Payment for Services

The required payment timeframe is stated on the first page of all invoices. In the absence of this timeframe, payment should be made by the client upon the receipt of the invoice.

Failure to do so may result in:

• An interest charge of 8% plus the reference rate for the bank of England under the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998 and compensation arising from late payment under section 5A of the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998
• A fixed admin fee of £45.

Merce Group will perform all development, design, and support tasks required at the rate stated within the client’s proposal.

The payment schedule, including the upfront payment and milestone payment amounts, and dates, will be stated in the contract. Invoices will be sent out at these milestones.

Payment for care plans, and SEO campaigns is required in advance to the month/period the service is provided.

General

Our primary means of contact is via email and via our portal system. Please ensure that you provide us with an up to date email address and check the portal using the URL you are provided to stay in contact.

Project Schedules (Timeframes & Deadlines)

For development projects, work is normally scheduled to begin from 1 to 5 business days after the contract has been signed and the deposit has been paid.

The client agrees to provide Merce Group with any content needed to complete the project including text, images and other information as and when requested. The client agrees to review work by Merce Group, provide feedback and sign-off approval in a timely manner too. Deadlines work two ways and the client will also be bound by any dates that we set together.

Although Merce Group will carry out all services in a professional and timely manner, all timescales given for work undertaken are estimates. Merce Group will not be responsible for a missed launch date or a deadline if you have been late in supplying materials or have not approved or signed off work on time. On top of this Merce Group will also maintain the confidentiality of any information that you share.

Any amount quoted for website projects, unless explicitly stated or agreed otherwise, excludes hosting of the website, domain name registering, video and image stock licenses and any additional licenses required for the operation/running of the website, outside of those agreed in the proposal.

If the client halts work on a project, this is considered a cancellation and will be subject to the cancellation terms stated in the contract.

For every website project, a timescale for delivery will be provided within the initial spec/proposal. The Client will receive an approval window of 5 business days for any work product presented. Work product is considered approved if no response is received within this window.

In the event the client becomes unresponsive or does not respond in a timely manner Merce Group reserves the right to progress the project as they see fit in order to deliver the project within the agreed timescales. This can include progressing the project phases in accordance with the start of those phases. If the client delays the project by 30 days or more, a project restart fee of £1,350 will be charged to resume the project.

If the project time extends outside of the allocated timescale due to:

• Lack or delay of correspondence from the client
• Lack or delay of action from the client
• Slow or delayed delivery of content from the client

Once a website project is complete, unless agreed otherwise, the client has a grace period (stated in the proposal) to request any changes that relate to:

• Interoperability Errors
• Small discretionary tweaks
• Spelling mistakes

After this period, unless agreed otherwise, changes may become chargeable at an hourly rate.

Design, Development & Testing

Merce Group will create any designs for your website or application. The client will be responsible for writing any text copy and supplying high quality images in digital formats (JPEGs or PNGs). If the client chooses to buy stock photographs or videos Merce Group can suggest vendors.

Merce Group will configure any integrations, and program any functionality that is in line with web development standards at the time to ensure you have a competitive advantage.

Merce Group will also perform end-to-end testing on the website or application on current versions of Google Chrome, Apple Safari, and Firefox Mozilla, ensuring that it is operational and responsive to mobile devices. Merce Group will, however, not test the website/application in old or abandoned browsers.

Changes & Revisions

The estimate given to you is based on the approximate number of days required to accomplish your requirements, including a number of design revision rounds (outlined in proposal) for websites. The cost of any out of scope of work will be priced individually and agreed to, in writing by both parties, before additional work is performed. The cost will be added to the original project price.

Legal & License

Merce Group does not guarantee that the functions contained in any web page, integration, or in a completed website/application will always be error-free and therefore cannot be liable to you or any third party for damages, including lost profits, lost savings or other incidental, consequential or special damages arising out of the operation of or inability to operate this website and any other web application, even if you have advised me of the possibilities of such damages.

If any provision of this agreement shall be unlawful, void, or for any reason is unenforceable, then that provision shall be deemed severable from this agreement and shall not affect the validity and enforceability of any remaining provisions.

Copyrights & Trademarks

You guarantee that any elements of text, graphics, photos, designs, trademarks, or other artwork that you provide to Merce Group for inclusion in the website are either owned by your good selves, or that you have permission to use them.

When your final payment is received, copyright is automatically assigned as follows:

You own the text content, graphics and other visual elements that Merce Group creates for you for this project. Merce Group will give you a copy of all files. You also own text content, images and other data you provided.

Merce Group loves to show off completed works, so your completed project may be added to our portfolio or written about on websites, in magazine articles and in books about web design. However, we are happy to waive this at your request.

Cancellation

In the unlikely event of cancellation of a project, this request should be submitted to the other party in writing 7 days in advance. If cancelled by the client, the client agrees to pay the pro-rated amount for the time worked, or 50% of the remaining hours that were expected to be completed on the project, whichever is greater. Additionally, in such a case, Merce Group shall retain ownership of all copyrights and the original artwork. However, if cancelled by Merce Group, we will provide you with all website files, minus original artwork.

Just like a parking ticket, you cannot transfer this contract to anyone else without the permission of Merce Group. This agreement stays in place and need not be renewed. If for some reason one part of this contract becomes invalid or unenforceable, the remaining parts of it remain in place.

Website Technical Support & Website Care Plans

1. Merce Group provides monthly website maintenance and technical support in the form of website care plans to perform a range of services. This is for your website to run optimally and be as secure as possible.
2. The client can choose from the Basic, Professional, Premium plans – or create a custom plan tailored to their needs (“Elite”).
3. E-Commerce (e.g. WooCommerce) and WPML websites cannot be placed on the the Basic plan. This is because WooComerce and WPML (Shopping platforms and multilingual websites) are feature-rich applications, and thus require extra attention when maintaining the platform, more testing and more risk when performing updates.
4. Regarding new updates to the above add-ons, we will schedule a specific time during low traffic hours, for us to review and update your website.
5. Hours for care plans may be used at the client’s discretion, where no requests are received from the client within a given period Merce Group at its discretion will utilise the time to perform updates/maintenance for the website.
6. Care plans are offered on a rolling basis, and care plan hours cannot be accumulated or rolled over to the following period. If you should wish to cancel a care plan, submit a support request detailing the reason for cancellation and this will be taken care of for you.
7. Merce Group will not be liable for any bugs, crashes, loss of revenue, or other issues experienced on your website whilst subscribed to any of the website care plans. 
8. While under our care, you are free to instal plugins or add code to your website; any of our plugins added to your site will be updated by us, but we will not be held liable for any technical errors, crashes, or loss of revenue or any other issues experienced as a result of plugins or code added to your website by you or parties authorised by you.
9. Adding unsupported or poorly written code and/or plugins to your site can cause your site to lose design elements and functionality, create vulnerabilities that can be exploited for malicious activity, and also cause fatal technical errors, leading to downtime. We therefore ask that that you please notify us of any of such modifications before making them; we can assist you in achieving the features you want in a safer, cleaner way.
10. As a general rule when installing plugins, stick to well-known companies such as Auttomatic or MailChimp. If you are unsure, submit a general enquiry using the support form to check with us.

Care plan details can be found here.