome as such: tax law is applied by the authorities and the courts, and a defensible position can still be challenged.
• Nothing in these terms limits liability for wilful misconduct or gross negligence, or any liability that cannot be limited under mandatory Finnish law.
• A claim must be made in writing without undue delay and in any event within twelve months of the date you became aware, or ought reasonably to have become aware, of the matter complained of.

9. Duration, termination and handover

Continuing engagements run until either side terminates them in writing with one month’s notice, timed so far as practicable to a period end. Either side may terminate immediately for material breach, or if continuing would put us in breach of law or professional obligation.

On termination we hand over your accounting records and the material needed by your next provider, once outstanding invoices for work performed have been settled. We keep copies only for as long as our own statutory obligations require.

10. Intellectual property and this website

Working papers, templates and models we create remain ours; you receive the reports, filings and records produced for you, and a right to use them for your own business. The content of this website is ours and may be quoted with attribution but not republished as a whole.

The material on this site is general information about our services, current at the date shown on each page. It is not advice on your situation and no engagement arises from reading it. Statutory rates, thresholds and deadlines change; where we publish one, we publish the date it was reviewed and the source, and you should confirm the current position before relying on it.

11. Force majeure

Neither side is liable for failure to perform caused by an event outside its reasonable control — including failure of the authorities’ own filing systems — for as long as the event continues. The affected side tells the other promptly and does what it reasonably can to limit the effect.

12. Governing law and disputes

These terms and each engagement are governed by Finnish law, without regard to its conflict-of-law rules. If a disagreement arises, contact us first at admin@abacusaccountingoy.com — most are resolved in a phone call. Failing that, disputes are settled by the Finnish courts, the district court for our registered office having jurisdiction unless mandatory law provides otherwise.

13. Changes to these terms

We may update these general terms for new engagements at any time by publishing a new version here. For an ongoing engagement, a change takes effect one month after we notify you in writing, and the version in force when the work was agreed continues to govern work already commissioned.