1. Who we are and what these terms cover
Sakhani is operated by ZaEng (Pty) Ltd, trading as Sakhani ("Sakhani", "we"), a company registered in the Republic of South Africa, registration number [registration number]. These terms govern every use of the Sakhani web application, its public site and the documents it produces. By registering a company account, accepting an invitation to one, or paying an invoice, you accept these terms on behalf of the company you represent. If you do not accept them, do not use the service.
2. The service
Sakhani is a subscription service for building and civil engineering contractors. It keeps a site diary and site instruction book, records contractual events, calculates notice and claim periods under the contract family and contract data you select (JBCC, NEC, FIDIC and GCC), reads your signed contract with artificial intelligence, drafts notices, reports and claim packs on your letterhead, and keeps the record. The modules, prices and inclusions are set out on the pricing page and may change from time to time.
3. The service supports professional advice; it does not replace it
Sakhani is a tool for your team. It is not legal advice, quantity surveying advice or a substitute for either. The rule values in the application (periods, triggers, calendars, time bars and clause references) are drawn from the published standard forms and from the contract you upload. They have not yet been verified by an attorney and are a starting point only. You remain responsible for checking every period, trigger and clause against your signed contract before relying on it, for deciding whether to send a notice, and for what you send. Text produced by the artificial intelligence may be incomplete or wrong; a competent person at your company must review every draft before it leaves. Where a matter is disputed or the amounts are material, take advice from your attorney or quantity surveyor.
4. Free trial
A new company account starts with a free trial for the number of days shown at registration, with every module switched on and no card needed. When the trial ends the account becomes read-only until a subscription is paid; nothing is deleted. We may change or withdraw the trial for new accounts at any time.
5. Subscription, fees and billing
- Fees are charged monthly in advance, per company, for the base module, the add-on modules you have switched on (or the bundle, when it is cheaper) and each active user beyond those included, at the price list in force on the invoice date. Prices are in South African rand and exclude VAT.
- Sakhani is not yet registered for VAT. When it is, VAT will be added at the prevailing rate and each invoice will show our VAT number.
- Card payments are processed by PayFast (Pty) Ltd. By paying by card you authorise PayFast to charge the same card monthly for the subscription amount until you cancel. We never see or store your card number. Payment by EFT is accepted against the invoice; the subscription becomes active when the money arrives.
- An invoice that is not paid by its due date makes the account read-only after the grace period stated on the billing page, and the account is suspended after a further period. Everyone can still read the record while the account is read-only.
- Price changes take effect from the first monthly period that starts after we have given at least thirty days' notice by email or on the billing page.
6. Cancellation and ending the service
You may cancel at any time from the billing page. Cancellation stops future charges; the service runs to the end of the period you have paid for and no refund is made for the remainder of a month. We may suspend or end the service, after notice, for non-payment, for a breach of these terms, or where the law requires it. Your data remains available for export for thirty days after the account ends, after which it is deleted from the live system and from backups in the ordinary backup cycle.
7. Your account and users
The person who registers the company is its master user and is responsible for the users they or their administrators invite, for the roles assigned to them, and for keeping log-in details confidential. Each user must be a natural person with their own log-in. Tell us at once if you believe an account has been compromised.
8. Acceptable use
You may use Sakhani only for the lawful business of the company that holds the account. You may not upload content you have no right to use, or that is unlawful, defamatory or infringing; attempt to gain access to another company's data or to our systems; copy, resell, reverse-engineer or load-test the service; use it to send bulk or unsolicited correspondence; or interfere with its operation. We may remove content or suspend an account that breaks this clause.
9. Your data stays yours
Everything you upload or record (contracts, diaries, photographs, instructions, events, notices, reports and claim packs) belongs to your company. You give us only the licence needed to store and process it, to show it to your users, to produce the documents you ask for and to operate the service. We do not use your content to train artificial intelligence models, and our AI provider is bound not to either. You can export your data at any time, and in full on request.
10. Personal information
We process personal information as set out in our privacy notice, under the Protection of Personal Information Act, 2013. For the personal information your company records about its own staff, subcontractors and counterparties, your company is the responsible party and Sakhani is its operator.
11. Availability, backups and changes
We aim to keep the service available at all times but do not guarantee it. We may change, add or withdraw features, and will give reasonable notice of any change that materially reduces what you have paid for. Backups are taken nightly. You remain responsible for keeping your own copies of the documents you send.
12. Limitation of liability
To the extent the law allows: the service is provided as it is; we are not liable for any loss arising from a deadline that is missed, a notice that is not sent, a period or clause that is wrong, a draft that is relied on without review, or the service being unavailable; we are not liable for indirect or consequential loss, loss of profit, loss of a claim or loss of data; and our total liability to your company for all claims arising in any year is limited to the fees you paid us in the twelve months before the first of those claims arose. Nothing in these terms excludes liability that cannot be excluded under South African law, including under the Consumer Protection Act, 2008 where it applies.
13. Governing law and disputes
These terms are governed by the law of the Republic of South Africa. The parties will first try to settle any dispute by discussion between senior people; failing that, the courts of South Africa have jurisdiction.
14. Changes to these terms
We may change these terms. The version date at the top is updated when we do, and we notify the master user by email of any material change at least thirty days before it takes effect. Continued use after that date is acceptance of the new terms.
ZaEng (Pty) Ltd t/a Sakhani, registration [Registration number]. Write to hello@example.co.za. Read the privacy notice as well.