HOA Duesby Skeptic Dog
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Terms of Service (End-User License Agreement)

Effective ·Last updated

These Terms are a binding agreement between Skeptic Dog Software, Ltd. Co., a Texas limited liability company (“Skeptic Dog”, “we”, “us”, or “our”), and the organization named when the account was opened (or named by a new account owner after a transfer) (“Customer”, “you”) — a homeowners or community association, a company that manages associations, or another business. They govern the Customer’s use of HOA Dues by Skeptic Dog, including the website hoa.skepticdogsoftware.com, the administrator console, and the HOA Dues app for QuickBooks Online (together, the “Service”). The Service is for business use only. If the person who opened the account, or who accepted a transfer of its ownership, named no organization or can’t bind the one they named, that person is the Customer.

You accept them by checking the box stating that you agree at each of these points: when you create an account, when you accept an invitation to join one, when you accept a transfer of an account’s ownership, and in Stripe’s checkout when you subscribe for an Association — and, after these Terms change, when you next sign in (where you may instead decline the change, Section 15). Whoever checks the box confirms they are at least 18. The person who creates the account, the person who accepts a transfer of its ownership, and the account owner accepting a change agree on behalf of the Customer, and also confirm that they are authorized to bind it and that the Customer uses the Service only for business purposes; every other Administrator — including one who subscribes for an Association — agrees to use the Service for the Customer under these Terms. These Terms do not apply to Homeowners or to visitors who only read this website or use the contact form.

These Terms are the end-user license agreement (EULA) for the HOA Dues app for QuickBooks Online.

Homeowners: your dues relationship is with your Association; these Terms don’t apply to you. The prepay page lets a Homeowner review and accept their own Association’s offer; please use it only for that. See our Privacy Policy.

Please read Section 16 carefully. It contains a binding individual arbitration agreement and a class-action waiver for disputes between the Customer and Skeptic Dog. The Customer may opt out of arbitration within 30 days (Section 16.5).

1. Definitions

  • “Association” is a homeowners association (or similar community association) whose dues are billed using the Service.
  • “Administrator” is a person the Customer allows to sign in to the Service (the account owner, an admin, or a member).
  • “Account owner” is the Administrator who holds the account’s owner role.
  • “Homeowner” is an owner of a unit whose record an Association keeps in the Service.
  • “QuickBooks” means Intuit Inc.’s QuickBooks Online and QuickBooks Payments services.
  • “Your Data” is the association, unit, owner, and billing information the Customer puts into the Service, or that the Service reads from the Customer’s QuickBooks company to do its work.

2. The Service

An Administrator connects an Association’s QuickBooks Online company to the Service and sets up its units, owners, and dues. The Service then, according to the Association’s settings:

  • creates each Homeowner’s monthly dues invoice in that QuickBooks company, and QuickBooks emails it to the Homeowner; the Service turns on QuickBooks’ online card and bank (ACH) payment options on each invoice (QuickBooks Payments fees apply where enabled);
  • creates QuickBooks customers for Homeowners as needed, unless the Association turns this off (it is on by default), and a “HOA Dues” service item for the dues when an Administrator sets one up and the company doesn’t already have one;
  • can email a Homeowner a link to an optional annual prepay invoice covering the rest of the current fiscal year or the next fiscal year; prepay offers state that the prepaid rate is locked (no extra charge and no refund if dues later change), and the Association is responsible for that term; and
  • voids an unpaid prepay invoice in QuickBooks when its deadline passes, when the Homeowner cancels it, or when the unit is sold (a partly paid one is held for an Administrator instead), and voids an open or partly paid prepay invoice when an Administrator chooses to; any payment already received stays in QuickBooks for the Association to refund or apply. The months it covered then return to monthly billing. The Service never voids or deletes a monthly invoice.

The Service acts on a prepay deadline when the Association’s billing runs. If billing is stopped when the deadline passes — the Association is paused, its subscription has ended, or QuickBooks is disconnected — the unpaid invoice is voided at the first run after billing resumes; if the Association’s data is deleted first (Section 9), the invoice stays open in QuickBooks for the Association to void or keep.

Skeptic Dog does not handle Homeowners’ money. Homeowners pay the Association — online through QuickBooks Payments where the Association has turned it on, or any other way the Association accepts (for example, by check). We never receive, hold, or transfer those funds, and we never receive card or bank-account data. The Service is operated from the United States.

3. Eligibility and Accounts

Every person who uses the Service for the Customer must be at least 18. The Customer agrees to provide accurate account information and keep it current, to have its Administrators keep their sign-in credentials and factors (such as passkeys and authenticator apps) secure, and to tell us promptly about any unauthorized access. The Customer is responsible for all activity under its account, including by the Administrators it invites. We may decline to open an account, and may suspend or close one only as Section 11 describes.

4. License Grant and Restrictions

Subject to these Terms, Skeptic Dog grants the Customer a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable, non-sublicensable license to access and use the Service — including the HOA Dues app for QuickBooks Online — solely to manage dues billing for the Associations the Customer is authorized to act for: to set an Association up before subscribing; to bill its dues while its subscription is active (a test association needs no subscription); and, at any time, to view its records and request a copy of them by email, connect or disconnect QuickBooks, and manage its subscription. An Administrator who declines a change to these Terms has only the limited use Section 15 describes. The license ends as Section 11 describes. The Customer may not, and may not permit anyone to:

  • copy, modify, or create derivative works of the Service;
  • reverse engineer, decompile, or disassemble the Service, except to the extent applicable law expressly permits it despite this restriction;
  • sell, resell, rent, lease, sublicense, or otherwise make the Service available to anyone other than the Associations it is authorized to act for;
  • remove or alter any proprietary notices in the Service; or
  • use the Service to build a competing product or service.

The Service, including its software, design, and trademarks, is owned by Skeptic Dog and its licensors and is protected by intellectual-property laws. No rights are granted except those expressly stated in these Terms. This license is between the Customer and Skeptic Dog; Intuit Inc. is not a party to it. If the Customer sends us suggestions or feedback, we may use them without obligation.

5. Acceptable Use

The Customer agrees not to, and not to permit anyone to:

  • use the Service for any unlawful, fraudulent, deceptive, or harassing purpose, including invoicing anyone for amounts they do not owe;
  • impersonate any person or entity, or misrepresent its authority to act for an Association;
  • upload malware, or information it does not have the right to use;
  • cause email to be sent to people the Association has no right to contact, or otherwise violate anti-spam or communications laws;
  • probe, scan, circumvent, or interfere with the Service’s security, rate limits, or access controls, or attempt to access another Association’s data; or
  • use the Service in violation of applicable export-control or sanctions laws.

We may investigate and take appropriate action, including suspending access under Section 11 and cooperating with law enforcement.

6. The Customer’s Responsibilities

  • The Customer must be authorized to act for each Association and to connect its QuickBooks company to the Service.
  • The Association sets its dues. The Customer is responsible for the dues amounts, schedules, discounts, fiscal year, and other settings it enters, for their accuracy, and for billing in line with the Association’s governing documents and applicable law.
  • The Association is responsible for its Homeowners’ information. The Customer must have the right to provide and use each Homeowner’s name and email address, keep them accurate, and respond to Homeowners’ questions and requests about their information. We process that information on the Customer’s behalf, as our Privacy Policy explains.
  • The Association is responsible for its QuickBooks books. Invoices, customers, and items the Service creates are records in its QuickBooks company. The Customer is responsible for reviewing them, and for the Association’s accounting, reconciliation, taxes, and record keeping.
  • We are not a party to the relationship between the Association and its Homeowners. Skeptic Dog is not a collection agency and is not the Association’s collection agent; it sends the communications the Customer configures, on the Customer’s behalf. Questions or disputes about dues, payments, credits, or refunds are between the Association and the Homeowner.

7. QuickBooks and Other Third-Party Services

QuickBooks is Intuit’s service and is governed by the Customer’s agreement with Intuit, not by these Terms. When an Association connects its QuickBooks Online company, the Customer authorizes HOA Dues to read and write that company’s data through Intuit’s API to provide the Service, as Section 2 describes. The Customer needs its own QuickBooks Online subscription, and any use of QuickBooks Payments — including its fees, payouts, and payment disputes — is between the Customer, its Homeowners, and Intuit. We are not responsible for the availability, changes, or acts of QuickBooks; if Intuit changes or ends the Service’s access, parts of the Service may stop working. If Intuit ends the Service’s QuickBooks access for all customers, that is a discontinuation under Section 15. Disconnecting QuickBooks does not cancel a subscription (Section 8), and — unless the subscription’s end already started it — it starts the 30-day period after which the Association’s data is deleted (Section 9).

The Service also relies on other providers, including Amazon Web Services for hosting, sign-in, and email delivery, Stripe for subscription payments, and Google for our team email. We are not responsible for third-party services outside our reasonable control.

8. Fees, Billing, and Taxes

The Service is billed per Association by subscription, monthly or yearly, at the fees shown in the console before you subscribe. Payments are processed by Stripe, Inc.; we do not receive or store card details. A subscription renews automatically at the end of each billing period at the price then in effect, until it is canceled. The Customer can cancel at any time in the console (the Association’s Billing tab → Manage billing); cancellation takes effect at the end of the current billing period. Except where the law requires otherwise or Section 9, 11 or 15 provides, fees already paid are non-refundable, including for a partial period — except that switching from monthly to annual billing credits the unused part of the current month toward the annual fee, and we cancel a duplicate subscription (a second one opened for an Association that already has one) and refund what was paid for it. Fees do not include taxes; the Customer is responsible for any sales, use, or similar taxes other than taxes on our income.

We may change fees for future billing periods with at least 30 days’ notice to the account owner by email; a change applies from the first renewal after the notice period ends, and the Customer may cancel before then. An Association’s subscription ends when it is canceled, or when Stripe cancels it or marks it unpaid after its payment retries; while Stripe is still retrying a failed payment, the Service keeps working. When the subscription ends, the Service stops creating invoices for that Association and stops accessing its QuickBooks company (other than when an Administrator connects or disconnects it) until the Customer subscribes again. Your Data is kept and deleted as Section 9 describes — including the deletion of all of the Association’s data 30 days after its subscription ends or its QuickBooks connection ends, whichever happens first, unless whatever stopped is restored first: reconnect QuickBooks, and resubscribe — or, if Stripe marked the subscription unpaid, pay its open invoice under Billing → Manage billing.

9. Your Data

As between the Customer and Skeptic Dog, the Customer keeps all rights to Your Data. The Customer grants us a limited, non-exclusive, worldwide license to host, process, transmit, and store Your Data — and to read from and write to its connected QuickBooks companies — solely to provide, maintain and secure the Service and comply with law. We do not sell Your Data.

We keep and delete Your Data as follows (our Privacy Policy says the same):

  • An association’s data — its settings, units, owners, billing ledger, and what HOA Dues read from its QuickBooks company — is kept while the association uses the Service. Administrators can change or delete parts of it in the console at any time — for example, editing a unit’s owner details, deleting a unit that has no billing history yet, deleting a dues schedule, or removing a team member. To delete a homeowner’s record that can’t be deleted in the console (for example, a unit with billing history), ask us for help at team@skepticdogsoftware.com.
  • 30 days after an association stops, all of its data is deleted. An association stops when its subscription ends (a live association) or when its QuickBooks connection ends — disconnected in the console, from inside QuickBooks, or refused by QuickBooks when HOA Dues renews it (revoked or expired). The 30 days run from the first of these that happened. To stop the deletion, restore whatever stopped before its date: reconnect QuickBooks, and resubscribe — or, if Stripe marked the subscription unpaid, pay its open invoice under Billing → Manage billing. Otherwise HOA Dues deletes everything it holds for that association — including the QuickBooks company ID it kept and what it read from QuickBooks, which it keeps for those 30 days so that reconnecting picks up where the association left off — except identifiers in service and security logs, which age out as stated below. We try to email the account owner 7 days before, saying what will be deleted and when; the deletion happens on its date either way.
  • If the association’s subscription is still running when its data is deleted (for example, because QuickBooks stayed disconnected), HOA Dues first cancels the subscription and refunds the unused part of what was paid for its current period to the card it was paid with (or another way if that refund fails); a period that wasn’t paid isn’t refunded.
  • The account owner or an admin — or Intuit on the association’s behalf — may ask us to delete an association’s data sooner, and the account owner may close the account (deleting its associations’ data and its administrators’ sign-ins), by emailing team@skepticdogsoftware.com. We delete once the association’s subscription has been canceled — we cancel it for you, with a refund of the unused part of what was paid for its current period — and the deletion also disconnects HOA Dues from the association’s QuickBooks company.
  • We keep the record of each acceptance of these Terms — who accepted, the version and a fingerprint of its text, the organization, where and when — the record of any decline, and the agreement Stripe recorded at checkout (who subscribed, and the version), for 7 years after an account closes, and we keep data longer only where the law requires us to — for example, to preserve evidence for a lawsuit, investigation or legal claim that is pending or reasonably expected, or to answer a lawful request — and only for that purpose.
  • While an association’s subscription has ended, HOA Dues doesn’t read from or write to its QuickBooks company — apart from confirming which company it is when an administrator connects it. Once a day HOA Dues checks that each other connected association’s QuickBooks connection is still authorized — a sign-in renewal with Intuit that reads none of the company’s data — so a disconnection made from inside QuickBooks is noticed within a day. Billing runs when QuickBooks is connected, the association isn’t paused or still in setup, and — for a live association — its subscription is active; a test association needs no subscription.
  • Data we delete remains in encrypted point-in-time database backups for up to 35 days after it is deleted, and then can’t be recovered.
  • Service logs are kept for up to one year. Security events — sign-ins, session renewals and checks, account-security changes and contact-form submissions — are kept for 400 days.
  • Some records expire sooner: prepay quotes after 30 minutes; run logs after 30 days; prepay offer links expire, and their records are deleted 90 days after the link expires; invitation and ownership-transfer links work for 7 days; recovery codes for 10 minutes; and the record of a sign-up’s agreement to the Terms is deleted after 7 days if the email address is never confirmed (the unconfirmed sign-in itself — the email address — stays in Amazon Cognito until the same address signs up again). The database deletes expired records within a few days of their expiry.
  • Messages sent to us — through the contact form or by email — stay in our team inbox until we delete them.
  • An email address that bounces or files a spam complaint stays on our email provider’s (Amazon SES) suppression list, so we don’t email it again.
  • Administrator accounts — each team member’s email address, role and sign-in — are kept until the account is closed (or the member is removed).
  • A removed team member’s sign-in identity (their email address and sign-in factors) stays in Amazon Cognito until they ask us to delete it; closing an account deletes the sign-ins of its current administrators and the records of who was removed from it (their records of acceptance are kept as stated above).
  • Our billing records at Stripe — the Customer’s Stripe customer record (billing email, name and address), its subscriptions, invoices, payments and refunds — are kept in our Stripe account as our financial records and are not deleted with the Service’s data. Stripe’s own records follow Stripe’s retention rules.
  • Invoices, customers and payments in QuickBooks belong to the association’s QuickBooks company: deleting data from the Service deletes nothing in QuickBooks, and an open invoice stays open there.

10. Privacy and Security

Our Privacy Policy explains how we handle personal information. We maintain administrative, technical, and physical safeguards designed to protect Your Data, but no method of transmission or storage is completely secure.

11. Term, Suspension, and Termination

These Terms apply from when the Customer first accepts them until its account is closed. The Customer may stop using the Service at any time: cancel each Association’s subscription in the console (it ends at the end of the current period), and disconnect QuickBooks under Settings → QuickBooks (or from inside QuickBooks). Disconnecting QuickBooks does not cancel a subscription. The account owner may close the account by emailing team@skepticdogsoftware.com; we then cancel any subscription still running — refunding the unused part of what was paid for its current period to the card it was paid with — and delete the account, its Associations’ data, and its Administrators’ sign-ins, keeping only the records Section 9 says we keep.

We may suspend or terminate the Customer’s access, with or without notice, for a violation of these Terms, for non-payment, to protect the Service or other users, or to comply with law. If we end the Customer’s access for any reason other than the Customer’s breach of these Terms (including non-payment), or discontinue the Service (Section 15), we will refund the unused part of any prepaid fee.

When access ends, the license ends. Invoices already created remain in the Association’s QuickBooks company — ending access does not void or delete them, and anything in QuickBooks stays under the Association’s control there. Your Data is kept and deleted as Section 9 describes. The restrictions in Section 4, fees already owed under Section 8, and Sections 9 and 12–18 survive.

12. Disclaimers

THE SERVICE IS PROVIDED “AS IS” AND “AS AVAILABLE”, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, TITLE, AND NON-INFRINGEMENT, AND ANY WARRANTY ARISING FROM COURSE OF DEALING OR USAGE OF TRADE. Skeptic Dog does not provide legal, accounting, or tax advice, and nothing in the Service is such advice. We do not warrant that the Service will be uninterrupted or error-free, that any invoice will be delivered or paid, or that the Service meets the requirements of any Association’s governing documents.

13. Limitation of Liability

TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, SKEPTIC DOG WILL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, OR FOR LOST PROFITS, REVENUES, DATA, OR GOODWILL, ARISING OUT OF OR RELATING TO THE SERVICE, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, TORT, OR OTHERWISE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY. OUR TOTAL LIABILITY FOR ALL CLAIMS ARISING OUT OF OR RELATING TO THE SERVICE WILL NOT EXCEED THE AMOUNTS THE CUSTOMER PAID US FOR THE SERVICE IN THE TWELVE MONTHS BEFORE THE EVENT GIVING RISE TO THE CLAIM.

These limits do not apply to liability that cannot be limited by law, including liability for fraud or for willful and wanton misconduct, or to the Customer’s payment or indemnity obligations.

14. Indemnification

The Customer will defend, indemnify, and hold harmless Skeptic Dog and its officers, employees, and agents from and against any claims, damages, liabilities, and expenses (including reasonable attorneys’ fees) arising out of Your Data, the dues and invoices the Customer configures, an Association’s relationship with its Homeowners, the Customer’s use of the Service, or the Customer’s breach of these Terms or of applicable law.

15. Changes to the Service and These Terms

We may modify, suspend, or discontinue any part of the Service. If we discontinue the Service, or a part of it the Customer pays for (including because Intuit ends the Service’s QuickBooks access for all customers), we will give at least 30 days’ notice where we reasonably can and refund the unused part of any prepaid fee.

We may update these Terms. We will give at least 30 days’ notice of a material change to each account owner by email before it takes effect, and each Administrator is asked to accept the changed Terms the next time they sign in after it does. Any change to Section 16 is material. A change applies only going forward: it never applies to a dispute that arose — or that we had notice of — before the change takes effect. If the Customer does not agree to a change, it may cancel its subscriptions before the change takes effect, and these Terms as they read before the change continue to apply until the cancellation takes effect. Every change to these Terms is presented for acceptance at sign-in. The effective date at the top of this page shows the current version.

Declining a change. An Administrator asked to accept changed Terms at sign-in may decline them instead. They keep a limited use of the Service under these Terms as they read before the change: viewing the Customer’s records and asking us for a copy, managing or canceling billing, disconnecting QuickBooks, and asking for deletion — but not subscribing, going live, running billing, creating prepays, inviting anyone, or changing the team — until they accept the changed Terms. If the account owner declines, the Customer has rejected the change: each Association’s subscription is set to end at the end of its current paid period, no new subscription can be started, the previous Terms keep applying until then, and afterwards the account remains available to view and to ask for deletion (the owner can still transfer the account’s ownership). If the account owner accepts the changed Terms — or a later version of them — before a subscription’s period ends, its cancellation is undone automatically and any plan change the Customer had scheduled is kept; once the period has ended, the Association must subscribe again. When a live Association’s subscription ends, its data is deleted 30 days later unless it is subscribed again (Section 9).

16. Dispute Resolution; Arbitration; Class-Action Waiver

Please read this section carefully — it affects the Customer’s legal rights.

16.1 Who this section covers

This Section 16 applies only to disputes between Skeptic Dog and the Customer. It does not apply to Homeowners or to visitors, and it does not bind an Administrator personally unless that Administrator is the Customer.

16.2 Informal resolution first

Before starting an arbitration or a court proceeding, the party with the dispute will send the other a written notice describing it — to us by email at team@skepticdogsoftware.com and by mail to the address in Section 19; to the Customer at the account owner’s email address — and both will work in good faith to resolve it for at least sixty (60) days. This informal step does not apply to a claim for urgent injunctive relief or to a small-claims action, and any limitation period is paused (tolled) while it runs.

16.3 Binding arbitration

If the dispute is not resolved informally, any dispute arising out of or relating to these Terms or the Service will be resolved by final and binding individual arbitration administered by the American Arbitration Association (AAA) under its Commercial Arbitration Rules. The arbitration will take place in La Plata County, Colorado, or by video conference if either party asks, and will be conducted in English; judgment on the award may be entered in any court of competent jurisdiction. This agreement to arbitrate is governed by the Federal Arbitration Act.

16.4 Class-action waiver

The Customer and Skeptic Dog each may bring claims against the other only in an individual capacity, and not as a plaintiff or class member in any purported class, collective, consolidated, or representative proceeding. The arbitrator may not consolidate more than one party’s claims or preside over any form of class or representative proceeding. If this class-action waiver is found unenforceable as to a particular claim, that claim (and only that claim) will be severed and brought in court.

16.5 Exceptions and opt-out

Either party may bring an individual claim in small-claims court — in the county where the Customer is based or in La Plata County, Colorado — and either party may seek injunctive relief in court to protect its intellectual property or the security of the Service. The Customer may opt out of this arbitration agreement by emailing team@skepticdogsoftware.com within thirty (30) days of first accepting these Terms, stating the Customer’s name and that it opts out of arbitration; opting out does not affect any other part of these Terms.

16.6 Changes to this Section

A change to this Section 16 will not apply to any claim or dispute arising from events before the change takes effect, whether or not known or filed. The Customer may reject a change to this Section by emailing team@skepticdogsoftware.com within 30 days of our notice of it; this Section as it read before the change then continues to apply to the Customer, even if an Administrator later accepts the changed Terms at sign-in. Rejecting a change to this Section this way doesn’t require declining the rest of the changed Terms (Section 15) and doesn’t limit the Customer’s use of the Service.

17. Governing Law and Venue

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Colorado, USA, without regard to its conflict-of-laws rules. Subject to Section 16, the state and federal courts located in Colorado will have exclusive jurisdiction over any dispute not subject to arbitration, and both parties consent to their jurisdiction and venue.

18. General

  • Entire agreement. These Terms are the entire agreement between the Customer and Skeptic Dog regarding the Service and supersede any prior understanding on that subject.
  • Severability. If any provision is held unenforceable, the rest remain in effect and the provision is enforced to the maximum extent permitted.
  • No waiver. Our failure to enforce a provision is not a waiver of it.
  • Assignment. The Customer may not assign these Terms without our written consent, except that the account owner may transfer the account in the console to another Administrator who accepts these Terms for their organization; that organization then becomes the Customer from the transfer on. When the transfer is accepted, we remove every payment method saved on the account’s billing before the transfer, make the new owner’s verified email its billing email, and set each Association’s subscription to end at the end of its current, already paid period (a plan change scheduled before the transfer ends with it) — the previous Customer is not charged again. To keep an Association billing, the new Customer adds its own payment method and renews the subscription, on the plan it chooses, before then (Billing → Manage billing); if it doesn’t, the subscription ends and Section 9’s 30-day deletion applies. We may assign these Terms in connection with a merger, acquisition, reorganization, or sale of assets. They bind permitted successors and assigns.
  • Force majeure. Neither party is liable for a failure or delay caused by events beyond its reasonable control, including outages of QuickBooks, a payment provider, or a cloud-infrastructure provider, network failures, or acts of government.
  • Notices. We give notice by email to the account owner’s email address. The Customer gives legal notice by email to team@skepticdogsoftware.com and by mail to the address in Section 19.
  • Relationship. The parties are independent contractors; these Terms create no partnership, agency, or employment relationship.
  • Trademarks. Intuit and QuickBooks are registered trademarks of Intuit Inc.

19. How to Contact Us

Questions about these Terms: team@skepticdogsoftware.com. Skeptic Dog Software, Ltd. Co. is based in Durango, Colorado, USA. Legal notices: Skeptic Dog Software, Ltd. Co., c/o its registered agent, 5900 Balcones Dr, Ste 100, Austin, TX 78731.