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Standard
Terms

Terms

General

These are our terms for all services that we carry out for our clients. They will apply each time that we perform work for you and your continued engagement with us and subsequent instructions to us will confirm your acceptance of them.

These terms are subject to change without notice and a current version of them will always be available on the page you are visiting: https://www.batch.nz/standard-terms

We have attempted to communicate our terms in an easy to understand way. If you require clarification about any of the information below, please contact us by clicking here.

What are your normal business hours?

Unless discussed otherwise, all work will be carried out between 9:00am and 5:00pm New Zealand Standard Time (NZST), Monday to Friday excluding New Zealand public holidays and our Christmas / New Year closing period.

When will you start / finish working on my project?

We will arrange start and finish dates for the delivery of services, as well as other important dates, each time we engage with you.

Unfortunately we can't guarantee that we can start your work immediately and due to the complexity of the work we do, dates should be regarded as estimates only. Actual dates may differ.

Do you use my work to promote yourself?

All publicly accessable work produced by us for you may be used by us for promotional purposes unless specifically requested not to.

Do you subcontract work out to other people?

Sometimes. We don't claim to hold all available talent within our business and we reserve the right to subcontract any services we have agreed to perform as we see fit.

Who owns the work you complete for us?

Upon full payment of fees you will own all final work we create on your behalf and we will own all work we have created for our own use to perform our services.

How do you treat sensitive and confidential information?

We recognise that we will unavoidably receive and handle sensitive and confidential information about our clients and our client's clients. By engaging with us you authorise us to collect, store, use and disclose this information for the purposes of carrying out your instructions and any reasonable related purpose.

We expect our team to not use this confidential information for any personal benefit or profit, disclose confidential information to anyone outside of our business or to replicate confidential information.

Our employees are instructed to only disclose confidential information to other employees when it's necessary and to anyone outside of the business when required by law.

Under the Privacy Act 1993 you have the right to request access to or correct personal information held by us. Requests should be directed to our Managing Director by e-mail (alex@batch.nz) or by phone (+64 21 190 3388).

Which legal jurisdiction are we working within?

Our engagement shall be governed by the laws of New Zealand, and both of us agree to submit to the exclusive jurisdiction of the New Zealand courts.

Fees

This section discusses how we charge for our services and how we expect to be paid.

How do you calculate your fees?

We use hourly rates as a general basis for deciding how much we charge for our work and hourly rates vary according to the type of work and experience of our team involved. We may also take into account other factors such as the value we bring, complexity, difficulty and urgency of the work and the benefit to you of previous work.

What if I need work completed urgently?

We will always aim to deliver work within reasonable timeframes however if you require something started or delivered urgently which requires us to reconfigure our existing work schedule, we may charge you a priority rate.

A priority rate is entirely designed to deter unscheduled work to ensure we are able to fully and fairly meet our existing client commitments, including the committment we have with you.

The definition of urgent work changes depending on the size and type of work, the availability of our team, our existing schedule and other factors. If, after discussing our proposed timeline for the delivery of services, you feel you need the work started or delivered sooner, we may offer to complete the work for you at a priority rate.

Unless discussed otherwise, a priority rate is 200% of your normal hourly rate.

Do you provide estimates?

We do but any estimate provided by us is an initial estimate only. You may request an estimate of our fee for undertaking the requested services at the time you instruct us otherwise we will assume you do not require one.

Any estimate given by us is not a fixed fee, nor is it a cap on what may be charged by us. Billing will always reflect the actual time spent.

If we believe we are going to significantly exceed any estimate provided by us we will contact you as soon as we are aware of this. We determine significantly exceeding an estimate as 150% of the initial estimate.

Some tasks may take more or less time than estimated, but we'll manage these variances within the total cost.

Additional requirements not listed above and initiated by you will be charged, and new or revised estimates are undertaken only when explicitly requested.

An estimate is sometimes a range between a minimum and a maximum amount however the amount of the final fee may be more or less depending on all the circumstances.

Do you provide quotes?

We also provide quotes however typically we only do this for large projects such as a new website. Due to the complexity of these kinds of projects, we normally provide ranges between a minimum and a maximum amount.

If quotes and estimates both provide ranges, how do they differ?

A quote is an agreement of a fixed fee for the scope of work. We usually only commit to a quote once the necessary discovery work has been completed to understand your requirements and we'll honour this fee as long as the scope of work does not change.

Oftentimes we also provide estimates at a very early stage in a large project. This is helpful for setting client expectations before completing the necessary work to fully understand your requirements and quote on it.

What happens if we go outside of the scope of work?

If we agree a fixed fee and the scope of work increases beyond the basis on which you originally instructed us, it will be carried out at the normal hourly rates for the project unless another arrangement is agreed.

We'll always inform you in advance of starting any work.

Do prices include GST?

All prices are provided exclusive of GST. GST (where applicable) will be charged on our hourly rates and fees at the current rate. GST is only payable by New Zealand residents and does not apply to our clients based overseas.

Can your hourly rate and fees change?

They can but we'll always inform you in advance of starting any work or service. We review our hourly rates and fees and may change them from time to time. If they do, the revised rates and fees will generally apply from the date of the change.

How does Batch handle corrections, technological upgrades, and website longevity?

For errors on our part, we will always provide corrections at no extra cost. However, charges apply for updates necessitated by technological changes, as these involve additional work to ensure your website remains current. While we strive for durable and adaptable solutions, the dynamic nature of the digital environment means we cannot guarantee indefinite functionality without potential updates in the future. Additionally, we do not take responsibility for issues caused by third-party software used on your website, as these fall outside our control.

Do your estimates and quotes expire?

All prices provided by us are valid for 21 days from the date they are provided.

When do you send invoices?

We generally issue invoices as work is completed. We may choose to send invoices towards the end of the month for all of the services performed that month. Fixed fee work can be broken down into parts or agreed milestones.

When are your invoices due?

Payment for any invoice is due 14 days after the invoice has been sent.

What if I can't or won't be paying by the due date?

We require you to let us know what's going on. We understand things come up and the sooner we know about your situation the easier we can find a resolution that works for all parties and one that won't impact both of our organisations.

What if I don't pay by the due date?

If an invoice is not paid by the due date we may stop doing any work for you altogether. This includes any work currently in progress and may impact any milestones that are currently in place for the work.

In the unlikely event that this happens, we will notify you that we intend to stop completing this work and you will continue to be responsible for paying our fees for the work we have done for you and any expenses we have incurred.

In the extremely unlikely event that a billing disagreement can not be resolved we may choose to remove the work we have completed for you. This may include removing a website in its entirety or the exact body of work we have completed.

What if I no longer want to continue working on a project with you?

We will discuss this on a per-project basis however you will continue to be responsible for paying our fees for the work we have done for you and any expenses that we have incurred.

Technical

This section discusses technical questions that apply to all work we complete for you.

Will my website work across all browsers, operating systems and devices?

For any website design and development work, we cannot guarantee correct functionality with all web browsers across all operating systems and devices. We will however make every effort to ensure websites support the current and previous major releases of the following major desktop web browsers: Chrome, Firefox, Safari and Edge. For iOS and Android devices, we will support the same web browsers on the latest major release of the operating system (where available).

We cannot accept responsibility for websites which function incorrectly in new versions of web browsers released after the website has been developed and handed over to you.

As such, we reserve the right to charge for any work involved in updating the website for it to work with new versions of web browsers.

Can I host a website you've made for me somewhere / with someone else?

Probably not sorry. If you're looking for us to manage the website going forward then we strongly advise hosting it as well. If we don't host our client's website then we don't have full control over the environment and we can be hamstrung in our ability to help you.

In the rare cases where we allow it, it is usually to technical organisations that have the correct resources and procedures to host something as complex as a modern website.

Do you support Internet Explorer?

By default, we do not build websites to support Internet Explorer and will only support versions of this browser if you specifically request it.

Overall development time increases by approximately 10–20% when we need to support Internet Explorer 11 and this continues to increase substantially for browser versions below this. It also means we cannot take advantage of modern browser technology.

Because of this we have an Internet Explorer 11 tax of 20%. Given that only a small fraction (2-3%) of worldwide users use Internet Explorer 11 we can work with you to understand if the increased development cost makes sense for your business.

Can you help us achieve a particular ranking in Google?

We will make every effort to ensure a website is visible in Google however we do not and can not guarantee a position in search engine results pages (SERPs).