Fees, Refunds and Cancellations
What you pay, and what happens if plans change
What you pay and when, what happens if either side stops the work, what our two promises mean in operative terms, and how monthly services end.
SV FINANCIAL CONSULTING CORPORATION, Ontario Corporation Number 1001604560, Mississauga, Ontario, Canada.
1. What this page covers
This page sets out what you pay, when you pay it, what happens if either side stops the work, and what we do if we get something wrong. It also states, in operative terms, what our two published promises actually mean.
It sits alongside the Terms of Service, which govern the website and how an engagement starts, and the Professional Disclaimer, which sets out what this firm is and is not. Where this page and a signed engagement agreement differ on a specific engagement, the engagement agreement governs.
Nothing on this page limits a right you have under Ontario or Canadian consumer protection law. Section 12 says more about that.
2. Consultations
The scoping consultation is not billed. If that ever changes, the cost is stated before you book, and it is never charged without being stated first.
Rescheduling. You can reschedule a booked consultation by replying to your confirmation email. We ask for at least one full business day of notice so the slot can be released to someone else.
Cancelling. Cancel at least one full business day before the slot and any consultation fee you paid is refunded in full, or held as credit if you prefer.
Short notice and missed appointments. If you cancel with less than one full business day of notice, or do not attend, the consultation fee is not refunded. You can rebook once at no additional charge within thirty days.
3. Starting an engagement
Paid work begins when both sides sign a written engagement agreement and the opening payment clears. That agreement states the fixed fee for the agreed scope, and how it is split between the opening payment and the balance.
The opening payment secures your place in the filing schedule and covers the work done from the point of acceptance onward. It is applied against your total fee, not charged on top of it.
Getting us your documents. Your engagement agreement names the date by which we need your documents in order to meet your filing deadline. If that date passes and you have not sent them, we will contact you to reschedule. If we cannot reach an agreed new date within ninety days of the original one, the engagement closes and the opening payment is not refunded, whether or not preparation had started. This exists because a filing slot held open is a filing slot nobody else can use.
4. If you cancel before the work is finished
Cross border returns are prepared in stages, and most of the cost is incurred in the middle stages rather than at the end. If you end the engagement partway, what you owe depends on how far the work had progressed when you told us.
| Stage reached when you tell us | What we retain |
|---|---|
| Engagement agreement signed, documents not yet submitted | Payment processing charges actually incurred, and nothing else |
| Documents submitted, preparation not yet started | 10% of the total quoted fee, to cover intake and review |
| Preparation started | 50% of the total quoted fee |
| Draft return or draft deliverable sent to you | The full quoted fee is due |
Tell us in writing. The stage is measured at the point we receive your notice, not the point you decided.
5. After the work is delivered
Once a draft return or deliverable has been sent to you, the quoted fee is due in full and fees already paid are not refunded. This is the ordinary position for professional services that have been performed, and it is the position taken by every comparable firm we reviewed that publishes one at all.
What that does not do is remove your protection if we make a mistake. Section 6 covers that, and it is a separate thing from a refund.
6. If we make a computational error
If a penalty or interest charge is assessed against you solely because of an arithmetic or computational error we made in preparing your return, we will pay that penalty and interest amount.
What you need to do. Tell us within thirty days of the date on the tax authority's notice, and send us the notice itself together with the correspondence around it. We cannot act on an assessment we have not seen.
The limit. The most we pay under this section is the amount you paid us in fees for the engagement the error occurred in. This remedy is the only remedy available for a computational error.
What it does not cover.
- The tax itself. If additional tax is properly owed, it was always owed, and paying it is not a loss caused by us.
- Anything traceable to information that was incomplete, inaccurate, late, or not disclosed to us. Section 4.3 of the Terms of Service sets out what you are responsible for providing.
- A change in law, rates, thresholds, or the interpretation of a treaty after the return was filed.
- A position a tax authority disagrees with, where the position was properly arguable when taken and was explained to you before filing.
- Audit representation, which is separate work under a separate engagement.
7. Our two promises, in operative terms
We publish two promises on this website. This section is what they mean when it matters.
### "The quoted price is the price"
The fixed fee written into your signed engagement agreement is what you pay for the scope written into that agreement. We do not add charges afterwards for work that was inside that scope, and we do not revise the fee because the work turned out to take us longer than we expected.
The fee changes only where the scope changes, which happens only in the way section 4.4 of the Terms of Service describes: we tell you first, we tell you what it does to the fee, and we do the work only once you have agreed in writing. Nothing outside the agreed scope is ever performed first and billed afterwards.
This promise attaches to the fee in your engagement agreement. It does not attach to a figure published on this website, an indicative range given on a call, or a number mentioned in an email, none of which are quotes. Section 5 of the Terms explains why.
### "Same-business-day reply, or we make it right"
What we are promising. If you send us a message on a business day, you get a reply from a person the same business day. A reply means a real response from someone who has read what you sent. An automated acknowledgement is not a reply and does not discharge this promise.
What a business day is. Monday to Friday, excluding statutory holidays in Ontario. A message that arrives after our working hours, or on a weekend or holiday, counts as arriving on the next business day. We do not promise a reply outside our working hours.
What "we make it right" means. If we miss it, you do not have to ask and you do not have to prove anything. We tell you we missed it, and the person who owns your file replies to you first thing the next business day.
What this promise is not. It is not a promise about how quickly work gets completed, and it is not a promise about response times from a tax authority, which we do not control. It applies to our reply, and only to our reply. It carries no refund, credit or fee reduction.
8. Government, filing and third party charges
Amounts payable to someone other than us are never refundable by us, because we never received them. That includes tax authority filing and late filing charges, government registration and incorporation fees, courier and notarisation costs, and payment processing charges levied by our payment provider.
Where a third party charge is part of your engagement, it is itemised separately from our fee, with its currency shown.
9. Monthly services: bookkeeping and Virtual CFO
Monthly services work differently from a one off return, because you are buying continuity rather than a single deliverable.
Term. Monthly engagements run for a minimum initial term of twelve months, unless your engagement agreement states a shorter one. After that term they continue month to month until either side ends them.
Ending a monthly engagement. After the initial term, either side can end it by giving sixty days of written notice. Fees for the notice period are payable. We do not charge an exit fee on top.
Renewal. A monthly engagement continues automatically after its initial term. We tell you before the initial term ends, so continuing is a decision you make rather than one that happens to you. Fees already paid for a month in progress are not refunded part way through that month.
Fee changes. We may revise monthly fees at the end of an initial term or on renewal, with at least one full billing cycle of written notice. If you do not want the revised fee, you can end the engagement before it takes effect.
Your records when it ends. Your books and records are yours. When a monthly engagement ends we give you a copy in a usable format, subject to any amount outstanding and to our own record keeping obligations. We do not hold a client's records hostage over a disputed invoice, and we do not charge a release fee.
10. If we end an engagement
We may end an engagement in writing where we cannot get the information we need to do the work properly, where continuing would put us in breach of a professional or legal obligation, where fees remain unpaid after we have asked, or where the working relationship has broken down.
If we end an engagement for any reason other than your non payment, you pay only for work actually performed to that point, and anything you have paid beyond that is refunded. We hand over your documents and a copy of the work completed either way.
11. How to make a claim
Write to us at the address in section 13, with "Refund" or "Guarantee" in the subject line, and tell us what happened and what you are asking for. Include the engagement reference and, for a computational error claim, the tax authority notice.
We acknowledge your message, tell you who is handling it, and give you an answer with reasons. If we agree you are owed money, we pay it to the original payment method. If you are not satisfied with our answer, the Complaints page sets out what happens next.
12. Your rights under Ontario law
Nothing on this page takes away a right you have under the Consumer Protection Act, 2002 or any other consumer protection law that applies to you. Those laws give consumers rights in relation to agreements made over the internet and agreements for services to be delivered in the future, including rights to receive a written copy of the agreement and, in defined circumstances, to cancel it.
Where anything on this page conflicts with a right you have under that legislation, the legislation wins and this page is read as if the conflicting words were not there.
13. Contact
Fees, refunds and cancellations: marketing@svfinancial.ca
SV FINANCIAL CONSULTING CORPORATION, Mississauga, Ontario, Canada.